Beth Osborne, Vice President of Transportation and Thriving Communities at Smart Growth America, released the following statement:

“This update to the MUTCD did respond to some of our requests, particularly allowing transportation agencies to paint red bus-only lanes and green bike lanes. There are also long-awaited updates that could have positive impacts, such as new considerations before setting the speed limit at the 85th percentile speed and making it a little easier to justify new crosswalks.

“However, this falls short of the kind of major paradigm shift required to protect vulnerable users at a time when the United States leads the developed world in roadway fatalities. For example, while transportation agencies must consider context and the users of a road before setting speed limits at the 85th percentile speed, they may still do so even if that causes dangerous conditions. The document also indicates great concern about color and designs in crosswalks that would better draw a driver’s attention to those areas, including a misguided fear that pedestrians might actually stand in traffic to look at those colors and designs.

“Some of FHWA’s trepidation around innovation may come from a misunderstanding of how agencies use manuals like this. In our direct technical assistance programs, the MUTCD is cited as a barrier to many common-sense safety interventions in almost every state DOT. New flexibility often goes underutilized for lack of clear and strict guidance. That is because engineers understand the status quo while the flexible option requires an engineer to create something new, something most overworked agency engineers do not have time to do. Even when they do, their general council usually cautions against trying new things because flexibility does not come with the same legal coverage as a standard.

“To achieve safer streets, we stand behind FHWA’s goal to make the MUTCD a living document and look forward to continued partnership to align their intentions with results. To that end, we call upon the FHWA to improve data collection and implement a feedback loop that allows amendments to the current MUTCD as soon as 2024 to prevent more avoidable deaths. We commit to working with FHWA to modernize the MUTCD and with Complete Streets champions in their efforts to make streets safe for everyone.”

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (Nov. 27) — Last Wednesday (11/22), the Biden Administration released the U.S. Department of Transportation’s greenhouse gas (GHG) rule. The rule requires all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, to track greenhouse gas emissions associated with travel on the parts of the National Highway System that lie within their boundaries and sets a unified standard for reporting emissions.

Transportation is the leading contributor to GHG emissions in the U.S. and the performance measure is an important first step to advance climate goals by bringing sunlight to states’ progress on emissions targets, allowing states and MPOs to better align their work with climate goals, and demonstrating to policymakers and taxpayers what they are getting for their transportation investments.

“We thank USDOT for its leadership in requiring states to measure GHG emissions from transportation,” said Beth Osborne, Director of Transportation for America. “Because transportation is responsible for nearly a third of climate emissions nationwide, and as much as half in some metro areas, determining the impact of transportation investments on climate emissions is essential for understanding how well the transportation system is performing. It is hard to think of a way that states could participate in a solution without articulating the current problem and setting targets for achieving them.”

“This rule is a crucial first step toward climate accountability in transportation and very simple for the states to implement, but we must go further by investing in public transportation and location efficiency to allow people to reach the things they need without being forced to drive more and more each year,” continued Beth. “These investments have benefits beyond reducing emissions, including public health benefits and providing people with more opportunities to travel outside of a car, which enhances safety and economic mobility.”

“Transportation for America stands ready to support the rule’s implementation and we look forward to continuing to advocate for increased transparency and aggressive climate change mitigation policies and investments.”

This GHG rule is final and is now in effect. The first milestone requires State DOTs to establish and report targets on February 1, 2024, necessitating a rapid rollout and immediate implementation measures from federal and state governments alike.

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Transportation for America is an advocacy organization made up of local, regional, and state leaders who envision a transportation system that safely, affordably, and conveniently connects people of all means and ability to jobs, services, and opportunity through multiple modes of travel. T4America is a program of Smart Growth America.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 29) — A new nationwide survey of American voters’ attitudes reveals a significant divide between voters’ attitudes about the best short-and long-term solutions for reducing traffic, versus the actual priorities of their state and local transportation agencies.  

In 2021 The Washington Post estimated that highway widening and expansion consumed more than a third of states’ capital spending on roads (over $19 billion). These projects were backed by promises to reduce congestion. The public isn’t buying it. The results of a national survey of 2,001 registered U.S. voters—90 percent of whom own a car they drive regularly—underscores a widely shared belief that highway expansion doesn’t work as a short- or long-term strategy for reducing traffic and that we should invest more in other options.

