WASHINGTON — A majority of the nation’s mayors want the new “highway bill” coming from Congress to emphasize streets and bridges over highways and to provide financing tools, such as BABs, TIFIA loans or a national infrastructure bank.
Almost all the mayors, 93%, want reforms in federal transportation programs to give metropolitan areas a bigger share of federal money directly, according to a survey released Tuesday morning by the United States Conference of Mayors.
Highways should be a low priority, said 80% of the mayors. Given continuing deterioration of their infrastructure and the increasing costs of state-of-good-repair maintenance, more than three quarters of the mayors said existing roads and bridges should get priority funding over public transit or road expansion.
New financing tools, such as Build America Bonds, Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loans and a new national infrastructure bank would allow more projects to be developed and completed faster, according to 75% of the mayors.
Without a larger share of funding going directly to cities, only 7% of the mayors surveyed said they would support an increase in the federal gas tax. If federal surface transportation aid is distributed by the same formulas it is now, 56% would oppose an increase in the federal gasoline tax. If the federal aid programs are reformed as the mayors would like, then 89% of them said they could support a higher gas tax.
The per-gallon gasoline tax is no longer providing enough revenue to finance federal transportation aid at the same level as in the last highway bill, which expired in 2009. There is little appetite in Congress for raising the tax, so financing the new highway bill has become one of the toughest issues on Capitol Hill.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors survey covered more than 100 cities and was co-sponsored by infrastructure firm Parsons Brinckerhoff.
