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One in 9 bridges still “structurally deficient” as average age nears 50 years

One in nine of the bridges and overpasses American drivers cross each day is rated in poor enough condition that some could become dangerous or be closed without near-term repair, according to an updated analysis of federal data released today by Transportation for America.

New data and report: https://t4america.org/resources/bridges

Nearly 67,000 of the nation’s 605,000 bridges are rated “structurally deficient” and are in need of substantial repair or replacement, according to bridge inspections analyzed in The Fix We’re In For: The State of the Nation’s Bridges 2013. Nearly 8,000 are both structurally deficient and “fracture critical”, meaning they are designed with no redundancy in their key structural components, so that if one fails the bridge could collapse. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that the backlog of troubled bridges would cost $76 billion to eliminate.

The report ranks states and the District of Columbia in terms of the overall condition of the their bridges, with one having the largest share of deficient bridges, 51 the lowest. Twenty-one states have a higher percentage of deficient bridges than the national average of 11 percent. The five states with the worst bridge conditions have a share over 20 percent: Pennsylvania has the largest share of deteriorating bridges (24.5%), followed by Oklahoma (22.0%), Iowa (21.7%), Rhode Island (21.6%), and South Dakota (20.3%).

At the other end of the spectrum, five states have less than 5 percent of their bridges rated structurally deficient: Nevada and Florida lead the rankings with 2.2%, followed by Texas (2.6%), Arizona (3.2%), and Utah (4.3%).

“With the collapse of the I-5 bridge in Washington state last month, coming just six years after an interstate collapse in Minnesota, Americans are acutely aware of the critical need to invest in our bridges as our system shows its age,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America. “Today, though, there more deficient bridges in our 100 largest metropolitan areas than there are McDonald’s locations nationwide.” Put another way, laid end to end, all the deficient bridges would span from Washington, DC to Denver, Colorado or from Tijuana, Mexico to Seattle — more than 1500 miles.

The need is growing rapidly, the report notes: While most bridges are designed to last 50 years before major overhaul or replacement, American bridges average 43 years old. Age is a major factor in bridge conditions. Roughly half of the structurally deficient bridges are 65 or older. Today there are nearly 107,000 bridges 65 or older, and in just 10 years, one in four will be over 65.

Congress has repeatedly declared the condition and safety of our bridges to be of national significance. However, the money to fix them is getting harder to come by with declining gas tax revenues and a fiscal squeeze at all levels of government. At the same time, Congress made the prospects for bridges even more uncertain last year by eliminating a dedicated fund for them in its update of the federal transportation program. The new law also reduces access to funds for 90 percent of structurally deficient bridges, most of which are owned by cash-strapped local governments.

We’ll have much more later today, but don’t miss the new data, new report, new interactive map and infographic over at the home for the bridge report.

Recognizing the Life and Service of Senator and Transportation Advocate Frank Lautenberg

On the news of Senator Frank Lautenberg’s (D-NJ) passing this morning, Transportation for America director James Corless released the following statement.

Our condolences go out to the family, friends and colleagues of Senator Frank Lautenberg as they mourn the loss of a man who had served his country in almost every way possible, from humble beginnings in Paterson, New Jersey, to brave service in World War II, to decades as a businessman, and to almost 30 years of service in the United States Senate.

From his tireless advocacy for our nation’s passenger rail system, to safety and comfort for travelers on planes, trains and automobiles, and his recent work as a champion for a more performance-based multimodal transportation system, Senator Lautenberg’s impact on transportation policy is hard to overstate.

In the last transportation reauthorization discussions, he was the strongest voice for creating a holistic national freight policy to ensure that ports and freight systems can make multimodal investments to move goods more efficiently. And before the last transportation law ever expired, he began promoting performance measures and stronger accountability in the new law as a way to ensure that billions of transportation dollars would be well spent and result in a system that’s safer, cleaner, and more efficient. Portions of his freight policies were incorporated into MAP-21 last summer, a bill that also began the transition toward a performance-based 21^st century transportation system.

Whether riding an Amtrak train or enjoying a smoke-free trip on an airplane, just to name a few, millions of Americans enjoy the fruit of his service. He will be missed, but his legacy as an advocate for a multimodal transportation system that works to better move goods and people is secure.

About those 66,000+ deficient bridges: What did last summer’s transportation law change?

With the second collapse of an Interstate bridge in six years, Americans might expect Congress to leap into action to ensure adequate funding for bridge rehab and replacement. But as we have reminded numerous reporters since an I-5 bridge dropped into Washington’s Skagit River, federal lawmakers took a gamble and eliminated the nation’s dedicated bridge fund last summer.

I-5 photo by the Washington DOT on Flickr.

The bridge fund came into being in 1991, and especially in the first decade afterward, the country made enormous progress repairing deficient bridges. But that progress had slowed to a trickle when Congress took up the transportation funding bill, MAP-21, last summer.

With the I-35W collapse fresh in our minds and progress on repairing deficient bridges slowing, many assumed Congress would think about ways to make bridge repair more of a priority.

Not quite.

Instead, they took a gamble, eliminating the dedicated repair fund so that states could “set their own priorities,” as long as they promised to set targets for the repair of bridges on the National Highway System. That sounds great in principle, until you remember that competition for funds is growing rapidly, with no corresponding drop in the political pressure to build pet projects.

Though they won’t say it out loud, many DOT chiefs like a dedicated maintenance fund because it allows them to say “no” to projects they can’t afford, while helping to ensure existing facilities stay safe and functional. The changes in MAP-21 also don’t give similar attention to bridges not on the National Highway System – 90 percent of all bridges in need of repair – more on this below.

T4America has been a strong advocate of measuring performance against clear targets and goals. But for something as critical as bridge maintenance, there needed to be a well-considered transition period to understand how the new performance management system works, and establish clear targets and guaranteed enforcement mechanisms.

Instead, Congress scrapped the existing bridge repair program and directed USDOT to work with states to cooperate on setting measurable targets for things like bridge condition — but without significant penalties for failure. And considering that MAP-21 is only a two-year bill, states won’t be reporting on these measures until after this bill has already expired.

The second big change made last summer will force state and local communities into painful choices about priorities.

Before MAP-21, all 600,000+ highway bridges were eligible to receive funding for repair under that dedicated bridge repair program.

From the biggest interstate bridge down to that crucial bridge that connects your town across the river to another nearby town, all 66,500-plus deficient bridges could get the dollars dedicated for bridge repair.

Under MAP-21, Congress decided to focus the former bridge repair dollars almost exclusively on a narrow set of roadways known as the National Highway System (NHS). Think of the NHS as the interstates, state highways and most major four-lane and larger highways. The bridges on these roads are our most heavily traveled, no doubt, but they represent only about 10 percent of all structurally deficient bridges.

