With help from Tanya Snyder
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— Congress is turning its attention to surface transportation, with the House set to unveil its version of reauthorization legislation this week.
— The CDC adjusted the wording of its new guidance for commuters to emphasize other means of transportation other than driving alone, after an outcry from transit advocates.
— Frontier Airlines officially implemented its temperature check policy for passengers and crew.
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INFRASTRUCTURE FEVER ON CAPITOL HILL: With progress still stalled over a next coronavirus response package, lawmakers are pivoting to other priorities, including surface transportation. The text of the House’s surface bill is expected to come out this week, our Tanya Snyder reports. Lobbyists are preparing for a Wednesday release. The long-awaited draft will be Democrats’ response to the Republican-controlled Senate, which already advanced reauthorization legislation through committee, S. 2302 (116).
That committee, Senate Environment and Public Works, is holding a hearing on Thursday on infrastructure as an economic stimulus. Whether sending out money for roads and bridges is actually a good way to create jobs is up for debate. Two of the witnesses for the hearing are likely to argue that it does: Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and Steve McGough of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.
But another, Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the conservative American Action Forum, has argued that infrastructure as a stimulus doesn’t make much sense, calling for a limited federal role. “Infrastructure can contribute to a policy mix that responds effectively to the pandemic recession. But it is not a silver bullet and will only be successful if it is undertaken in a disciplined fashion,” he wrote in a recent blog post.
BUILDERS WEIGH IN ON OSHA LAWSUIT: Several groups representing the construction industry, including the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, urged a federal court not to force the federal government to implement a universal OSHA emergency standard for the pandemic. The argument comes as the court considers a lawsuit from the AFL-CIO to compel OSHA to issue the standard.
ARTBA and other contractors groups said in a brief that OSHA should issue guidance tailored to individual industries. “Guidance on how to maintain the spread of COVID-19 in the aviation industry would naturally be quite different from guidance directed at the banking industry, or the construction industry,” the brief says.
CDC TAKES A DO-OVER: The agency over the weekend quietly revised guidelines that had enraged transit agencies and advocates, and the new version is more inclusive of other modes of transportation.
The guidance that came out late last week, as businesses in many cities are reopening, had encouraged employers to incentivize “forms of transportation that minimize close contact with other” such as “parking for commuting to work alone or single-occupancy rides.” Transit advocates accused the CDC of ignoring its own, pre-Covid guidance in favor of more active, less polluting modes, and the agency listened. Its new guidance includes biking and walking and encourages adhering to CDC guidelines when using public transportation.
LOOKING LONG TERM: Teleworking “carries much more potential than we thought before,” say the authors of a new study from the University of Illinois at Chicago, which was presented on Monday in a Transportation Research Board webinar. While not everyone loves working remotely — some complain of more distractions and the lack of a comfortable work environment — 59 percent of survey respondents who never worked from home before the pandemic said they were at least as productive as they were in the office, if not more. Some businesses are already giving up their office space. That could mean less peak-hour traffic to central business districts, leading the researchers to warn of the “risk for overdesign of expensive downtown facilities.”
Other takeaways: Online grocery shopping and restaurant delivery will likely continue to replace individual trips “far after the pandemic is over.” And “the number of people biking and walking for trips has just skyrocketed,” the researchers said, which has major implications for the future because “mode use as a child persists over one’s life.” As Rebekah Anderson, a transportation engineer at the Ohio DOT and webinar participant, put it: “Next month my kids will ride their bikes to their dentist appointments. That means when they’re an adult, they’re going to consider biking to their dentist appointments.”
Covid-19 helps make the case for autonomous vehicles, but the researchers noted that the presumed first use of AVs — in shared fleets, perhaps for pooled rides — may be a harder sell.
DRONE COMPANY HQ DESTROYED: Rioting in Santa Monica, Calif., over the weekend destroyed the office of AirMap, a company that’s working on air traffic control technology for drones and is an FAA-approved provider for drone authorization services. Co-founder Greg McNeal posted striking photos of an office burned out by a fire in the building. “All AirMappers have been working from home since March due to Covid-19, so thankfully no one was hurt. Our team remains safe and productive,” the company said in a statement.
FOREHEAD, PLEASE: Monday marked the start of mandatory temperature checks for passengers of Frontier Airlines, the first carrier to require passengers to present their foreheads as well as their boarding passes before they get on the plane. A video published by Frontier shows what could become the new normal in air travel, as passengers have thermal reading devices pointed at their heads before boarding. Flight attendants are being scanned by the airline, too.
THE LATEST ON CAFE CASE: As a trio of federal judges struggled to figure out whether Congress intended in a 2015 law for DOT to increase civil penalties for automakers that fail to comply with fuel economy rules, one of POLITICO’s brightest legal minds was keeping pace. We’ll leave the full details to Alex Guillén, but here’s one key point from his story: Multiple judges said they were considering whether the law was unclear and, if so, how much deference to give NHTSA in the case.
The context: The Obama administration in 2016 raised the penalty from $5.50 per tenth of a mile per gallon out of compliance to $14. The Trump administration reversed that last year.
— “Aircraft makers go digital to fight coronavirus delivery logjam.” Reuters.
— “Brooklyn bus drivers refuse to pick summer shifts, saying schedule is ‘a recipe for disaster.’” Vice.
— “‘Bring people together, not apart:’ Chance encounter on a Southwest Airlines flight turns into emotional discussion on race.” Dallas Morning News.
— “Dallas to Houston high-speed rail project clears regulatory hurdle.” Dallas Business Journal.
— “Drivers take advantage of low gas prices as states reopen.” Wall Street Journal.
— “SpaceX captures the flag, beating Boeing in cosmic contest.” Associated Press.
DOT appropriations run out in 120 days. The FAA reauthorization expires in 1,216 days. Highway and transit policy is up for renewal in 120 days.
