Emil H. Frankel, director of transportation policy for the National Transportation Policy Project (NTPP) of the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), called on U.S. transportation policy to become more performance-driven when he addressed a March 15 session. APTA’s business members sponsored the breakfast session for the eighth year.

Frankel referred to his 2009 report, Performance Driven: A New Vision for U.S. Transportation Policy, in explaining the importance of taking results into account. “Why should the federal government invest in transportation?” he asked. “We must make the case that we’re investing wisely.”

As nationwide unemployment rates remain around 10 percent and many more Americans are underemployed, he said, Congress and the administration must remember that infrastructure programs—such as public transportation—can and do create jobs.

Transportation policy is not like other issues that break down along partisan lines, he said, because different stakeholders may have a variety of opinions as to distribution of funds. For that reason, he said, “we need people, both Democrats and Republicans, drawn from various sectors at the table where transportation policy is made…This is bipartisanship in Washington, DC.”

Joshua Schank, NTPP director of transportation research, presented an overview of the project’s scope. It sets out four bedrock principles—a clear federal role, promotion of performance, mode neutrality, and link to energy and environment—and five proposed goals: economic growth, national connectivity, metropolitan accessibility, energy security and environmental protection, and safety.

Schank laid out a proposed new federal funding structure for transportation, which would take 20 to 30 years to implement. Three quarters of total funds would go to formula preservation programs that include national connectivity, sustaining core assets, essential access, and a performance bonus; the rest would cover competitive capacity expansion programs for improving federal connections and core transportation systems.

In the shorter term, he said, other changes may include the development of data and metrics; an effort to redefine the national transportation system; and plans for a date-certain transition from current per-gallon fuel taxes to national user fees.

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