Crumbling Bridges, Oil Imports, Rising VMT, More Roads... Oh My!

摘要

As if we needed one, another wake-up call for action on our looming infrastructure crisis was sounded in January, when the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission released its much anticipated report, Transportation for Tomorrow. The commission was established by Congress in the most recent transportation bill, SAFETEA-LU. It sounded promising. Congress charged the commission with studying our current system of funding transportation and identifying short- and long-term solutions to the growing gap between demand for investment and available resources. Interest in its work grew with new warnings of shortfalls in the federal transportation trust fund, the Interstate 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis, and early discussions on the shape of the next transportation bill in 2009. Most in the media and on Capitol Hill focused their attention on the report's call for a 25 cent to 40 cent boost over the next five to eight years in the gas tax, which funds federal highway and transit programs. But the bigger news was the commission's frank acknowledgement that the current system is broken. As the report noted, the issue isn't just funding. It is how we make investment decisions and craft a strong, efficient federal, state, and local partnership for transportation and other infrastructure decisions. The commission was exactly right in noting that we need "a new beginning," not just a "reauthorization."