Posts Tagged "State Funding Series"
Passing Oregon’s transportation package was just the beginning of the hard work
Governor Kate Brown is conducting signing ceremonies in communities throughout Oregon this week to celebrate the passage of Oregon’s transportation package. While the governor, legislature and stakeholders are enjoying this victory lap on a big legislative effort, the hard work of implementing the bill is yet to come.
Utah makes a bipartisan move to increase state and local transportation funding to help meet the demands of high population growth
Earlier this spring Utah became the third state in 2015 to pass a comprehensive transportation funding bill, raising the state’s gas tax and tying it to inflation. Unlike most other states acting this year, Utah raised revenues to invest in a variety of modes and also provided individual counties with the ability to go to the ballot to seek a voter-approved sales tax to fund additional local transportation priorities.
Iowa was the first to successfully raise new state transportation funding in 2015 – and they did it with bipartisan support
Iowa in February became the first state in 2015 to pass a transportation-funding bill when legislators moved to raise the state’s gasoline and diesel taxes by 10 cents per gallon.
States continue to take action to solve transportation funding crises
This year started with a transportation bang for many states across the country. In the last few weeks, four states in particular have made major strides in funding transportation and infrastructure projects as gas prices continue to remain low.
Update on 17 states moving to raise money for transportation
From Washington to South Carolina, 17 state legislatures (and counting) are debating plans to raise new revenue for transportation after a decade in which their primary funding sources shrank and federal support became increasingly uncertain. See the current state of play in our freshly updated national roundup.
With GOP victories, SAFETEA-LU team in line to chair Senate committees
With last night’s election, both the Senate and House will see leadership changes in key transportation committees. With the nation’s transportation funding source running near empty and the current law, MAP-21, expiring in the spring, these new committee leaders will have an opportunity to make an impact in the very near term.
Important transportation ballot measures decided yesterday
Though there were some significant defeats for promising transportation-related ballot measures yesterday, they continue to be approved at very high rates and a few key wins carry some important impacts for years to come.
Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts follow the trend: voters support transportation revenue increases
As voters have been proving over and over during primary season this year, raising taxes or fees for transportation isn’t a political death sentence – no matter the party or political affiliation. In the past two weeks, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire’s state legislators faced their first primary since voting to pass bills to raise additional revenue for much needed transportation and infrastructure projects.
A dozen states have moved to raise transportation dollars, with more to come: Track them here
With Congress continuing to flail on providing stable funding, many states are finding they can’t wait and are moving on their own. But it’s not always as simple anymore as adding pennies to a per-gallon gas tax, so states are taking some creative approaches. You can learn about what 12 states already have done – and the political fall-out from it – with our revamped and refreshed tracker. You’ll also see what’s brewing in still more states.
Want to learn more about state and local transportation funding?
This afternoon, along with the Center for Transportation Excellence, we’re hosting a half day event to examine state and local transportation funding campaigns at the ballot box and beyond. While many of you who might like to attend won’t be there in the room with us, you can follow the conversation from us and hopefully many of the participants on Twitter.
Locals encountering help or hindrance from states on their transportation plans
Several places have been in the news lately as they find their ambitious efforts to solve transportation challenges hinging on legislative action this lawmaking season. In some, state legislators are helping out with enabling legislation, but in others they are challenging the concept of local control and threatening needed investment.
In 2013, 20-plus states took up transportation funding: Here’s the final tally
With a large number of state legislatures convening as the new year gets underway, it’s worth a look back at an important trend from 2013: States stepping forward to raise additional money for transportation. With federal funding remaining flat in 2012′s transportation bill (MAP-21) and after years of deferred action during the long recession, a large number of states, metro areas and local communities moved to supplement federal dollars with new revenues of their own.
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 that story this week and talked 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.
Tracking state transportation funding plans
With MAP-21 signed into law last summer, attention has shifted from Washington 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.
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.
A state with one of the oldest transportation systems tries to make things new — new state series
Though Massachusetts’ bridges are middle of the pack in deficiency, 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.
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. Industry groups have proposed creative ways to essentially raise the gas tax. At the same time, 2013 already has seen several ambitious proposals for funding transportation outside of the excise tax on gas.
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