Vision Zero is a vision worth funding
Vision Zero is a vision worth funding
Car-centric streets make Albuquerque the most dangerous city in the US to be a pedestrian. Vision Zero will help, but how do we finance it? Vision Zero series - post #1
Albuquerque has again been ranked first in the nation for pedestrian deaths for 2023. Beating our previous record of 49 fatalities, Albuquerque reached 56 pedestrian deaths last year - an upward trend that has no end in sight. According to the mayor, we’re already on track to hit 80 pedestrian deaths in 2024.
The city’s Vision Zero plan is underway, but it takes a long time to undo the damage of poor city planning. Decades of underinvestment and engineering roads tuned to vehicle speed have left the vast majority of our roads without the necessary infrastructure to protect pedestrians.
While saving lives is a good enough reason to rebuild our streets, there are benefits for the climate, small business economy, public health, and more. Last week, I wrote about the poor sentiment toward pedestrians in Albuquerque. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll continue to write about Vision Zero, the vast good it can bring to Albuquerque, and how it’s yet to be fully implemented.
Today’s post will focus on some of the financing issues and legal tension the City of Albuquerque faces in implementing Vision Zero, and some thoughts on how the city might overcome them long and short term.
Vision Zero,
in the words of the Vision Zero Network, is “a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all. First implemented in Sweden in the 1990s, Vision Zero has proved successful across Europe — and now it’s gaining momentum in major American cities.”
Albuquerque’s Mayor Tim Keller implemented the city’s first Vision Zero program in 2019. Several pieces of the Vision Zero playbook have already been implemented, like the Complete Streets ordinances in Abq and Bernalillo County, which establish goals for wider sidewalks, street trees, on-street parking, bicycle lanes, protected mid-block crossings, and traffic calming techniques.
The city also hired a staff member dedicated to orchestrating Vision Zero. I chatted with Ciaran Lithgow, a Project Manager at the city’s Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency (MRA), who told me almost all of the projects done at MRA now are approached with Vision Zero in mind.
Over the past several years, the city has implemented meaningful pieces of the Vision Zero playbook, like reducing the speed limit in the Downtown area from 25 to 20, decreasing pedestrian fatalities. And they’re planning more projects to help with pedestrian safety - like updating 21 crosswalks at schools citywide and revamping West Central and Rio Grande Boulevard.
More on the physical changes Vision Zero aims for next week.
The 2023 Year-In-Review also thoroughly explains, “What’s Not Working Well.”
Low staff capacity due to retention and hiring shortages limits the ability to initiate and complete Vision Zero programs and projects.
A lack of funding, especially dedicated recurring funding, limits the City’s ability to complete Vision Zero projects, particularly major infrastructure projects that retrofit existing roads.
Public education and understanding about traffic safety, Vision Zero, and the need for major roadway retrofits that create more multimodal spaces is low.
In other words, without money, the city can’t fund infrastructure projects, hire employees to plan the projects, or teach the public about the importance of Vision Zero. The Year-In-Review also notes the next challenge as establishing a permanent funding source for the Vision Zero program.
Financing public infrastructure projects
The United States lags behind other developed countries when it comes to infrastructure spending - on railways, electrical grids, internet providers, and roads. According to the Council on Foreign Relations:
The United States differs from most other industrialized countries in the extent to which it relies on local and state spending to meet its infrastructure needs. While most European countries have long funded the bulk of their infrastructure development at the national level, less than half of U.S. public infrastructure and transportation funding came from the federal government in 2020.
Democrats' infrastructure bills are increasing federal investment in transportation infrastructure, but that doesn’t mean municipal governments are off the hook for trying to be financially resilient. A strong local foundation is important during times of national recession or political turbulence, so cities should find ways to be financially sustainable and efficient.
The primary ways in which Albuquerque finances pedestrianization projects are through GO bonds and General Fund cash flow, the proceeds of which are largely dedicated to vehicle infrastructure. And some funding comes in the form of grants from the state or federal government.
Grant programs, especially federal, can have requirements that make projects expensive and slow. The Build America Buy America Act (BABA) in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a well-meaning Act that requires federally-funded infrastructure projects to use USA-made materials, has reportedly put a strain on domestic manufacturing - especially for concrete, drywall, and plastics - slowing down delivery times and increasing costs.
Furthermore, the feds don’t allow for what’s called "design-build,” which is a construction process that allows the engineer and general contractor to work simultaneously, saving time and money. For these reasons, municipalities may avoid the headache and red tape of applying for and working with federal grants. State grants are typically less stringent, but there’s not that much to go around.