The other 90 percent will now have to compete with all of the other transportation needs in your community for the flexible funding that can be used on almost anything. And all of those needs will compete for less funding too, reduced from about 60 percent of all funding to 40 percent.

Bridge repair is added into the mix of choices along with regional transit investments, safe streets for all users, congestion relief, other transportation options, and other road repair — leaving communities with tough choices to make.

Bridges STP NHPP

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All this comes as our transportation network begins to show its age. At an average age of 43 years, the typical bridge is nearing the end of its 50-year design life, and many thousands are far older than that. Structurally deficient bridges are more than 20 years older on average.

The federal government should be all about making sure that bridges are being systematically upgraded, repaired or replaced. And in the wake of a calamity like the closure of a key commercial corridor, we Americans ought to be all about letting Congress know we’re willing to pay for a safe and secure transportation network, and making lawmakers pay at the ballot box if they won’t deliver it.

Bridge collapse in Washington captures national attention

Unsurprisingly, the sudden collapse of the 58-year-old Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River in Washington state last Thursday night captured the attention of the country and virtually all major national news outlets. Just like in the days after the Minnesapolis I-35W bridge collapse — though mercifully no one died in this incident — reporters scrambled to understand the issue of bridge condition and asked the same question: “how could this happen, and could it happen again somewhere else tomorrow?”

T4 communications director David Goldberg was on site in Washington and did several interviews on television from the bank of the Skagit River to talk about America’s aging bridges and the 66,000-plus that are structurally deficient across the country.

CNN’s Jake Tapper took up the issue head-on with a live interview on The Lead Friday evening (ignore the Arrested Development video thumbnail…):

TAPPER: The American Society of Civil Engineers gave a C-plus to the 600,000 bridges in the U.S.; 11 percent of them are considered structurally deficient. How worried should Americans be when they drive across bridges?

GOLDBERG: Well, the worry is not so much that they will collapse like this with a lot of frequency, but the problem is that the system is aging and it’s aging pretty rapidly. The typical bridge out there was designed to last 50 years and the average age is 44.

And if you look at the bridges that are structurally deficient, the one in 10 bridges that are rated as structurally deficient, something like the typical age of those is 65 years. And that’s going to be — we’re going to have 65-year-old bridges coming every year from now — now on, because we have been building them like mad since the 1950s. And we frankly haven’t been keeping up with them like we should.

TAPPER: And, David, what should the government be doing that in your view they are not doing enough?

GOLDBERG: Well, there’s a couple things that have happened in recent years that Congress in particular needs to pay attention to, because it’s federal money that pays for the big bridges like this across the country.

And they are the ones that stand to hurt us the most if they fall or if we have to close them. And one thing is that we have to recognize the gas tax receipts are going down. We’re getting more fuel- efficient cars and people are driving less, so we have to figure out a way to replace a lot of that money.

And the other thing that has happened in the last year or so is that Congress actually eliminated the fund that was dedicated to bridge repair and sort of said to states, well, you know, you just decide whether they should be fixed or not. But the problem is we have got political pressure to build a lot of the new projects, which competes with that repair money.

So you get situations like this where bridges should have been replaced. They’re not going to be unless we have a dedicated fund.

TAPPER: So, it sounds like you’re saying that the people who make these decisions need to be a little bit more focused on rebuilding and restrengthening things that already exist, as opposed to pursuing new projects?

GOLDBERG: Well, we certainly need to fix things before we build the new stuff that we can’t afford to maintain. So, we have got to get the money together to fix the things and we have got to make it a priority to fix them, because this can’t happen in America.

And NBC Nightly News also led off their Friday evening coverage with the bridge collapse story.

Have you seen another interesting story on the bridge collapse and what it means for transportation policy in your state or nationally? Send it our way via email or in the comments below.

And in case you still haven’t seen it yet, don’t miss our interactive map (and 2011 report) that allows you to search by address and see the status of all bridges around any U.S. address, with inspection data and sufficiency ratings. We’re hoping to update the map and the report in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

Tragic bridge collapse in Washington highlights urgent problem of aging and deficient US bridges

For Immediate Release
Contact: Stephen Davis
202-955-5543 x242
202-569-8218
steve.davis@t4america.org

or David Goldberg
202-412-7930

Transportation for America issued the following statement following last night’s collapse of the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River near Mount Vernon, Washington.

“The shocking collapse of a busy Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River in Washington State highlights the issue of our country’s aging bridges and what we’re doing to address them. Thankfully, no one was killed or even seriously injured in this collapse, which could not be said about the last high profile bridge collapse in Minnesota.

Nationwide, more than one in ten bridges is rated structurally deficient, in need of close monitoring, urgent repairs, rehabilitation or replacement. We take more than 260 million trips over deficient bridges each day. In just our 102 largest metro areas alone, there are more deficient bridges than there are McDonald’s restaurants in the entire country, 18,000 versus 14,000.

While this particular bridge was not considered structurally deficient at the time of its collapse, it is one of thousands that are well past their intended lifespan and carrying far more traffic than intended at the time they were built. The typical bridge is 43 years old with a design life of 50 years.

Considering that progress on repairing deficient bridges has slowed in the last ten years, Congress took a major gamble in last summer’s new transportation law (MAP-21) by eliminating dedicated funding for repairing highway bridges. Now bridge repair is forced to compete with other transportation needs for funding.

At the same time, our chief source of repair dollars – the federal gas tax – is declining as Americans drive more fuel-efficient cars and fewer miles. Congress urgently needs to address both our funding priorities and how we will pay for them in the face of an aging system and growing population, before the next preventable bridge collapse strands commuters, cripples a local economy and claims lives.”

58-year-old bridge collapses in Washington State on west coast’s most major interstate

Shortly after the evening commute last night (around 7 p.m. local time) an entire section of the Interstate 5 bridge — both north and southbound lanes — over the Skagit River an hour north of Seattle, Washington collapsed and fell into the river, sending two cars tumbling down into the river, injuring three yet miraculously killing no one. One of those who plunged into the river along with his wife called it a “miracle” that no one was killed or more severely injured.

From the Seattle Times:

Rescuers pulled three people with minor injuries from the water after the collapse, which authorities say began when a semitruck with an oversized load struck a steel beam at around 7 p.m.

That caused a massive piece of the northern side of the bridge to wobble, and then fall into the water, taking with it a gold pickup, its travel trailer and an orange SUV.

Rescuers did not believe there was anybody else in the water but were planning a morning search to be sure.

Seattle Times photo by Dean Rutz. Link to gallery of images here.

Perhaps the most amazing part of this story is that on a bridge that carries more than 70,000 cars daily and at a time of day when traffic could be expected to be moderate at the least, only two vehicles fell into the yawning gap and into the water. Along with everyone else, we at T4 America are relieved that no one died in this tragic bridge collapse.

