EDITORIAL: Changing gears on transportation (Detroit Free Press)
Nation needs smarter policies and funding system for the 21st Century

Nearly a decade into the 21st Century, the United States still lacks a comprehensive national plan to drive hundreds of billions of dollars of transportation investments that connect communities, fuel the economy, and shape patterns of growth and development. Given the energy, environmental and national security needs of the new century, continuing to put the nation’s transportation system on cruise control is wasteful, shortsighted and reckless.

Developing a balanced transportation system will take the same commitment, vision and sacrifice that built the interstate highway system 50 years ago. Yes, it will take more money — perhaps double the current investment. But equally important, it will require a blueprint to guide those investments, ensuring that they complement sustainable land use and housing developments that help create communities, and commuting patterns, that reflect how Americans want to live.

The current transportation law — the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act — expires Sept. 30. The House favors an extension of three months, while the Senate and President Barack Obama favor an extension of up to 18 months. Congress has extended every transportation bill in the last 30 years. The more important issue is getting the next six-year bill right.

The next long-term authorization bill shouldn’t simply authorize hundreds of unrelated pork projects that incumbent lawmakers can exploit in their re-election campaigns. It should, instead, chart a course for rebuilding and maintaining the nation’s aging road and bridge networks and creating intercity rail and transit systems that relieve congestion, conserve energy, reduce global warming gases and reduce the enormous cost of maintaining and expanding highways.

It’s a tall order, demanding a visionary understanding of how transportation policy can create jobs, promote energy independence and national security, rebuild cities, and preserve green space. A bill that meets this challenge would include:

• A fairer return to cities and metropolitan regions, with more flexibility for local governments seeking to make the most of their transportation dollars.

One study by the Environmental Working Group found that commuters in 176 metropolitan areas paid $20 billion more in federal gas taxes than they received in federal Highway Trust Fund money from 1998 through 2003. Highway construction interests and transportation mind-sets more suited to the 1960s still dominate state transportation departments. Metropolitan planning agencies like the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments should have more authority over how federal transportation dollars are spent in their regions.

• Restrictions on the use of federal transportation funds for highway expansion.

The nation cannot build its way out of traffic congestion. Preservation and maintenance should be the watchwords of our national road policy. America’s mature and aging freeway system must be maintained, while regions develop transit alternatives to relieve congestion without exacerbating suburban and exurban sprawl.

Preservation programs are especially important for states like Michigan, whose road systems are relatively older than average. Says Carmine Palombo, SEMCOG’s transportation chief: “We want to make sure this bill treats us fairly, compared to growth states with expanding systems.”

• A bigger slice for mass transit, which gets only 18% of government’s transportation funding under the current bill.

The nation’s economic, environmental and security interests all demand less dependence on foreign oil. Transit systems nationwide, including Michigan’s, report record ridership. Light rail, trains and conventional and rapid-transit buses are needed to meet national energy and environmental goals, as well as carry entry-level workers without cars from central-city neighborhoods to suburban jobs.

Federal aid for public transit can trigger wider economic development, as metropolitan regions such as Denver have demonstrated. States and metropolitan regions also should have greater flexibility in using federal transit aid, including the freedom to subsidize operating costs while new or newly expanded transit systems attract riders.

• A big increase in spending.

The $286 billion authorized in the transportation bill that expires this Wednesday fell far short of what was needed to keep the nation’s transportation grid from deteriorating. The Highway Trust Fund, which historically enjoyed huge surpluses, has also been dangerously depleted.

To fix the nation’s flagging highway and rail systems over the next 50 years, the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission last year urged Congress to raise the gas tax by up to 40 cents a gallon over the next five years, and more than double the current levy.

The federal gas tax, now at 18.4 cents a gallon, has not risen since 1993. Nationwide, each cent raises $1.7 billion a year for the Highway Trust Fund.

Besides raising critically needed revenue for highway maintenance and expanded public transit, a higher gas tax would sustain consumer demand for both the economically fuel-efficient vehicles Detroit’s car companies are retooling to build and the sustainable public transit systems America needs to reduce global warming gases and diminish our dependence on autocratic regimes abroad. The House is considering a $500-billion bill, including $50 billion for high-speed rail that would meet the nation’s needs and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

• Pilot projects to evaluate new methods of financing a 21st Century transportation system.