Then there’s the city funds.
The General Fund, according to the city’s 2023 Audit, appears to have a fairly health balance sheet (as it’s not overleveraged), and the statement of revenues shows the city ran at a surplus for the year. About 50% of the revenues generated for the General Fund are derived from Gross Receipts Taxes (GRT) and property taxes, and another almost 40% comes from state-shared GRT. The rest comes from other taxes and charges for services, but despite revenue reaching $765M in 2023, the general fund is spread thin financing the majority of the operations in the city. With $698M in expenditures, some $23M was dedicated to the streets in 2023, and a few million went to other, much smaller, funds like the Gas Tax Road Fund.
The Gas Tax Road Fund - the fund I think most people assume builds a lot of roads, doesn’t. Not only is the fund tiny, but it consistently loses money. The Gas Tax fund ended the year with more liabilities than assets ($1.2M and $1M) and more expenses than revenues ($7M and $4.2M). The fund has relied on transfers from the General Fund to keep its balance above $0. This trend goes back years and is a sign that gas taxes aren’t nearly enough to fund our sprawling network of roads.
The most common way roads are financed in Albuquerque (and many other American cities for that matter) is by taking on debt (General Obligation Bonds). Abq’s GO Bond Debt Service Fund, worth $103M in June of last year, lost $13.4M over 2023.
GO bonds are reliable in the sense that Albuquerque voters always approve them (unless they’re for a privately owned soccer stadium), but they are unpredictable in the sense that the City Council might not always approve a recurring amount each bonding cycle. Furthermore, financing with debt only makes sense sometimes, and we probably shouldn’t get too comfortable relying on debt for everything. Regular road maintenance and pedestrian infrastructure projects should likely be financed with recurring taxes or operating revenues.
Now, the city may have several sources of funds to choose from while implementing Vision Zero projects, but in reality, the General Fund, GO Bond Debt Service fund, and the Gas Tax Road fund are not stable or large enough to pay for the vehicle infrastructure we have, let alone a full network of Complete Streets.
The sprawling nature of American cities makes our streets tough to pay for using GRT and property taxes. Many of Abq’s roads don’t provide enough tax income to upkeep the road and utility lines that service them. It’s like buying a house that’s too big and expensive to maintain - it’ll eventually start falling apart, and when your debt and maintenance obligations start piling up, you’ll go broke.
Albuquerque, and most other American cities, have done the same thing on a city-wide level. The city can’t afford to keep up with its ever-sprawling network of roads and water lines, let alone convert all of the existing stroads into something more hospitable to walkers and rollers. Sprawling American cities like Albuquerque tend to subsidize new roads and utility lines on the outskirts of town by using tax income and utility rates from the rest of the city - a financially unsustainable subsidy given to suburban sprawl, paid for by you, the tax- and rate-payer.
So that’s the financing issue. City roads rely heavily on debt financing and funds that lose money or have too many other priorities. Now let’s get to the responsibility issue.
Common with many cities, private property owners in Albuquerque are meant to foot the bill for sidewalks adjacent to their properties. While the property owner pays for the sidewalk and is liable if someone gets hurt tripping on it, the city technically owns it. In the current law, there are openings for developers to seek exceptions to sidewalk requirements, and they often get them - often leaving gaps. Other times, it turns into a squabble between the city and property owners as KRQE reported early last year:
Many property owners don’t know that it’s up to them to repair those sidewalks. “You know, there’s an inequity there when it comes to lower-income neighborhoods that just can’t cough up that three to five hundred to do simple buckling on the sidewalk repair,” said [State Rep. Miguel] Garcia.
The current law states the owner of a home or business is responsible for repairing damaged sidewalks adjacent to their property. Homeowners are claiming it isn’t fair they have to do the repairs since they don’t own the sidewalk.
Garcia’s bill, if it becomes law, would make it the city or county’s job to repair the sidewalk, but the City of Albuquerque said if they have to pay for all those repairs, it will overwhelm staff and take a big chunk of taxpayer dollars.
Spoiler alert, the bill did not pass. The current law, on one hand, creates a barrier to entry for homeownership and inequities in sidewalk quality from poor neighborhoods to rich ones; on the other hand, Lithgow tells me, if the city took on the full responsibility, there wouldn’t be enough funds or personnel to take on the task of upgrading the sidewalks.