• 70 percent of respondents agree that “providing people with more transportation options is better for our health, safety, and economy than building more highways.”
• 67 percent of respondents agreed that “expanding highways takes years, causes delays,  and costs billions of dollars.” The same percentage believes that “widening highways attracts more people to drive, which creates more traffic in the long run.” Only 11 percent felt state DOTs actually deliver congestion relief with highway expansions. In other words, the public understands the concept of “induced demand,” which is widely ignored by state legislatures, DOTs, Congress, and federal agencies.
• 69 percent of respondents agree that “it’s more important to protect our quality of life than to spend billions of tax dollars on expanding highways. By removing a few miles of highway and adding more transportation options, like trains, buses, bike lanes, and sidewalks, we can have healthier communities.”
• 71 percent of respondents agree that “no matter where you live, you should have the freedom to easily get where you need to go. Almost all government spending on transportation goes to highways. Instead, states should fund more options, like trains, buses, bike lanes, and sidewalks.”

The survey revealed a deep dissatisfaction with the overall status quo of state and local transportation spending which overwhelmingly prioritizes spending on new roads, often at the expense of keeping roads and bridges in good condition, investing in transit and safe streets for walking or biking, or reducing the need to drive overall.  Given seven choices for the best short- and long-term solutions for reducing traffic, the least popular option was “building new freeways and highways,” even as states are poised to spend tens of billions on new highways thanks to the 2021 federal infrastructure law. 

“Our country remains on a highway spending spree while requests for basic investments in walkability and transit are given low priority.  I hope this survey serves as a wake-up call to politicians that the public is clamoring for reasonable investments in our health, climate and quality of life, not traffic-inducing polluting highways,” said Mike McGinn, Executive Director of America Walks. 

Prioritizing the repair of existing roads and bridges first was the top option for how states should be investing their transportation funding (selected by 22 percent of respondents), though Congress has long agreed—in a strong bipartisan fashion—not to institute any binding requirements to prioritize repair first. 

“We’re repeatedly told by leaders on Capitol Hill that requiring states to prioritize maintenance first is just too controversial,” said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America. “But this survey shows yet again that there’s no controversy among the people they serve—they’re beyond ready to retire the last generation’s playbook when it comes to improving mobility and getting them where they need to go.”

While “reducing congestion” is the top policy goal that shapes the spending decisions of most state DOTs, traffic is not a huge stumbling block for most people to access what they need. Just one in four said they find it difficult to get around.

Survey respondents expressed positive feelings about a range of messages about spending transportation money differently, demonstrating that voters are looking for new ideas, policies, and/or investments that address their problems and deliver meaningful benefits to people and communities—instead of just doing the same old things over and over again. (See attached PDF for full results on pages 19-22, all of which were supported by over 60 percent of respondents.)

“These results are clear: Americans are eager to see the transportation investments that can connect and repair their communities,” said Rabi Abonour, a transportation advocate at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). “Federal, state and local leaders should follow the lead of the public and invest in the public transit and related projects that will really improve mobility, clean the air, and address climate pollution.”

About the poll

Hattaway Communications, a strategic communications firm based in Washington D.C., was retained to conduct this survey of 2,001 registered voters and assess their awareness of relevant issues, attitudes toward transportation projects, and aspirations for their communities. The survey was fielded online, between February 23–March 7, 2023, and reflects the demographic and geographic composition of the United States. 

This survey was supported by the Natural Resources Defense Council and a grant from the Summit Foundation.

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Transportation for America is an advocacy organization made up of local, regional, and state leaders who envision a transportation system that safely, affordably, and conveniently connects people of all means and ability to jobs, services, and opportunity through multiple modes of travel. T4America is a program of Smart Growth America. Learn more at t4america.org

America Walks is leading the way in advancing walkable, equitable, connected, and accessible places in every community across the U.S. We are the national voice for public spaces that allow people to safely walk and move. At the regional, state, and neighborhood levels, America Walks provides critical strategic support, training, and technical assistance to partner organizations and individuals to effectively advocate for change. https://americawalks.org/ 

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) works to safeguard the earth—its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. https://www.nrdc.org/about 

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We are glad to see Congress is taking climate needs and inflation reduction seriously. We are particularly excited that they included $3 billion in Neighborhood Access and Equity grants to redesign arterial roadways, particularly those that impact communities of color. This is a valuable, needed investment to repair a longstanding barrier to accessing jobs and services especially for non-drivers, which will support local economic development and knit communities back together across overbuilt roadways.