As fuel efficiency increases, gasoline taxes can’t keep up with transportation needs. Increasing federal gas taxes would provide a short-term solution. In the long run, however, the gas tax should be scrapped and replaced with a system that taxes motorists by the mile. Other sources of transportation money could come from tolls, public-private partnerships and property taxes on development that benefits from the availability of public transit options.

At stake is nothing less than the nation’s economic and environmental health. It shouldn’t take another oil embargo, oil-financed terror attack, or man-made disaster (like the 2007 collapse of a four-lane bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis) to muster the political will to fix the nation’s transportation system.

Raising the gas tax would cost Americans relatively little, but more money is only part of the answer. The next six-year transportation bill must provide a clear vision of the national transportation network we need and a practical blue-print for building it.
Posted: Sept. 27, 2009
http://www.freep.com/article/20090927/OPINION01/909270451/1322/Changing-gears-on-transportation

No smooth road ahead 
for transportation bill (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Georgia to get $316 million less in highway funds this year

It is supposed to be the biggest overhaul in recent history to the nation’s transportation system, a $500 billion package that would add new lanes to the most congested highways, launch new mass-transit projects and totally reorganize how America manages how it moves around.

But like I-285 at rush hour, a comprehensive transportation bill Congress began working on years ago remains bogged down in legislative gridlock and sputtering as the government’s funding sources are running on empty.

As a result, as lawmakers struggle with what to do with health care reform, two wars, global warming and a lousy economy, they’re putting off addressing how to make long-term fixes to the nation’s highways and other transportation infrastructure.

Facing a Sept. 30 expiration of the current federal transportation bill, the U.S. House last week was forced to pass a three-month, $13.6 billion extension just to make sure the nation’s transportation workers continue to get paid and scheduled road improvements continue to be made through the end of the year. By then, supporters hope to complete the more far-reaching legislation that would outline transportation spending for the next six years.

But the U.S. Senate, at the urging of the White House, could delay action even longer. Transportation leaders in the Senate, led by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), are pushing for a last-minute, 18-month extension of current transportation programs that expire on Sept. 30.

“It’s called kicking the can,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), who isn’t directly involved with the transportation legislation.

Even with the extensions, states may face less federal transportation funding than they had expected. According to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Georgia can expect to get about 
$316 million less than expected in federal highway funds this year because of lower gas tax receipts and other reasons. That means the state will likely have to cut back on maintenance programs and postpone some projects.

The proposed Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009 that’s delayed in the House, conversely, would have provided a major boost to transportation funding for all states. Investments in roads and other transportation needs would increase by 38 percent to $450 billion over six years. Another $50 billion would be set aside for high-speed rail projects — potentially including high-speed rail lines in Georgia.

Specific highway projects are still being determined. But if lawmakers from Georgia get their way, they would also include major upgrades to I-285 in Atlanta and I-75 south of Atlanta (in Henry County).

The legislation also would direct $50 billion specifically to help unclog congestion in the nation’s major metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, and invest nearly $100 billion for overdue upgrades and repairs to existing bus and rail systems nationwide.

All of that comes at a cost, of course. To pay for the improvements, Congress would almost certainly have to raise federal gas taxes that finance most of the nation’s transportation needs.

“I don’t think a tax increase is going to fly right now, and that’s the only way you’re going to be able to pay for all of this,” said U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Coweta County Republican. As a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, he is the point person on transportation issues in Georgia’s delegation to the U.S. House.

Proponents of the bill, however, say, delaying it costs money, too.

In 2005, for instance, traffic congestion cost the country $78 billion — including 4.2 billion hours of lost time and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel in
the nation’s metropolitan areas alone, according to the office of U.S. Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), who authored the Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009. That same year, overall logistics costs for moving people and products began to rise, after 17 years of decline.

Potential savings from better roads and less congestion is appealing not just to frustrated commuters, but also to big companies such as Sandy Springs-based UPS. Every minute a UPS driver is stuck in traffic, it costs the company — and all the companies and individuals that rely on its services — money.

“The country’s ability to compete globally is tied to its ability to move goods both inside and outside of its borders,” said UPS spokesman Malcolm Berkley. “Our interest in the bill lies in