She said some cities like Pasadena, CA have similar systems to Albuquerque, where property owners bear the responsibility, but the city allows almost no exceptions to building the sidewalk - making gaps in the sidewalk less frequent but possibly disincentivizing development.
Some possible financing solutions
The Vision Zero Year-In-Review reveals there are 32 steps the city has identified as crucial to making a robust Vision Zero program. Many steps are reportedly done, steps like data collecting and hiring permanent staff, but the number one priority, according to the year-in-review, is to find a reliable, inexpensive, funding source for the Vision Zero program. Without funding, implementing safe infrastructure around the whole city would either never get done, or take a long time to implement under the status quo.
Allowing higher-density housing in the city would help increase tax revenues, and would therefore make it easier to finance projects without taking on more interest-bearing debt. While housing density has experienced plenty of pushback in Albuquerque, it is likely still the best long-term solution to finding funding for Vision Zero. Achieving this might come in the form of executing Mayor Keller’s Housing Forward initiative, implementing land value taxes in place of property taxes, or some other tool that incentivizes density near transit and walkable corridors.
In the short term, it’s hard to tell what Vision Zero Abq will do to find financing. I reached out to the City of Albuquerque’s Vision Zero manager for comment on this topic but didn’t get an answer.
I imagine, though, that they will continue to implement Vision Zero aspects in new projects, and will be looking to use the Complete Streets ordinance to get a larger slice of the GO Bond and General Fund “pies” (happy late Pi Day, by the way). Here are a few other ways they could finance their projects:
Green Bonds could be another option. While more debt isn’t necessarily the best answer, a green infrastructure bond could provide funding for bicycle, transit, and pedestrian infrastructure.
Tolls and higher gas taxes - Yeah, I said it. Tolls. Tolls help local governments afford their expensive and sprawling roads, and could help fund public transit, or maybe the proceeds could go into the city’s anemic Gas Tax Road Fund.
Raising taxes on gas is a tough sell politically, but as electric vehicles become more prevalent in NM, the Gas Tax Road Fund is going to become harder to invest in. Tolls could account for the usage of cars - electric or not. Tolls and gas taxes would incentivize people to walk and cycle more, cleaning the air and decongesting roads.
Trust funds (or permanent funds) have been utilized by the State of New Mexico in recent years as they anticipate the loss of oil and gas severance tax income. They appropriate a trust fund that bears interest and makes money for future projects.
Neighborhood-owned parking meters, similar to tolls, can raise money for neighborhoods to maintain sidewalks, build crosswalks, and rectify the burden of overflowing parking in times of vehicle influx. My neighborhood often gets flooded with vehicles going to the local farmers market or zoo, and parking meters would help deal with that.
HLA - Voters in Los Angeles, a city that also has Vision Zero and Complete Streets programs in place, recently passed measure HLA, an ordinance requiring the city to “prioritize street improvement measures described in the City’s Mobility Plan.”
HLA is a more stringent requirement than Complete Streets ordinance - which is more like a “goal” agreed upon by the City Council. Something like HLA (Maybe HABQ?) could help the City of Albuquerque divert more money away from car infrastructure, and funnel it toward pedestrian safety - requiring city planners and developers to prioritize people with disabilities and pedestrians, rollers, and public transit:
Being a sprawling mess itself, I think LA might run into similar funding issues that Albuquerque is facing with Complete Streets, but they claim it won’t raise taxes and the improvements will take place over ten years. Like any complex issue, there is no simple solution. It will likely take a rethinking of our financing schemes and transportation hierarchy, a stronger (more dense) tax base, a relaxation of zoning codes, and much more, but the results will be worth it.
Eliminating the 56 pedestrian fatalities is reason enough to implement Vision Zero, but there are a plethora of mental and physical health, economic, and aesthetic reasons to do so as well. I’ll be back next week to talk more about the ‘why’ behind Vision Zero, and I’ll try to paint a picture of what Vision Zero could look like in Albuquerque.
In the meantime, I’ll give you some homework - I urge you to think about the built environment in your life. Can you comfortably walk from your house to get healthy food? Is your sidewalk wide enough for a wheelchair? What’s the longest distance you see between crosswalks in your neighborhood? If you were a city planner, what would you change and how would you pay for it?
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Strong Towns ABQ is hosting a park cleanup on March 31st (Easter) from 9-11 am at Luecking South Park. DM their Facebook page if you’re interested in joining.
The March Strong Towns ABQ meeting is next week:
