RELEASE: Auchincloss Leads Letter to Buttigieg Calling for Focus on On-Demand Transit
Auchincloss Leads Letter to Buttigieg Calling for Focus on On-Demand Transit
“The Department can support transit innovations, including on-demand transit, that will better connect our constituents to jobs, goods, and services while advancing policy goals shared by Congress and the Administration”
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Congressman Jake Auchincloss (D, MA-04) led 14 other members of Congress in a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Senior Advisor to the President And Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu to encourage flexibility for the inclusion of on-demand transit and investments in more reliable, convenient, and sustainable public transportation as the Bipartisan Infrastructure law is implemented. In the letter the members stated, “By taking these four key steps, the Department can support transit innovations, including on-demand transit, that will better connect our constituents to jobs, goods, and services while advancing policy goals shared by Congress and the Administration. We believe all of these points are consistent with the Department’s Innovation Principles and the Biden Administration's broader priorities. We look forward to working with you on these critical actions that will improve access to affordable transit for all.”
A full copy of the letter can be found below.
The Honorable Pete Buttigieg
Secretary
U.S. Department of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, D.C. 20590
Dear Secretary Buttigieg:
Congratulations on the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which will provide a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s infrastructure, as well as a historic opportunity to create jobs, increase economic mobility, and reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector. We are particularly excited that this law will increase public transit funding. You have spoken recently about the future of transportation, and the important role that innovation can play when it serves public goals.[1] As the Department of Transportation (“Department”) begins the IIJA implementation process, we urge you to take several key steps to encourage on-demand transit and invest in more reliable, convenient, and sustainable public transportation.
As you know, cities and towns across the country use on-demand transit (also referred to as “microtransit”) to provide critical connections to preexisting transit hubs and to fill so-called “transit deserts”, often in historically underserved areas. Microtransit also supports access to public transportation for people with disabilities.[2] Eight leading national disability organizations,[3] as well as mayors and transit agencies, called on Congress last year to prioritize on-demand transit in infrastructure legislation.
The IIJA provides enormous opportunity for state and local governments to invest in these transformative ways to modernize public transportation across the country. In particular, the bill authorizes new grant programs – such as the Carbon Reduction Program, the Urban Congestion Program, and the Rural Surface Transportation Program – that enumerate on-demand services and other transit innovations as eligible uses of funds. We urge you to take certain steps to administer these and other grant programs to ensure the local governments we represent can implement new transit technology.
First, we urge you to fund projects that will increase economic mobility, equity, accessibility, and sustainability. This includes ensuring that, as the Department has made clear, new services do not come at the expense of accessibility and labor protections. We should not innovate for the sake of innovation; innovation must advance critical public interest goals.
Second, in evaluating funding applications, we encourage you to consider the speed with which new services and projects can be deployed. We must increase access to opportunity with urgency. While longer-term projects are critical – and the law importantly has specific programs to fund significant infrastructure projects – the Administration should move expeditiously to implement services that will immediately improve the ability of residents to access jobs, healthcare, and education.
Third, as the Department issues guidelines and notices of funding opportunities for new programs, we urge you to foster opportunities for public-private collaboration. Recently, some grant programs have notably encouraged cities, transit agencies, and states to work with the private sector on funding applications, but many others have not. We believe the Department should encourage – not restrict – as much upfront private-public collaboration as possible. This will create more robust applications, simplify the Department’s evaluation of the impacts of proposed services, and speed deployment after funding is awarded.
Fourth, we encourage you to be flexible in how federal funds can be used. Apart from uses that are explicitly prohibited in the law, we believe the Department should take an outcomes-based approach rather than limit the ways in which applicants can use funds provided by these new programs. Additionally, in order to provide clarity to applicants, we urge you to explicitly name microtransit and other transit innovations as eligible projects in funding notices and guidance documents.
By taking these four key steps, the Department can support transit innovations, including on-demand transit, that will better connect our constituents to jobs, goods, and services while advancing policy goals shared by Congress and the Administration. We believe all of these points are consistent with the Department’s Innovation Principles[4] and the Biden Administration's broader priorities. We look forward to working with you on these critical actions that will improve access to affordable transit for all.
Sincerely,
Jake Auchincloss
Member of Congress
Stephen F. Lynch Dina Titus G.K. Butterfield
Member of Congress Member of Congress Member of Congress
Doris Matsui Dwight Evans Danny K. Davis
Member of Congress Member of Congress Member of Congress
Seth Moulton Rick Larsen James P. McGovern
Member of Congress Member of Congress Member of Congress
Carolyn Bourdeaux Eleanor Holmes Norton Steve Cohen
Member of Congress Member of Congress Member of Congress
David N. Cicilline Kaiali?i Kahele
Member of Congress Member of Congress
Cc: Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Senior Advisor to the President And Infrastructure Coordinator
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