Huge arterial roadways become a barrier and divide communities precisely because they are not safe. Their design prioritizes high-speed vehicle travel through the corridor over all other road users, including drivers trying to cross and anyone moving through the area outside of a car. The result is an ever-growing number of pedestrians, particularly pedestrians of color, being hit and killed on our roadways. Smart Growth America’s new Dangerous by Design report documents that 67 percent of pedestrian deaths occur on arterials, which make up 15 percent of roadways. By providing funds to redesign these roadways, these grants can help to connect the community, support local economic development, save people money on gas by allowing them to get out of their cars, close an obstacle to economic opportunity and, in the process, save lives. 

The role street design plays in pedestrian deaths has been overlooked for far too long. These grants are an important step to boost local economies and improve the safety of our streets. We thank Congressional leaders for including the important program in the reconciliation.

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The Biden administration took an important step today in holding states to account for their transportation emissions. This proposed rule will provide sunlight and accountability on how our tax dollars are being spent and the results of our investments, including the $643 billion approved for transportation in last year’s infrastructure law. 

To create a more efficient, less polluting transportation system, we have to start by measuring the transportation sector’s greenhouse gas emissions, and then set targets for reducing them. States have enormous flexibility in how they spend federal taxpayer dollars, but there is little accountability to push them to meet federal goals. Today’s action by the administration will be critical to shedding light on state emissions and arming advocates, decision-makers, and taxpayers with the information they need.  

This is also an achievable task for states. 24 states (plus the District of Columbia) already measure emissions from transportation in some form.

This is a vital first step, but there is still more the administration can and should do. We urge the USDOT to be bold and consider state progress on these new emissions goals when awarding discretionary grant funding, particularly for projects related to emissions reduction like the Carbon Reduction Program. 

State DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) will now have the opportunity to set decreasing emissions targets, and they should not drag their feet in doing so. We stand ready to help them succeed.

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“This simple but critical concept of Complete Streets—designing our streets so that everyone can use them safely—was created within our National Complete Streets Coalition almost 20 years ago. After years of working tirelessly to encourage towns, cities, counties, states and the federal government to adopt this approach, we are deeply encouraged to see the concept enshrined and  institutionalized within official USDOT documents, including this report. FHWA has done an excellent job in clearly laying out and describing the actions that are needed throughout the entire federal transportation program to truly build safe streets and roads for all people, including getting better safety data, assessing safety in project development, and making safety the primary goal and Complete Streets the default design.

“The title of this report is also telling. There are certainly ‘Opportunities and Challenges’ when it comes to making our streets safer and more convenient. Now we need to turn those challenges into opportunities and opportunities into reality. Every day the status quo approach stands and transportation agencies are allowed to design, build, or maintain their streets only for cars is a day where we allow the historic levels of death on those roadways to continue. This report gives us a path forward—one that needs to be acted on in the immediate future.

“The National Complete Streets Coalition will continue our hands-on work with states and localities to advance Complete Streets policies and upend our country’s outdated paradigm for street design that has produced a historic increase in traffic injuries and fatalities. We look forward to working closely with FHWA to turn their excellent recommendations into action.”

The National Complete Streets Coalition and Transportation for America are programs of Smart Growth America.

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“We’re very happy to see the administration specifically call out the importance of road design on speeds and driver behavior as a core area of focus, and acknowledge that risky behavior can be addressed through better roadway design. We’ve been fighting for years to get the media, the public, and especially transportation agencies to focus on the neglected role of street design in these deaths, and we’re encouraged to see an entire section on safer roadway designs and an entire section on safe speeds, including a call for updated guidance on setting safe speeds and the 85th percentile rule. 

“We’re delighted that USDOT will consider revising the guidance for state safety targets, requiring them to demonstrate measurable progress instead of permitting them to just accept more deaths as an unavoidable fact of our transportation system. It’s not, and we can’t allow states and metro areas spending our tax dollars to keep throwing up their hands when it comes to reducing fatalities.

“Why is it so important that USDOT use their administrative powers to improve safety? Because in the infrastructure bill, Congress declined to make safety a core priority of and requirement for the huge formula programs used to build or repair roads, instead opting for a strategy that creates new, small safety programs that can be overwhelmed by the hundreds of billions spent on moving cars as fast as possible in almost all contexts. Unfortunately, this plan focuses on using the small safety and bike/ped programs to fund improvements in safety. USDOT needs to make safety the fundamental consideration of the hundreds of billions that states get in programs such as the Surface Transportation Block Grant Program and the National Highway Performance Program. If safety for our most vulnerable users is the top priority then it will be a priority of all the programs, not just niche programs.