Just like several years ago in Minnesota, attention quickly turned to the bridge itself. So what do we know about it today?

The Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River actually predates the creation of Interstate 5. It was built to carry old US 99 over the river in 1955. When Interstate 5 was built in 1957, it largely followed the US 99 corridor and just like many other bridges, this bridge was folded into the interstate system, though it certainly wasn’t built to today’s interstate standards.

Because of that (and likely other design considerations), the bridge was considered “functionally obsolete” by state and federal inspectors, which is a designation that could mean any number of things, none of which have anything to do with structural safety. The lanes could be narrower than today’s standards, the weights allowed could be less than an interstate bridge built today, or built using materials that would be considered obsolete today.

However, the bridge was not considered “structurally deficient” at the time of collapse, which means that a bridge requires repair, rehabilitation or replacement, along with much more regular inspections. To be considered structurally deficient, one of the three major components of a bridge (deck, superstructure, substructure) has to score a 4 or below on a scale of 1-10.

The data in our interactive map is not the most recent release of federal data, but the ratings for this specific bridge have not changed in the federal National Bridge Inventory that was reported in early to mid 2012 by Washington State. WSDOT likely inspected the bridge again sometime in 2012 after they reported annual bridge data to the federal government, and WSDOT is saying publicly today that the bridge was not structurally deficient and was still only considered functionally obsolete.

Here’s the snapshot from our interactive map of U.S. bridges, which you can use to look up the condition of the bridges near any U.S. address.

(Amazingly, you can see that Google Maps has already updated their map to show that Interstate 5 no longer crosses the Skagit River.)

On a list of structurally deficient bridges in Washington compiled by WSDOT in September 2011, this bridge is not included, though there is at least one other nearby Interstate 5 bridge in Snohomish County that is included, built in 1933. (It’s scheduled for repair, per WSDOT.)

It’s hard to accurately describe how crucial this interstate connection is. I-5 runs from Canada to Mexico within the U.S. and touches almost every single major city on the west coast. It’s a vital corridor not only commuters but also for freight traffic — 12 percent of the daily traffic on this bridge was truck traffic. And this is the main route from Seattle up to Vancouver, certainly a direction that many Seattle region residents might have been planning to travel for the long holiday weekend starting this afternoon.

Those plans are surely on hold, and the ripple effect for freight and other travel up and down the west coast will be felt for some time to come as Washington authorities decide how to handle this painful gap in their transportation network.

We will be back later this morning with a short statement, and follow us along on twitter at @t4america for other news and developments.

PS, here’s the cover of the Seattle Times this morning.

Seattle Times bridge collapse cover

Update: this post incorrectly said the bridge 63 years old at first publication. That has been corrected.

What happens when driving rates continue to drop?

Anyone who follows this blog, or transportation discussions in general, is well aware that the miles driven per American has been dropping in recent years and that the millennial generation (16-34) is leading the charge. Indeed, the typical American drives less today than at the end of Bill Clinton’s first term.

But how likely is that trend to hold in the future? And if it does, what does that say about what we should be building, and how we will pay for it, if not with the gas taxes raised from driving? A report out today from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group seeks to answer the first question, and to fuel a conversation about the second.

None of the likely scenarios sees miles of driving returning to the heights of previous trends.

None of the likely scenarios sees miles of driving returning to the heights of previous trends.

The short answer to Question 1: No plausible scenario sees per capita driving rates continuing their formerly inexorable climb, and all fall well below current government projections. And no, the authors do not assume that we are entering permanent economic recession, because the underlying are likely to trends persist whatever the strength of the economy:

Millennials. Americans under 35 drive nearly one-fourth less now than those who where the same age a decade ago. There are myriad likely reasons: The cost of car ownership, their tendency to live in more urban locales, reduced employment rates during the recession, etc. But the authors site many reasons why their driving rates may remain lower than previous generations, even during child-bearing years.

Baby boomers. The post-war generation drove workforce participation rates to unheard of levels, and now those workers are nearing the end of their commuting years. And while self-driving cars might allow granny to keep motoring, they will not replace those commute trips.

Technology. We already know the Internet allows work-from-anywhere and online shopping, replacing trips for those purposes. But now mobile tech makes riding transit far more accessible, and enables transit use to be complemented by a burgeoning array of options: Zipcar, Car2Go, bike share, Lyft, Scoot, etc.

Vehicle operating costs. The era of dirt cheap motoring really does seem to have come to a close. It’s not just gas prices, which have helped fuel much of the recent shift; they’ll stay high for a while. But more and more tolls are coming into our lives, parking is astronomical, insurance is usurious. As long as options are available and cheap, a lot of households will own one car rather than two, and leave the one they have parked, until they decide they don’t need it.

[See how these trends are playing out in Charlotte in the NY Times’ excellent piece on 1A of today’s edition.]

Based on these and other factors, authors Phineas Baxandall and Tony Dutzik ran three scenarios for the future. None assumed a wholesale continuation of the depressed driving rates among millennials; all forecast younger folks to drive more in the child-rearing years. Still, none of the scenarios approached a return to the yearly mileage growth of the previous 60 years, and all fall below current government projections.

What does this mean for the future of our transportation programs? A lot less money, for one thing, unless we change our dependence on the gas tax:

Coupled with improvements in fuel efficiency, reduced driving means Americans will use about half as much gasoline and other fuels in 2040 than they use today, making the real value of gas taxes fall as much as 74 percent.

Indeed, we are already seeing the impact of that fall-off. The tightening revenue suggests, first, that we should make sure we are setting aside existing dollars to ensure the good repair of our existing system. Second, we should review projects in the pipeline that assume escalating rates of driving. Third, we should help the metropolitan regions and mid-sized cities – our economic production zones – that are trying to give their citizens more reliable and affordable options. All of this suggests that we need shift to a mix of revenue sources to build a unified transportation fund that can cover all our infrastructure needs. You’ll be seeing a lot more from us on those ideas in the weeks and months to come.

Reaction to President Obama’s nomination of Mayor Anthony Foxx as U.S. DOT Secretary

Responding to President Obama’s nomination of Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Transportation for America Director James Corless issued this statement:

“Transportation for America congratulates Mayor Foxx on his nomination as transportation secretary. We are delighted to see a mayor of one of our up-and-coming economic centers selected to provide national leadership on implementing the provisions of MAP-21 and laying the groundwork for what we hope will be a rejuvenated national program. As a metropolitan region in the booming Sun Belt, Charlotte has become a leader in embracing transportation innovations and high-quality public transportation as key building blocks of a prosperous economy.

