The Mineta Transportation Institute at San José State University hosted an online webinar on Tuesday morning about the inadequacies of the United States transit system and finding innovative solutions to improve transit projects through planning processes.
The Mineta Transportation Institute is a research and training unit in partnership with SJSU’s Lucas College and Graduate School of Business, according to its website.
The institute’s mission is to improve the safety, efficiency and accessibility of the U.S. transportation system, and to encourage the utilization of public transit, according to the same website.
Hilary Nixon, deputy executive director for the Mineta Transportation Institute and a moderator at the webinar, said it’s important to explore challenges, teachable moments and solutions in transit projects.
“The cost of transit projects across the U.S. continues to increase and there never seems to be enough capital to fund what transportation a pillar of our country needs,” Nixon said.
Joshua Schank, one of the webinar panelists and InfraStrategies employee, said there are many factors that play into the escalation of costs for transit projects during the planning process.
InfraStrategies is a U.S. based consultancy group focused on developing, funding, financing and managing infrastructure programs using strategic advisory, according to its website.
“This is more common in the United States compared to other places,” Schank said. “We tend to live in a more litigious society, and a society that has more decentralized planning.”
Schank said the combativeness of U.S. communities to new transit projects in developed urban areas means companies are prone to facing opposition or public outrage.
Sadie Graham, webinar panelist, director of Link21 and a BART employee, said even though planning and funding are a big part of the planning process for transit projects, companies should consider community member’s requests during projects.
Link21 is a program aiming to improve public transit and train networks in Northern California, such as BART and the Regional Rail, according to its website.
“I think there's a discord between the actual project and than the things that are needed to support the project, and often the community can benefit the project just as much as the community should benefit from the project when it's done,” Graham said.
Alison Premo Black, webinar panelist and the senior vice president for American Road and Transportation Builders Association, said there are different kinds of delays in both qualitative and quantitative aspects of a transit project that can add to rising costs.
“Issues with labor, rising material costs, any trouble getting materials,” Black said. “All these things have been an issue the last few years for some of the bigger projects.”
Eric Goldwyn, webinar panelist and clinical assistant professor at New York University, said he thinks the solution to making transit projects more efficient is to have strong leaders and a proactive team.
Goldwyn said a team with a structured system of engineers and consultants who all manage each other is a promising thing for transit projects.
“Looking at stations in L.A., New York, in particular, it’s evident that they're is so much work and effort put into the design of the infrastructure, more than in other stations and transit projects in other parts of the world,” Goldwyn said.
Black said a solution that has already been implemented was the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs act signed by President Joe Biden on Nov. 15, 2021, according to a website by U.S. Congressman Jim Costa.
The legislation will invest $1 trillion to fix infrastructure in the U.S., such as broadband public transit systems over the next decade, according to the same website.
“Not only was there additional funding for projects, which of course is always helpful, but also trying to streamline that environmental review process,” Black said.
Black also said some agencies are still in recovery from the challenges that developed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Schank said his idea of reform for transit projects is taking a step back and considering how money is raised and spent on projects, and what the projects will provide for people.
“The incentive of a planning department or planning agency is typically to get through the environmental process to clear the project so they can move to construction,” Schank said. “But the right incentives should be to get the best outcome for the amount of money available”
Schank said U.S. transit agencies tend to confuse a planning process, which should be about getting the best project for the available funds, with an environmental process, which is about getting a project approved.
He also said transit projects are often planned without fully accounting for the operations and maintenance of the project in the future.
“There's not a single transit agency in the country that hasn't run into the problem of deferred maintenance, not taking care of their infrastructure,” Schank said. “That of course increases costs, long term, for their infrastructure.”
Schank said one of the ways to avoid long term issues is to bundle the operations and maintenance into the project cost and structure from the very beginning of the project to have a successful outcome.
“There should be a performance measurement,” Schank said. “Not just related to the actual construction, but for the outcomes of the project to see how well it is operated and maintained over a period of time.”
Graham said an innovative solution to efficiency in transit projects is trying to understand what the passenger experience is like for people who use public transportation.
“An integrated network using the passenger's perspective to make sure that passengers want to choose transit to get out of using their cars is what transit agencies need,” Graham said.
Graham said transportation governance often prioritizes the politics and money of the project rather than the execution of how they can get people on trains or buses, prompting them to make the choice to utilize public transit.
Schank said he recommends that transit companies avoid being completely driven by politics and set clear goals and deliverables for projects.
“Be transparent about what you're going to achieve, from the very beginning,” Schank said. “You can always point back to that and ask, ‘O.K., we're increasing this cost, does that help achieve this larger goal that we all agreed on?’”
