Transit

Transit agencies can have a hard time finding the money to expand rail lines and busways. While federal grants for road projects require a 20 percent local match, transit projects need to get 50 percent or more from local funding sources. The byzantine federal funding bureaucracy creates high hurdles, especially for smaller agencies without on-staff expertise in applying for and managing these grants. Loans and private sources of funds are also difficult, since they need to be paid back, and transit tends not to make back its capital outlays from the farebox.

We mentioned last week that transit advocates were losing one supporter in Congress: Russ Carnahan of Missouri. They'll be suffering another grave loss come January: Ohio Republican Steve LaTourette.

Summer gives permission to set aside serious reading for the refreshment of fluffier stuff. This year, though, several meaningful books on transportation are out that you might want to tuck into your beach bag. Each is that rare thing: a should-read that’s also a want-to-read.

Sustainable transportation advocates may read news headlines about new voter ID laws, roll their eyes at the prejudices of red-state legislators, and turn the page -- at their own peril. This seemingly unrelated issue may have far-reaching consequences for transportation policy. New state laws mandating photo ID for voters threaten to disenfranchise nondrivers, and the skewed elections that would result could lead to political control by forces hostile to transit, cities, and even Safe Routes to Schools.

The Atlanta Beltline project isn't going away. Project staff want to make that clear. Sure, last week, Atlanta turned down -- by a wide margin -- a major transportation spending package that would have awarded $600 million to the Beltline project. But this project -- an innovative transit and trails corridor that will circle Atlanta's central city -- has seen big setbacks before, says Ethan Davidson, the Beltline's spokesman.

Well, the Atlanta region has spoken.

Every week, the White House honors leaders and innovators in a chosen field, and yesterday was transportation's turn. Their choices of honorees spoke volumes about this administration's principles around transportation.

It was fitting that yesterday, the eve of the Atlanta region's historic transportation vote, the Georgia NAACP filed a civil rights suit against the state Department of Transportation alleging discrimination in contracting. Meanwhile, the head of the DeKalb County NAACP has come out against the T-SPLOST tax proposal, saying it will hurt minority-owned businesses. He even took a shot at Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, a dogged supporter of the referendum, saying “certain blacks” had been duped into supporting the tax proposal.

Living near transit can help you stay trim and healthy. That's the result of a study published last year in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. This study is a little old -- it was published in August 2011 -- but we just came across it in the Reconnecting America resource center and the results are too interesting not to share.