The long recession and related budget woes, along with the trend of flattening gas tax receipts, have left states and localities struggling to meet the needs of a growing and diversifying population. As the elected head of a major city, Mayor Foxx is more likely than most to understand the issues facing localities and states. We wish him success during the confirmation process.”

NPR: 19 states (and counting) creating plans to raise more transportation dollars

More than a third of all U.S. states have plans of some sort to raise new money for transportation to help cover yawning budget shortfalls and keep up with maintenance and new construction of their state transportation networks.

NPR picked up the story this week that we’ve been following very closely and spent some time talking to T4 America director James Corless about the growing trend of states stepping out on their own to raise their own money for transportation to augment the federal funding that did not increase with the last transportation bill.

One major reason federal transportation funding did not increase is that “cars are getting more efficient, and people are actually driving less,” James Corless told NPR. “So that has conspired really to put less revenues into these state and federal funds — trust funds out of the gasoline tax. So purchasing power is declining, and so states are getting creative,” he said.

Listen:

From the story:

According to figures released by Transportation for America, which advocates for modernizing the nation’s infrastructure, 19 states have approved or are considering legislation to increase transportation funding.

One creative approach was taken by Virginia, which actually eliminated its gas tax while raising sales taxes and imposing a tax on wholesale fuel. The state is also allowing the congested Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads areas to raise their own tax revenue.

Republican William Howell, the speaker of the Virginia House, helped broker the deal. “It was a true compromise,” he says. “As with most any compromise, no one’s 100 percent happy with every feature of it. There are some things that I’m not crazy about. I’m sure there’s some features that other people don’t relish. But we had to do it.”

Though a third of all states do have some sort of proposal in the works, they’re all certainly not created equal. Ohio is looking to borrow more than a billion dollars against future turnpike revenues to build yet more roads. Gov. Walker in Wisconsin wants to borrow $1.2 billion and repay it with dwindling trust fund dollars and general tax revenue. A bill in Indiana would allow Indianpolis counties to tax themselves and invest that money in transit. Massachusetts has a plan to raise as much as a billion dollars a year for multimodal needs, including budget relief for their amazingly indebted transit agency.

Want to learn more and see what your state is planning, if anything?

Visit our home for state plans here.

Tracking state transportation funding plans

Maryland State Route 200 CC Flickr photo by Dougtone With MAP-21 signed into law last summer, attention has shifted from Washington out to the states.

In many cases, states have looked at the bottom line in MAP-21 and are deciding that they need more money for transportation and are embarking on ambitious and often groundbreaking plans to raise additional revenues for transportation.

Visit the home for state plans here, where we’re tracking all of the proposed (and enacted) plans in one easy, simple chart. If you see something we’ve gotten wrong or a state we should add, drop us a line and let us know.

And don’t miss our series of posts examining the plans and debates in a few key states.

Senate budget lays the groundwork for fairer, increased transportation funding

We’ve previously written about how Amtrak passenger rail, new public transit construction and the innovative TIGER program just had their budgets slashed in sequestration at a rate five times higher than traditional highway programs. That was due to the fact that those programs generally get their money from the general fund, and highways are funded through a protected trust fund. (Read that linked post for the details.)

There’s no way to prevent those cuts this year, but the Senate’s new budget for the next ten years — the first they’ve approved in years — lays the groundwork to create dedicated funding for transit, passenger rail and the innovative competitive TIGER projects, as well as generating new revenues for transportation.

Tucson Streetcar rendering
The Tucson, Arizona streetcar is being funded both by a TIGER grant and New Starts money

Can you take a minute to thank the Senate for recognizing the importance of 21st century transportation investments and urge Congress to build on this budget and find new revenues for transportation while protecting these important programs?

At a time when transportation funds aren’t keeping pace with what we need to maintain AND build, the Senate’s bold plan could very well become the foundation to raise new money for transportation and create dedicated revenues for programs that help give us new options for how to get around.

Sequestration disproportionately cut the very programs that do the most to provide all of us with more ways to get around — new streetcars or bus rapid transit lines, competitive TIGER grants for innovative projects all over the country, and passenger rail that’s continuing to break ridership records.

The Senate’s plan could be the beginning of a new unified trust fund or a tax reform plan that raises new money for transportation — which could help protect these programs from these kinds of disproportionate cuts they just received.

So let’s make sure that the Senate and the House know that we need to both increase investments in transportation and protect the money that gives us more options for how to get around.

Take action today.

Ambitious Maryland plan moves forward to index gas tax, add sales tax for transportation

When Maryland’s Intercounty Connector (ICC) highway opened in 2011, it did more than create a new east-west toll road between I-270 and I-95 in the northern suburbs of Washington, DC: It also severely hampered Maryland’s ability to build other large-scale transportation projects for years to come. But now there’s significant momentum to raise new state revenues for transportation to ensure that the state won’t have to shelve their plans for a 21st century transportation system.

Update 4/3/12: The Senate passed the House bill (HB515) last Friday, heading to Gov. O’Malley for his signature. The separate “lockbox” bill will require a conference to reconcile the differences in House and Senate versions.

With MAP-21 out the door, attention has shifted from Washington to the states. In many cases, states are deciding that they need more money for transportation and are embarking on ambitious and often groundbreaking plans to raise additional revenues for transportation. This post is part of a longer series we’ll be doing in 2013 examining how states are addressing the need for more transportation dollars, along with key policy changes. Visit the home for state plans here, where we’re tracking all of the news. – Ed.

While half of the ICC’s almost $2.6 billion cost was paid for with future tolls that don’t really impact the state’s transportation budget year to year, the other half ($1.3 billion) was covered by sources that have huge impacts on Maryland’s ability to build any other significant large transit or road projects.

The state spent $265 million in general funds and though the $180 million from the state’s Transportation Trust Fund represents only about 10 percent of what the state gas tax and vehicle fees bring in each year, Maryland is also devoting $750 million in future federal funds they haven’t yet received to the project — or almost 130 percent of what the state receives from the feds each year for all of their state highway needs. ($580 million in FY12.)

That means that a large share of Maryland’s future federal transportation dollars under MAP-21 — which itself represents a loss in real dollars over previous transportation bills — are already spoken for by this mammoth project.

The ICC under construction in 2011, Creative Commons Flickr photo by Dougtone.

Even without building the ICC, like a lot of states, Maryland would certainly have to make some tough decisions. But with it, it’s easy to understand how state and independent analysts have been saying that by 2018, Maryland will only have enough money to cover maintenance and repair, making it nearly impossible to fund any new highway projects or any of the long-awaited and much needed public transportation projects, including the new Red Line subway in Baltimore, the Purple Line rail link for Metro and the innovative Corridor Cities Transitway rapid bus line in the DC region.

