Sustainable Development is Not a High Priority in St. Louis

Modern streetcars are a mode of sustainable transportation. They do not use gas or diesel, and even though they would draw electric current produced by Missouri coal power plants, in the future, coal can be replaced by wind, geothermal, solar, or even water flow from the Mississippi River. It seems like a no-brainer that there would not be more talk about modern streetcars in St. Louis, or that we hear absolutely no talk of Recovery Act money funding projects in St. Louis. To that end, I wanted to find out more about how federal money flows into the St. Louis Area, and if sustainable projects are on St. Louis’ transportation radar.

How do federal transportation dollars flow into the St. Louis regional area? And, how are those federal dollars allocated locally? The easy answer is that federal dollars flow through the East-West Gateway Council of Governments or EWGCOG [www.ewgateway.org]. The EWGCOG, an MPO, or Metropolitan Planning Organization, was created in 1965, in response to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1962 (FAHA), which created the federal requirement for urban transportation planning, largely in response to the construction of the Interstate Highway System and the planning of routes through and around urban areas. To receive FAHA monies, the EWGCOG had to produce a plan based on a 3C process of “continuing, comprehensive and cooperative planning” [About MPOs, The Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, http://www.ampo.org/content/index.php?pid=15].

In the 1970s, at the time of the energy crises and after the Interstate Highway System was largely complete, MPOs, including the EWGCOG, actually shifted their planning focus to the needs of local areas, requiring shorter-range capital improvement programs along with long-range plans “to better integrate urban transportation planning at the local level”, [http://www.ampo.org/content/index.php?pid=15] and to relieve automobile congestion. However, at the same time MPOs focused more attention on local concerns, they removed the reins of broad federal government oversight, only submitting proposals for government money through the TIP, or transportation improvement program. “The result was an urban transportation program and process that languished, and the loss of much of the technical capacity that has been built up in the MPOs” [http://www.ampo.org/content/index.php?pid=15].

In order to lift MPOs out of the muck of myopic local interests, the federal government passed the ISTEA, or Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, to strengthen the metropolitan planning process by refocusing attention toward “integrated, modally mixed strategies for greater system efficiency, mobility and access” [http://www.ampo.org/content/index.php?pid=15]. As an aside, St. Louis is on Corridor 2, or the “Avenue of the Saints Corridor” from St. Louis to St. Paul, Minnesota.

So, now I have a better understanding how federal dollars flowed into the St. Louis region, but what happened once they got here? In 1995, the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council drafted “A Plan for the Region’s Future: Transportation Redefined." It’s a 267 page document located in the Library section of www.ewgateway.org. What most caught my eye was Section X “Choices”, which included the graph I crudely photographed and pasted above. It’s a very hard graph to explain, but the text next to the graph states that

“[t]he bold line which is positioned diagonally on the chart encloses a ‘budget envelope” which indicates the total amount of funds available to support the plan or the improvement program. That line will pivot up or down from the lower left axis point depending on funding, enclosing as many projects as can be financed. It is anticipated that projects from all seven focus areas would be funded in any given selection cycle, but more projects would be selected from the higher ranking priority areas than from the lower.”

What most surprised me, from this 1995 graph, was the priority of “Sustainable Development". Out of the seven possible categories, it ranks 6^th. And things don’t get better. In 1999, The East-West Gateway Coordinating Council drafted “Transportation Redefined II, Building a Solid Foundation for 2020”. On page 25 of that report, Sustainable Development still ranked 6^th out of 7 program priorities.

Most recently, in July 2007, the East-West Gateway Council of Governments released “Legacy 2035”, another planning document. The graph is no longer part of the report, but on page 71, we’re treated to a section on Sustainable Development. The section starts out by stating, “[s]ustainable development is a multifaceted concept that encompasses principles of environmental stewardship, social equity, and economic viability.” Wow, it’s scary to think that such heavy principles were ranked 6^th out of 7 categories.

This is a modern streetcar blog, and I was excited when I read Legacy 2035, further:

“[m]ost could not disagree that given the finite level of human fiscal, and natural capital that exists, pursuing strategies to implement a more sustainable approach to development and transportation investment is desirable. Widespread uncertainty exists, however, about how to go about achieving sustainability goals. Sustainable development is a subject matter that goes well beyond traditional transportation planning, and there are many obstacles and challenges in the path to achieving it.”

Streetcars are a sustainable solution that can only get better when wind, solar, and geothermal are added to our power portfolio. Sustainable development must get higher priority in St. Louis’ mass transit decisions. To look for potential help, I looked up President Obama’s Urban Policy agenda. Part of the current administration’s urban policy includes “strengthening core infrastructure” through the use of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank [http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/urban_policy/]. This bill was originally introduced by Senators Chris Dodd and Chuck Hagel in 2007, and it has since stalled, but it can be tracked at www.thomas.gov as Senate Bill 1926 and in the House as H.R. 3401.