WASHINGTON – If America is dominated by auto culture and the open road appeal, there is a big reason for that: in the past 65 years, the United States has spent almost $ 10 trillion in public funds on highways and roads and just a quarter of that on subways, buses and passenger trains.
But President Joe Biden’s $ 2 trillion infrastructure plan, unveiled this week, represents one of the most ambitious efforts to date to challenge the centrality of the automobile in American life, proposing to tilt federal spending far more into public transportation and take more people from your cars. Experts say transformation is necessary to tackle climate change, but it can be extremely difficult in practice.
As part of his plan, Biden wants to spend $ 85 billion over eight years to help cities modernize and expand their public transport systems, doubling federal spending on public transport each year. There is also $ 80 billion to upgrade and expand intercity rail networks, such as Amtrak. This would be one of the biggest investments in passenger trains in decades.
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And while Biden’s plan offers $ 115 billion for roads, the emphasis would be on repairing old roads and bridges, rather than expanding the road network. This is also a shift in priorities: in recent years, states have spent about half of their money on highways building new roads or expanding existing ones – which, studies have found, often only encourages more driving and does little to alleviate congestion. .
“There is no doubt that the share of funding for rail transport in the Biden proposal is much greater than in any similar legislation that we have seen in our lives,” said Yonah Freemark, senior associate researcher at the Urban Institute. “It is a dramatic change.”
When Congress writes new billions of dollars in transportation bills every few years, typically about four-fifths of the money goes to highways and roads, a pattern that has been in place since the early 1980s. For many, this disparity makes sense. After all, about 80% of the trips that Americans take are by car or light truck, with only 3% by mass transportation.
But some experts say it takes causality back: decades of government investment in roads and highways – starting with the creation of the interstate highway system in 1956 – turned most cities and suburbs into extensive, car-centric environments, where it can be dangerous for walking or cycling. In addition, other reliable transport options are scarce.
“We’re almost forcing everyone to drive,” said Catherine Ross, a specialist in transportation planning at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “The choices that individuals make are deeply shaped by the infrastructure that we build.”
Transport is now responsible for a third of the greenhouse gas emissions that heat the planet in the United States, most of which come from hundreds of millions of gasoline cars and SUVs. And while Biden is proposing $ 174 billion to promote cleaner electric vehicles, experts say that helping Americans drive less will be crucial to meeting the government’s climate goals.
“Many Americans do not have access to accessible public transport, and those who do have access to it generally experience delays and interruptions,” said Biden on Wednesday. “We have the power to change that.”
But Biden, a former Amtrak pilot and proponent, will face obstacles in trying to make the United States friendlier for trains and buses.
His plan has yet to pass Congress, where lawmakers in rural and suburban districts often prefer road money. Across the country, new transit projects have been hampered by rising costs. The coronavirus pandemic has also led many Americans to avoid subways and buses in favor of private vehicles, and it is not yet clear when or if the number of passengers on public transport will recover.
The Biden government may also have limited capacity to influence the actions of state and local governments, which still account for the vast majority of transportation spending. Many important urban planning decisions – such as the construction of dense housing near urban train stations – are made locally and can determine whether transport systems thrive or face difficulties.
“States are the emperors of transportation,” said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America, a traffic advocacy group. “But much of the culture in our current program is based on what came out of the Department of Transportation, so it’s an important statement if the Biden government is saying it’s time to pivot.”
Analysts warned that the White House has not yet revealed important details of the plan. Its effectiveness may depend on how the proposal integrates with the transportation bills currently pending in Congress, which could adjust the balance of financing between highways and public transport or impose conditions on how states can use federal funding.
Still, some public transport agencies say that a large injection of federal money can be transformative. Many urban transport systems are more than half a century old and are struggling to secure sufficient funding to meet the growing backlog of necessary repairs. This usually leaves little money left over to consider major new expansions.
In Philadelphia, the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority needs federal help to move forward on a $ 2 billion plan to extend rail service to King of Prussia, a fast-growing job center, as well as a $ 1 plan. 1.8 billion to modernize the city’s old trams, said Andrew Busch, a spokesman for the agency.
In the bay area, federal funding would be needed to extend the Bay Area Rapid Transit light rail system to San Jose, Calif., And create a regional network of ride routes, said Randy Rentschler, director of legislation and public affairs at the Bay Area. metropolitan area Transport Commission.
Biden also proposed to spend $ 80 billion to upgrade and expand the intercity rail service, such as Amtrak. At the moment, Amtrak’s busiest route is the northeast corridor between Washington, DC and Boston, which Amtrak says needs $ 38 billion for upgrades and repairs.
Other cities have rare and often inconvenient connections. For example, to travel from Cincinnati to Chicago by train, there is only one train per day. The journey takes nine hours and the train leaves at 1:41 am.
Amtrak suggested that, with $ 25 billion, it could greatly expand its network by 2035, adding 30 routes to cities not currently served by intercity railways, such as Las Vegas and Nashville, Tennessee, and improving service over 20 routes to cities like Houston and Cincinnati. Amtrak said the annual passenger number would rise from 32 million today to 52 million, reducing greenhouse gas emissions when moving cars and air travel.
However, attempts to expand US transit and rail systems may fall into pitfalls.
Building infrastructure in the United States has become notoriously expensive and difficult compared to other countries. In California, a high-speed rail plan between Los Angeles and San Francisco that received federal funding from the Obama administration has struggled with repeated delays and cost overruns, and it remains unclear whether even a partial segment will be completed before 2030. The Biden The proposal mentions this cost problem, but it is vague about how to fix it.
Another challenge will be to ensure that funding goes to the most effective projects. “When a lot of money is raining down from the top, states and localities will do what they can to get that money,” said Paul Lewis, vice president for politics and finance at the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonpartisan research center in Washington. “Sometimes, that money can go to projects that are not the best.”
Lewis noted that improving the country’s transportation system is not always a matter of adding new cement and steel. Often, the most effective changes can be operational, such as charging more people to drive during rush hour to relieve congestion, reducing speed limits to improve traffic safety, or increasing the frequency of bus routes to make them more useful to passengers.
Some experts also questioned whether the Biden government will try to curb local governments’ preference for major highway expansion projects that, critics say, continue to deepen the country’s dependence on automobiles.
The government signaled a more skeptical stance towards the highways. On Thursday, the Federal Highway Administration took an unusual step in halting a planned expansion of Interstate 45 near Houston, amid concerns about increased air pollution and displacement of black and Hispanic communities. Separately, the Biden government’s infrastructure proposal includes $ 20 billion to improve traffic safety, including for pedestrians, as well as another $ 20 billion to “reconnect neighborhoods” that have been hampered by previous road projects.
But it remains to be seen how these programs will work. For example, without strict federal government conditions, some states could simply take federal money for road repair and safety and then use their own state funds to expand roads.
“If that money is not accompanied by real policy changes,” said Kevin DeGood, director of infrastructure policy at the Center for American Progress, “then states will continue to do what they have always done, which is not fair or ecological. “
This article was originally published in The New York Times.
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