Get Maryland Moving, a new coalition of advocates of all stripes from across the state, coalesced around the urgent need to keep these worthy projects (and many others) from being relegated to a perpetual “wouldn’t that be nice” wish list, providing Marylanders with other options for getting around, and ensuring that Maryland doesn’t have to cease all investment in their transportation network.

Since the (state) gas tax was set at its current level of 23.5¢ in 1992, construction costs have doubled, according to this report from the CA DOT. Simply put, just like the federal gas tax that was last increased in 1993, inflation has far outpaced the value of the gas tax, and with Americans driving fewer and fewer miles each year in more fuel efficient vehicles, they each bring in less revenue.

A rally in Annapolis at the State House organized by Get Maryland Moving in March 2013.

Urged along by the diverse Get Maryland Moving coalition, the current proposal started from a plan put forward by Governor Martin O’Malley, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, though it has been modified as it has moved through the state legislature. The House passed the bill (HB1515) just last week, and the Senate is due to debate and vote on it soon.

You can view the Governor’s initial plan on our page of state transportation funding plans, but here is the deal as it currently stands in the Maryland legislature. The plan would:

Index the gas tax to inflation starting immediately (with a ceiling of 5 cents maximum increase in any given year.)
Add a three percent sales tax at the gasoline pump, phasing that in over a period of three years starting this summer.
There are other provisions that could change the sales tax rate on gasoline that have to do with internet sales tax. In short, if Congress allows states to tax internet sales, Maryland will devote that revenue to transportation. If not, they’ll raise the sales tax on gas to five percent.-=
Raise $4.4 billion for transportation over six years (including the ability to borrow against increased future revenues.)

A popular argument against the tax has been the supposed increase that residents will see at the pump — 13-20 cents per gallon as reported by state analysts and trumpeted loudly above the fold by the Washington Post and other outlets. But gas prices fluctuate wildly even within submarkets — many places may see gas prices go up by 20 cents a gallon in just a few weeks at certain times of year.

Along those lines, the Get Maryland Moving coalition visited a bunch of Maryland gas stations on one particular day to show the wild variety in prices, sometimes at locations within sight of one another, and produced this terrific graphic.

The Get Maryland Moving coalition consists of some of T4 America’s core local partners in the region as well as strong representation from local elected officials and business groups that don’t want to see Maryland drop the ball on projects like the Purple Line that would create a vital (and decades overdue, many would argue) east-west transit connection in the region that would also eliminate long rides through the core of the Metro system to reach the opposite end of the Red line.

Most of the leaders of the suburban counties in the DC metro region have been strong advocates for the plan in the legislature. From The Washington Post:

“This is a big problem, and we need a big solution,” Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) testified at a hearing of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee. “My view is go big or go home.”

Leggett appeared on the same panel with Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D). All three praised a bill introduced by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) but said they remain open to alternative methods to raise more money for transportation.

The moment of truth is coming soon for Maryland’s transportation future. The 90-day legislative session ends in just a few weeks in early April.

The impacts of sequestration: comparing 2012 to 2013

If your head is spinning from trying to figure out what sequestration, the “continuing budget resolution,” and the myriad proposed budgets have on transportation funding, this simple chart is for you.

This helpful chart shows the notable recent spending plans and compares each of them to what was spent on transportation in 2012, for the key programs that we care about.

There’s still a lot there, so let’s break down what’s there and simplify it. The first column shows what was approved for spending in 2012. These appropriations bills were passed before MAP-21 passed last summer, so 2012 mostly represents the levels authorized by SAFETEA-LU. This is the baseline we’re using for comparing to the 2013 spending.

The second column is the 2013 budget proposed by the Senate in the last (112th) Congress.

The third column is the spending levels established by MAP-21. Keep in mind that the standing transportation law just “authorizes” funding levels — the money still has to be “appropriated” each year. But typically, appropriators follow the levels laid out within the current transportation law for the most part.

The fourth column is the important one to pay attention to, because this is where all the cuts that are part of “sequestration” have been made. This is the “continuing budget resolution” that the Senate and then the House passed in just the last few weeks. A CR, as its known, just extends spending authority ahead through a certain amount of time — usually when Congress can’t agree to write a proper new annual budget before the current one expires. It’s a stopgap measure. A CR usually keeps funding at the same level and almost never changes policy, but in this case, there are cuts in the CR, and most of these are due to sequestration, which required cuts to all discretionary funding.

The last column shows the difference between the funding for transportation in 2012 vs 2013, comparing the first column with the fourth. Hopefully this provides some clarity for a confusing issue.

Would you like to download this chart as a sharable PDF? Find that here.

Program	2012 funding levels	Senate's draft 2013 proposal (112th Congress)	MAP-21 authorized	2013 CR (implements sequestration)	Difference: 2013 v. 2012 funding levels
Federal-Aid Highways	$39.1B	$39.1B	$39.7BB	$39.7B	$600M
Transit Formula Grants	$8.36B	$8.36B	$8.5B	$8.5B	$10M
Transit Capital Grants (New Starts)	$1.955B	$2B	$1.9B	$1.86B	—$95M
High Speed Rail/High Performance Passenger Rail	$0 (HSR)	$100M from PRIIA	PRIIA has jurisidction	$0	$0
Amtrak Capital*	$952M	$1.05B	PRIIA has jurisidction	$904M	—$48M
Amtrak Operating*	$466M	$400M	PRIIA has jurisidction	$442.5M	—$23.5M
TIGER	$500M	$500M	Not authorized	$475M	—$25M
Partnership for Sustainable Communities Grants	$0	$50M		$0	$0
Projects of National and Regional Significance (PNRS)	Did not exist – created under MAP-21		$500M	$0	$0 (or —$500M from MAP-21)
Hurricane Sandy FTA Emergency Transit Funding	$10.9B			$10.35B	—$545M
Hurricane Sandy Amtrak Emergency Funds	$118M			$112M	—$6M
Hurricane Sandy FHWA Emergency Highway Funds	$2B			$1.9B	—$100M

A state with one of the oldest transportation systems tries to make things new — new state series

It’s a state that boasts the first active subway line and a network of turnpikes that predated the Interstates, so it shouldn’t surprise you that Massachusetts has some of the oldest infrastructure in the country.

Though Massachusetts’ bridges are middle of the pack in deficiency nationally, they’re beyond middle age (an average of 56-plus years) and many of its busy subways, bus lines and commuter trains – and the roads, bridges and tunnels that carry them — are starting to fall apart after decades of heavy use. Saddled with debt from the Big Dig (among other things) and chronically underfunded after years of budget cuts, Massachusetts leaders and advocates are trying to reform their transportation agencies while raising new money to bring an aging system into the 21st century.