“There are a couple areas of concern. The safety plan calls for improvements to the design guidelines used by all traffic engineers (the MUTCD) but states that bigger changes will come in the next edition—which could take years to see and may be managed by an administration that doesn’t share the same priorities. That is a very risky move that could put people at risk. Also while proposing to update the program that assesses the safety of new cars to include the safety of people inside and outside a car, they’ve failed to specify the impact of the growing size of the front ends of vehicles on the increasing deaths of people outside of them. Drivers should be able to see the road in front of them for the vehicle to be road worthy. 

“Overall, we think this is a good strategy pointed in all the right directions, but we’re eager to get more specifics about what they plan to do in concrete terms. With a year of this administration already spent, we don’t need new plans and strategies that fail to bring about rapid change. We urge them to get started on implementation as quickly as possible and are eager to help.”

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“As we have stated before, the transportation portion of the infrastructure bill spends a lot of money but fails to target it to the needs of the day: building strong economic centers, providing equitable access to opportunity, addressing catastrophic climate change, improving safety, or repairing infrastructure in poor condition.

“The administration is confident they can make substantial progress on all of these goals despite those deficiencies. Most states are promising to use the flexibility they fought for to make marked improvements across these priorities. To make that happen, both the administration and the states will need to make major changes to how they approach transportation, but we know they can do it.

“We stand ready to support this important and challenging work. We also encourage everyone— elected leaders, businesses, taxpayers, advocates and the press—to follow their results and hold them to their promises.”

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A new tool released today provides anyone with the ability to estimate the increased traffic and pollution that will result from proposed highway expansions.

Over the past few decades, taxpayer dollars have funded billions of dollars in highway expansions intended to alleviate road congestion, but it usually does not take long for the traffic to return. This endless loop, known as “induced demand,” fails to address congestion while leading to more cars on the road and more pollution from the transportation sector, which is the nation’s largest source of emissions.

Using the State Highway Induced Frequency of Travel (SHIFT) Calculator developed by RMI, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and Transportation for America, anyone can now project the increases in driving that would result from highway expansions. The Calculator provides transparency and accountability for transportation projects that often do not deliver on promised benefits and instead make traffic and pollution worse. This new tool will enable transportation agencies to account for the principle of induced demand in the planning and implementation of highway projects.

“Road expansion projects have failed to deliver the promised benefits. In fact, the evidence shows that they actually make traffic and pollution worse,” said Ben Holland, manager in RMI’s Urban Transformation Program. “To achieve US climate goals, we must reduce the amount that the average person drives by 20%. This tool shines a light on the impacts of highway expansion and shows how these projects often move us away from our goals.”

The SHIFT Calculator was based on RMI’s Colorado Induced Travel Calculator, which advocates used to show that proposed and in-progress road expansions would increase vehicle miles traveled by up to 3% by 2030, at a time that the state is aiming to reduce those roadway miles by 10%.

“This easy-to-use tool will help advocates make their case to city and state transportation departments,” said Carter Rubin, a transportation strategist at NRDC. “So many of us have seen firsthand how quickly traffic returns when extra highway lanes open up, and this calculator provides the numbers to back up that experience. If cities and states really want to get residents out of traffic and cut down on smog, they should make it easier and faster for people to ride public transit, bike and walk.”

“For 90 years, we have known that building new lanes creates new vehicle trips that fill those lanes, and for 90 years, we have mostly ignored this fundamental law while repeating the same mistakes at great cost,” said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America. “We must stop making empty promises about congestion reduction that never materialize. Having the ability to estimate added travel caused by expansions can finally equip decision makers and the public with the data to make the case for something more effective at connecting people to jobs and opportunity.”

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About RMI

RMI is an independent nonprofit founded in 1982 that transforms global energy systems through market-driven solutions to align with a 1.5°C future and secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all. We work in the world’s most critical geographies and engage businesses, policymakers, communities, and NGOs to identify and scale energy system interventions that will cut greenhouse gas emissions at least 50 percent by 2030. RMI has offices in Basalt and Boulder, Colorado; New York City; Oakland, California; Washington, D.C.; and Beijing.
More information on RMI can be found at www.rmi.org or follow us on Twitter @RockyMtnInst.

