Uphill task for Biden to coax car-loving Americans to switch to trains and buses

Washington

IF America is dominated by car culture and the call of the open road, there is a big reason for that: Over the past 65 years, the United States has spent nearly US$10 trillion in public funds on highways and roads and just one-quarter of that on subways, buses and passenger rail.

But President Joe Biden's US$2 trillion infrastructure plan, unveiled last week, represents one of the most ambitious efforts yet to challenge the centrality of the car in American life, by proposing to tilt federal spending far more towards public transportation and coax more people out of their cars. Experts say that transformation is necessary to tackle climate change but could prove extremely difficult in practice.

As part of his plan, President Biden wants to spend US$85 billion over eight years to help cities modernise and expand their mass transit systems, in effect doubling federal spending on public transportation each year. There is also US$80 billion to upgrade and extend intercity rail networks such as Amtrak. That would be one of the largest investments in passenger trains in decades.

And while Mr Biden's plan offers US$115 billion for roads, the emphasis would be on fixing ageing highways and bridges rather than expanding the road network.

That, too, is a shift in priorities: In recent years, states have spent roughly half their highway money building new roads or widening existing ones - which, studies have found, often just encourages more driving and does little to alleviate congestion.

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"There's no question that the share of funding going towards transit and rail in Mr Biden's proposal is vastly larger than in any similar legislation we've seen in our lifetime," said Yonah Freemark, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute. "It's a dramatic shift."

When Congress writes new multibillion-dollar transportation bills every few years, typically about four-fifths of the money goes to highways and roads, a pattern that has held since the early 1980s. To many, that disparity makes sense. After all, roughly 80 per cent of trips Americans take are by car or light truck, with just 3 per cent by mass transit.

But some experts say this gets the causality backwards: Decades of government investment in roads and highways - starting with the creation of the interstate highway system in 1956 - have transformed most cities and suburbs into sprawling, car-centred environments where it can be dangerous to walk or bike. In addition to that, other reliable transit options are scarce.

"We're almost forcing everyone to drive," said Catherine Ross, an expert on transportation planning at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "The choices that individuals make are deeply shaped by the infrastructure that we have built."

Transportation accounts for one-third of America's planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, with most of that from hundreds of millions of petrol-burning cars and SUVs. And while Mr Biden is proposing US$174 billion to promote cleaner electric vehicles, experts have said that helping Americans drive less will be crucial to meeting the administration's climate goals.

"Far too many Americans lack access to affordable public transit, and those who do have access are often met with delays and disruptions," President Biden said on Wednesday. "We have the power to change that." But Mr Biden, a longtime Amtrak rider and proponent, will face hurdles in trying to make the US more train- and bus-friendly.

His plan still needs to get through Congress, where lawmakers in rural and suburban districts often prefer money for roads. Nationwide, new transit projects have been plagued by soaring costs.

The coronavirus pandemic has also led many Americans to avoid subways and buses in favour of private vehicles, and it remains unclear when or whether transit ridership will bounce back.

The Biden administration may also have limited ability to sway the actions of state and local governments, which still account for the vast majority of transportation spending. Many key urban planning decisions - such as whether to build dense housing near light-rail stations - are made locally, and they can determine whether transit systems thrive or struggle.

"States are the emperors of transportation," said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America, a transit advocacy group. "But so much of the culture of our current programme is based on what has come out of the Department of Transportation, so it's an important statement if the Biden administration is saying it's time to pivot."

Analysts cautioned that the White House still has not revealed key details of the plan. Its effectiveness may hinge on how the proposal gets integrated with transportation bills currently being worked on in Congress, which could adjust the balance of funding between highways and transit or impose conditions on how states can use federal funding.

Still, some transit agencies say a large infusion of federal money could be transformative. Many urban transit systems are more than a half-century old and struggle to secure enough funding to address their growing backlog of needed repairs. That typically leaves little money left over to consider major new expansions.

President Biden has also proposed spending US$80 billion to upgrade and expand intercity rail service such as Amtrak. Right now the busiest Amtrak route is the North-east Corridor between Washington, DC, and Boston, which Amtrak says needs US$38 billion for upgrades and repairs.

Yet attempts to expand US transit and rail systems may run into pitfalls.

Building infrastructure in the US has become notoriously expensive and difficult compared with other countries. In California, a plan for high-speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco that received federal funding from the Obama administration has struggled with repeated delays and cost overruns, and it remains unclear whether even a partial segment will be finished before 2030. The Biden proposal mentions this cost problem but is vague on ideas for how to fix it.

Another challenge will be ensuring that funding goes to the most effective projects. "When a lot of money is raining down from the top, states and localities will do whatever they can to get that money," said Paul Lewis, vice-president for policy and finance at the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonpartisan research centre in Washington. "Sometimes that money may go to projects that aren't the best projects." NYTIMES