With MAP-21 out the door, attention has shifted from Washington to the states. In many cases, states are deciding that they need more money for transportation and are embarking on ambitious and often groundbreaking plans to raise additional revenues for transportation. This post is part of a longer series we’ll be doing in 2013 looking at how states are addressing the need for more transportation dollars, along with key policy changes. Visit the home for state plans here, where we’re tracking all of the news. – Ed.

These aging systems in Massachusetts combined with years of lacking the needed money for maintenance has left things in perilous shape and makes for unreliable service on the roads and rails— along with unsustainable levels of debt that force MassDOT to use their capital funds (intended for construction, expansion, new trains, etc.) just to keep the system operating day-to-day.

Here’s one crazy fact for you: 100% of MBTA (The “T”) fare revenues go to paying down debt, because Big Dig-related debt largely ended up on the MBTA books.

While a significant 2009 reform merged the Bay State’s myriad of transportation agencies into one MassDOT, the revenue question was left unanswered. Reform did indeed result in some savings, however the funding gap identified by numerous Blue Ribbon Commissions and nonpartisan think tanks has remained and indeed expanded in the past four years.

A big source of the problem is that thanks to generations of budget cuts, a painful recession at a terrible time and rising expenses (like healthcare), the state has been paying for everything with bonds and other non-sustainable sources (read: debt.) A couple of winters of failing commuter trains, unreliable bus lines and overcrowded subway cars has helped convinced the public that the system is falling apart.

The state recently tallied up — confirmed by other independent sources — that they need about an extra $1 billion a year to bring the system into a state of good repair, fully fund operations and address some critical “expansion” projects.

But enough about the past, what’s the plan going forward?

Paraphrasing our partners at the T4 Massachusetts coalition, how will Massachusetts raise enough money from sustainable sources to fully fund the systems’ operations and invest in its future, spent in a transparent manner that helps increase access to transportation choices across the whole state, supports the economy and reduces greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector?

Gov. Deval Patrick introduced a plan that addresses some of the issues through dedicated sales tax revenue with some very progressive elements. His plan would:

Lower the sales tax rate from 6.25% to 4.5%, but deposit it all to an infrastructure fund for multiple things, including transportation. This alone will reduce revenues by $1.1 billion, but…
Index the gas tax to inflation to bring in an additional $13 million in 2014, and up to $118 million more by 2021. (The state gas tax hasn’t been raised since 1991 and was never adjusted for inflation, so it’s actually at its lowest level since the introduction of the tax.)
Increase vehicle fees by 10% every five years beginning in FY16
Increase tolls by 5% every two years beginning in FY15
Raise state income tax from 5.25% to 6.25% with changes to exemptions to raise $2.8 billion.
Increase MBTA transit fares 5% every two years.
Unlike some other states, the new money raised is expressly intended for multimodal projects. There’s no restriction on spending money on transit.

There’s a statewide pilot program for a vehicle-miles-traveled tax, a proposal to pay down Big Dig debt with other funds (freeing up transit money for, you know, transit), and the Transportation Investment Act, which would help guide how money gets spent in the state. This act, supported by a broad cross section of business, community and environmental groups and backed by the T4MA coalition, would send money to Regional Transit Agencies across the state, invest in low income communities, and enable DOT to comply with the states’ other obligations, like their “mode shift” plan to triple the share of travel in Massachusetts by bicycling, transit and walking. (Read Streestblog for more on that.)

The ball is currently in the Legislature’s court, but the clock is ticking.

A plan must be approved in time for the MBTA’s budget submission deadline around the corner in April or there will definitely be more fare hikes to keep the MBTA operating. The impact of that could be disastrous for lower-income commuters who depend on the “T”, a system that’s already experienced drastic fare hikes over the last 7-8 years.

America’s infrastructure improves slightly over 2009, still a failing grade

America’s civil engineers raised the grade given to our country’s infrastructure from four years ago, but unfortunately, it’s still a failing grade for America.

With the $3.3 trillion dollars needed by 2020 (according to ASCE) unlikely to arrive in this current climate of reduced budgets and austerity, is there a way forward that can make smarter decisions with the money we have and knock back our maintenance backlog while still investing in the 21st century infrastructure our country needs?

The latest edition of the every-four-years report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers gives America a “D”, up from the “D-minus” we received in 2009. Improvement is always good, but a failing grade is still unacceptable, like a baseball player who hits a homer in a game his team loses.

“While our country’s association of civil engineers continues to do the yeoman’s work of sounding the alarm on our country’s infrastructure,” said T4 America director James Corless this morning, “it’s a sad reality that little has changed since the last Report Card in 2009.”

The truth is that few should be surprised at the state of things when they log on to the fantastic new ASCE interactive report card app (available on the web as well as for Android, iPhone and tablets) and sift through the national and state data.

Few would be surprised, because has anything here in Washington changed to drastically improve the condition of our roads, bridges and transit systems? Last summer, Congress finally passed a replacement to the transportation bill that expired just a few months after the last ASCE report card was issued — in 2009. Though a definite sign of progress in some areas, the new law provided no new dollars for transportation in the two years to come. The program dedicated to repairing our country’s 69,000 structurally deficient bridges was eliminated after making steady progress on reducing the backlog over the last 20 years.

Beyond the federal bill, which only represents about a quarter of all transportation spending, state and local revenues in many places are falling rapidly (MAP-21 held federal funding level at least) leading many Governors and state legislatures to float alternate plans for raising for revenue to make needed repairs and build anew.

While we certainly believe we need to increase the amount of money that we spend on infrastructure (especially transportation), simply increasing the amount of money is no panacea — ASCE is certainly right that we need to change how the money is spent — it’s not enough to pour more money into a cup with a hole in the bottom.

ASCE has some encouraging recommendations in this year’s report card moving the discussion in the direction of smarter, more transparent spending on infrastructure. We do need more leadership, more transparency, and a “focus on sustainability and resilience,” as they say in their recommendations. And we can no longer ignore growth patterns and things like a housing-jobs mismatch when making transportation decisions, affirmed by ASCE’s insistence that “infrastructure plans should be synchronized with regional land use planning.”

Some states aren’t waiting for billions that are unlikely to come and are already far ahead of the curve, thinking about ways to make their dollars do more. Like Massachusetts, where the DOT director issued a goal of tripling the number of trips taken by foot, bike and public transportation — reducing the load on roads and bridges that are among the oldest in the country. Or Tennessee, where the state DOT has taken a long look at their list of their proposed projects to see if they’re really necessary at a time when funding is dwindling, resources are scarce, and residents are looking for options to sitting in traffic.

Pushed between a rock and a hard place with forced austerity through reduced budgets yet being asked to do more with less, it’s time for a different approach.