About NRDC

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world’s natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, and Beijing. Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC.

About Transportation for America

Transportation for America, a program of Smart Growth America, is an advocacy organization made up of local, regional and state leaders who envision a transportation system that safely, affordably and conveniently connects people of all means and ability to jobs, services, and opportunity through multiple modes of travel. Learn more at t4america.org and follow us on Twitter @T4America.

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Time and time again, federal policymakers have operated under the assumption that living in a rural area inevitably means spending a lot of time driving long distances to accomplish daily needs—and that rural residents have great enthusiasm for this. But this belief is out of touch with the reality of rural life, where more than 1 million households don’t have access to a car, and for the most part, life is still arranged around small downtowns or town centers. 

In addition, the folks who do drive are driving farther than they ever have before to accomplish the same things as yesterday—amounting to a great deal of cost, time, and inconvenience. New research from Transportation for America and Third Way released today finds that households in both rural and urban areas are driving significantly farther per trip as of 2017 than they were in 2001 to accomplish their commutes and daily tasks.

Yet households in lower-density suburban areas actually travel farther on average than households located near rural town centers. Our seven short stories in the back of this report show that many small towns are offering their residents the resources they need to achieve a high quality of life and travel conveniently and safely to jobs, school, stores, and more. Unfortunately, these towns’ efforts are undercut by federal policy that treats rural places as “drive-through” country, hollows out the most economically productive places in rural America, moves destinations farther apart, and consistently fails to prioritize rural needs.

A better approach: Six recommendations

Congress’s bipartisan infrastructure bill preserves many of these obstacles, but there are still plenty of opportunities ahead in how we implement that bill to make it easier for rural communities to revitalize their downtowns (bringing necessities together at one stop) and provide better transportation options. After this bill is finalized, federal decision-makers shouldn’t tune out for five years until the next big transportation bill, like they usually do—they should put in the work now to make this transportation policy work for rural communities.

1. Invest heavily in transit in rural America

Like every other part of the country, rural America includes residents who for a variety of reasons can’t drive, even if they have the financial means to access a reliable vehicle. Rural areas in particular have a higher share of their population aged 65 and over, who take fewer trips on average than their urban counterparts. Investing in transit can combat isolation and ensure that all people are able to access the resources they need. Rural transit is different too, and we need an approach tailored to their specific needs, rather than just a smaller “urban” transit program for rural areas.

2. Prioritize projects that improve access and reduce trip length

Good infrastructure should get people where they need to go, but our current approach focuses too heavily on speed as a proxy for success. Instead of incentivizing new projects that improve speed by default, it’s time to prioritize access—connecting more people to work, goods, and services in areas closer to where they live. You can be sure that some of the noted growth in trip length in rural areas is due to the consolidation or closure of destinations like hospitals, major employers, or the like.

3. Prioritize safety for everyone in developed areas like town centers

For rural areas, where town main streets often also function as state highways, current federal standards aren’t cutting it. Roadway design emphasizes speed and directly contributes to dangerous conditions for people walking or traveling without a car. As demonstrated by our case study of Hillsboro, VA, prioritizing safety over speed can make all the difference between a thriving economic hub and an abandoned downtown.

4. Prioritize maintaining rural highways over expanding them

Current policy incentivizes new highway investments that draw development away from small town centers, instead of prioritizing the repair of road and bridge connections that small town residents need. If a bridge in a rural county is closed due to lack of repairs, the detours can be incredibly inconvenient.

5. Connect rural areas by making a sizeable investment in better broadband access

We’re focused on transportation, but bad broadband access comes with significant transportation impacts, requiring long trips in some cases to accomplish work and activities that could otherwise be done online. While 97 percent of Americans in urban areas have access to high-speed fixed service, that number falls to 65 percent in rural areas, and barely 60 percent have access on Tribal lands, limiting economic opportunity and mobility.

6. Recalibrate federal agency policies and grant programs to better support rural town centers

Many rural communities depend heavily on grant programs from the US Department of Agriculture and other agencies to support their economic development, but a recent New York Times article highlighted how these grant programs can ultimately work to the detriment of small towns. These programs should be structured to encourage and incentivize investment in the historic town centers where their impacts are amplified.

In addition to these simple but powerful recommendations, we also profile a handful of communities that are attempting to do things differently, including stories from Paris, TX, Burlington, NC, Oxford, MS, Erwin, TN, and more.

Read the full report.

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