With $1.7 trillion in needs by 2020 for surface transportation identified by ASCE and MAP-21 funding levels only due to bring in about $400 billion in that same time period, it begs the question: Who’s going to pay the difference? While ASCE avoids the question specifically, they do assert, much as we do, that there will continue to be an important role for the feds in planning and paying for infrastructure. “Federal investment must be used to complement, encourage, and leverage investment from the state and local government levels as well as from the private sector,” the report says. But it doesn’t stop there. “In addition, users of the infrastructure must be willing to pay the appropriate price for their use.”

Will we be willing to pay for what we need? Or do too many people think that we need to make the spending smarter before we make it bigger? However you answer, there’s not really an option other than smarter spending for the next two years, because MAP-21 didn’t provide any new money to states.

Yet MAP-21’s expiration is already on the horizon and the Highway Trust Fund is still headed towards its own fiscal cliff. The Senate budget resolution and the President have both suggested big increases in transportation spending. But where will the money come from? Despite key questions about where that revenue would come from, the simple fact that the 113^th session of Congress has started with a number of proposals to increase investment in infrastructure, along with supportive comments from new House Transportation Chair Bill Shuster, have given transportation advocates a reason to be hopeful.

“With the federal gas tax bringing in less money every year, strong leadership from Congress is needed now more than ever,” said T4’s James Corless.

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Some comparisons with 2009 at a glance:

Bridges improved from a C to C+
Rail improved from a C- to C+
Roads improved slightly from a D- to D
And transit was unchanged at a D

Little has changed with the latest edition of the report card on US infrastructure

On the release today of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Report Card on America’s Infrastructure, Transportation for America’s Director James Corless released the following statement:

“Our country’s association of civil engineers continues to do the yeoman’s work of sounding the alarm on our country’s infrastructure — the roads, rails and waterways that we depend on to move our goods from place to place and get us where we need to go each day. But it’s a sad reality that little has changed since the last Report Card in 2009, with America’s grade climbing only slightly from a D to a D+. Has anything in Washington changed to drastically improve the condition of our roads, bridges and transit systems in the four years since? Last summer, Congress finally passed a replacement to the transportation bill that expired a few months after the last ASCE report card was issued — in 2009. Though a definite sign of progress in some areas, the new law provided no new dollars for transportation in the two years to come. The program dedicated to repairing our country’s 69,000 structurally deficient bridges was eliminated after making steady progress on reducing the backlog over the last 20 years.

With the federal gas tax bringing in less money every year, strong leadership from Congress is needed now more than ever. We must invest more in fixing our aging 20^th century infrastructure, but as the civil engineers rightly point out we also need to be much smarter about how we approach our 21^st century transportation needs. We applaud ASCE’s recommendations that focus on innovation, resilience, and strong regional infrastructure plans, and urge Congress to build on these principles as they begin crafting the next federal transportation bill.

Unequal sequestration cuts show the need for a real transportation fund

If Congress can’t come to a deal to avoid automatic budget cuts March 1, some transportation programs will take a serious hit, while others will be protected. Here’s a rule of thumb: The more innovative and popular with local communities they are, the more likely they are to feel the blow.

Under so-called sequestration (see our post from September) the mandatory, across-the-board cuts of nearly 6 percent fall heaviest on the programs paid for out of the general fund, rather than from gas taxes. This includes grants for transit construction, over-subscribed TIGER grants, Amtrak dollars and other passenger rail project funding.

HTF General Fund Transfers

Gas tax receipts go into a Highway Trust Fund, and they are deemed off-limits to the cuts.*

But here’s the rub: As of the last few years, the HTF has been heavily subsidized by transfers from the general fund (see graphic at right.) You’ll recall that passing the two-year MAP-21 required a $19 billion infusion of general dollars to make up for declining gas tax revenues (on top of the $30+ billion from the three previous years).

There has been some debate over whether this general fund money deposited in the highway trust fund is subject to cuts or not. (Turns out it will be.) However, there has been no debate over cutting the multimodal programs mentioned above, because they are funded from accounts outside the trust fund.

So here’s our question: If transportation programs are important enough that most of the money is in a protected trust fund, shouldn’t all transportation dollars be part of that off-limits account?

The local communities doing the hard work of raising their share of funding should be able to depend on their federal dollars coming through, whether they are building a new highway bridge or creating a rail link to a job center. The workers depending on those jobs this year shouldn’t have to wait one, five, 10 years because of Congressional brinksmanship over the budget.

Transportation infrastructure is a fundamental function of the government. Our economy, our workers and our employers utterly depend on it. And they depend on a complete network, not just parts of it. If this latest fire drill is showing us anything, it is that Congress needs to get serious about creating a stable, comprehensive funding source for all our critical modes of transportation.

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* Wonky note: there are some cuts that would be made to the protected highway trust fund programs (a little over 1 percent of total funding) because of the transfer of general funds to keep the trust fund solvent for the two-year life of MAP-21. The formula transit programs would not face those cuts until FY14, since the transit account was still solvent in 2013 and didn’t require general funds in 2013 to keep afloat as did the highway account.

SOTU: President cites structurally deficient bridges in calling for “Fix It First” program

It did our hearts good to hear the President talk about creating a Fix-it-First program (where have we heard that before?) that will focus on the health of our infrastructure, such as the 70,000 structurally deficient bridges. As we’ve noted, there are more such bridges scattered around the country than there are McDonald’s, nearly one in ten bridges.

Transit systems, too, are suffering from decay after a long recession that saw budgets cut to the bone and beyond. Our ports and freight networks need help, too. So, again, we were very pleased to hear the announcement of a focus on the upkeep of our key transportation networks – helping to ensure repair of existing infrastructure remains a priority.

The President’s pledge to put people to working to “fix it first” was a great applause line and brought members of both parties to their feet. We look forward to learning more about the President’s proposal, and hope the applause can be translated into votes.

As the President said a well-maintained, multimodal transportation system will help improve America’s economic competitiveness. Business and Americans alike are demanding more travel options like high speed rail, better maintained bridges and transit systems, and more accountability. We hope that the politics in Congress have shifted enough to make increasing investment in balanced, 21^st century transportation system more palatable.

The President also had visionary language about reducing and shifting our use of energy, both for our economic development and for the sake of our climate:

“I propose we use some of our oil and gas revenues to fund an Energy Security Trust that will drive new research and technology to shift our cars and trucks off oil for good … and free our families and businesses from the painful spikes in gas prices we’ve put up with for far too long.”

This is certainly a more forward-looking policy than using those same revenues – from drilling on public lands – to promote still more driving of gas-burning vehicles. We understand that the President had a lot of ground to cover and could not get into the weeds on every topic. But we do hope that his willingness to mention these initiatives foreshadows an effort to put some flesh on these fundamentally sound bones.

Congestion rankings make news, but what do they really mean? Very little for most residents

The Texas Transportation Institute always garners a flurry of headlines with the release of the annual Urban Mobility Report and its Travel Time Index (TTI), which purports to rank metro areas by congestion. Oft-cited and interesting though they may be, however, the rankings don’t really say much about the lives of the people who live in those places.

That’s because the TTI is a theoretical construct that doesn’t fully reflect what we experience on a day-to-day basis. Its fixation on peak-hour speeds ignores the actual time and distance of most residents’ commutes.

As an example, consider the findings for Chicago and Atlanta, two metros that ranked close together in the report released this week, as they have in years in past. According to the 2012 Travel Time Index (pdf), they’re near the top with scores of 1.24 and 1.25 respectively, and tied for seventh in yearly delay per commuter.

The graphic below was created based on an earlier Urban Mobility Report, from 2009, but its key points are valid today. At the time Chicago was actually 23 percent worse than Atlanta according to the TTI. That must mean the commute for most Chicagoans was worse than for most Altantans, right? Well, actually … no.

In truth, Chicago commuters had an average travel time of almost twenty minutes less than their counterparts in Atlanta. In Chicago, the average peak period travel time is 35.6 minutes – 38 percent less than the 57.4 minutes in Atlanta. A major reason for the better highway performance in Chicago is that drivers do not have to travel as far as drivers in Atlanta – 13.5 miles compared with 21.6 miles.

Study that for a minute. Most Chicagoans live closer to work and spend less time getting there. Metro Atlanta residents spend much more time in the car. Yet the two are ranked similarly because the difference in traffic speed during peak hour versus off-peak (say, 3 a.m.) is similar in both places. Ultimately, the TTI doesn’t really care about overall quality of life for the majority of residents. It’s all about how fast you can drive at peak hour.

The Washington, D.C. and Denver metro areas are two that have seen their congestion rankings remain stubbornly high. In truth, though, both places have seen pay-off from actions that are expanding the share of homes in walkable neighborhoods with access to good public transportation and other options. As a result, commute distances are dropping. More people are living closer to work, more are walking, biking or taking transit to work. They are avoiding peak-hour traffic altogether – or spending less time driving because jobs and shopping is closer together. That’s making life better for them – they report enjoying their commutes more than freeway travelers – and it’s taking the pressure off the overcrowded freeways.

We’re not big fans of congestion. We think a lot of it could have been avoided with better planning and smarter development. But doing more of the same is not going to solve the problem. That’s why it’s so critically important that the performance measures being adopted by states and the feds under the new MAP-21 look beyond the blinkered TTI and delay measures for indicators of transportation success. How far do most people have to travel for work? How long does it take them? What is most effective at reducing the amount of time it takes to get places? Those are the kinds of metrics we need to use in order to find real solutions to help people spend less time in or stay out of those rush-hour traffic jams.

Rethinking the gas tax: Suddenly it’s the theme of 2013

Is the per-gallon gas tax going the way of the full-service filling station?

To look at the flurry of proposals coming out lately, you might think so. Since the start of the year, major new proposals from industry leaders, governors and state legislatures have sparked a new debate over the ways we collect revenue collection for transportation — at the federal, state and local levels.

Earlier this month, the outgoing head of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, John Horsley, proposed replacing the per-gallon federal tax with a sales tax on fuel. Although he didn’t specify a level, an AASHTO press release indicated it should be set “at a level that restores solvency” to the transportation trust fund, meaning it would have to take in at least $15 billion more a year just to keep spending at current levels. While some no doubt will deride it as a stealth tax increase, Horsley said, “The cost of the reform to taxpayers would be less than $1 per week, per vehicle.”

At the same time, 2013 already has seen several ambitious proposals for funding transportation outside of the excise tax on gas. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick in his state of the state address proposed raising his state’s income tax rate from 5.25 to 6.25 percent and lowering the sales tax from 6.25 percent to 4.5 percent, while earmarking sales tax revenue for infrastructure, with a significant share dedicated to public transportation. Patrick said those moves would raise $1.02 billion in new revenue per year on average for the next ten years – none of it from a per-gallon gas tax.

Last week came a report from Pennsylvania that Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is preparing to a release plan to add nearly $2 billion to the state’s transportation funding pot. Though the details are speculative pending a public unveiling next week, he has pledged that the money won’t come from an increase at the gas pump.

These proposals come on the heels of the month’s most controversial, headline-grabbing pitch from Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to scrap his state’s gas tax altogether. Instead, he would raise the state’s sales tax from 5 to 5.8 percent – ironically on everything but gasoline – while increasing vehicle-registration fees and adds an annual $100 charge for drivers of alternative-fuel cars. Those changes would raise an extra $3.1 billion over five years, he said.

At bottom, the recent move away from gas taxes as the go-to source of transportation funds is a nod to new realities: Their earning power is shrinking every year, and car-dependent voters will not stomach increases commensurate with their desire for a robust transportation network.

At the same time, both the highway lobby and environmentalists are seeing their long-held arguments undermined by experience. Environmentalists have contended that gas taxes should rise to slow consumption and speed the transition away from oil. The political reality is that gas taxes can’t be imposed in the U.S. in a way that changes behavior. Behavior now is changing, but for other reasons.

The highway lobby has spent years and millions making the case that gas taxes are “user fees” and are rightly devoted to roads. But with experts like DOT Secretary Ray LaHood predicting that nearly every vehicle will be a hybrid or electric a decade from now, most motorists will be paying little or no such “user fee” absent a major change.

That, of course, says nothing about meeting the needs of the vast majority of Americans who will be living in metro regions too crowded for one-person-per-car travel. State gas taxes certainly can’t meet those needs: 22 states have a constitutional prohibition against spending gas tax revenue on anything but roads, and eight states have similar statutory restrictions.

The reality today, though, is that gas taxes only cover half of the bill for building and maintaining our road network, and that ratio is dropping every year. At the local level, of course, nearly all road and transit costs are paid by sales, property or other non-fuel taxes.

While moving away from the gas taxes, all of the recent proposals — coming from Republicans in VA and PA or Democrats in MA, MN and MD – would amount to asking citizens to pay more for transportation infrastructure. That is something that polls show voters increasingly are willing to do when they understand what the money will be used for.

As we have said since the rollout of our “Blueprint” in 2009, we believe all options to increase funding for reinvesting in America’s infrastructure should be on the table. Back then, T4 proposed a variety of options including a 20 cent increase in the gas tax, converting the federal gas tax to a sales tax, or imposing a per-barrel fee on imported oil.

The gasoline tax has its merits, but given the lack of political will to raise it significantly, and the wide range of needs, it’s time to begin thinking of infrastructure as a basic government function that can, and should be, funded the full range of available revenue sources. Our global competitors, after all, have recognized this for quite some time, and are moving ahead of us in building a 21^st century infrastructure.