DALLAS — Congressional proposals to keep federal transportation funding at current levels will worsen an $86 billion backlog of deferred public transit system maintenance and replacement needs, local transit executives told a Senate panel Thursday.
"The 'state-of-good-repair' backlog is growing quickly at our nation's transit systems," said Joseph Casey, general manager of Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority in the Philadelphia area. "Our investments, therefore, must increase so we do not fall farther behind."
Casey and transit executives from Boston and Dallas also testified at the hearing held by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee's transportation subcommittee, which is chaired by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.,
The Banking Committee is responsible for developing the transit portion of the Senate's proposed reauthorization of the current two-year transportation bill, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century, which expires on Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2014.
Congress must develop a plan for a multi-year public transportation investment program with funding levels that increase every year to meet the nation's growing transit needs, Casey said.
SEPTA will have to invest at least $6.5 billion over the next 10 years just to bring its rail system to a state of good repair, Casey said, including $2 billion of vehicle replacement and $976 million for new bridges and upkeep on older ones.
"A short-term 'patch' on the Highway Trust Fund highway and transit accounts will not address the crucial shortfall in investment," he said. "If Congress takes that approach — either for six months, a year, or two years — it will be sending a signal to state and local officials that they do not have a partner in Washington."
Federal highway and transit funding would be frozen next year at 2014 levels in a transportation bill for fiscal 2015 that was adopted on Wednesday by the House Appropriations Committee. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last week approved a six-year MAP-21 reauthorization that limits annual spending to 2014 levels plus inflation, through fiscal 2020.
The Senate and House proposals would require an additional source of revenue for the Highway Trust Fund, which supports federal highway and transit spending. The HTF could also be supplemented with general fund revenues, as it has in recent years. Congress has transferred a total of $54 billion into the HTF since 2008 due to insufficient revenues from federal gasoline and diesel taxes.
Dorval Carter, chief counsel of the Federal Transit Administration, told the Senate panel that President Obama's proposal for a four-year, $302 billion transportation bill, which includes $72 billion for transit, is the best way to resolve the growing maintenance backlog.
The president's proposed fiscal 2015 budget includes $7.7 billion for existing federal rail and bus repair programs, an increase of $5.1 billion from 2014 appropriations, Carter said. The 2015 budget is the "down payment" on the four-year Grow America funding bill that provides $72 billion over four years for transit systems, he said.
The $86 billion transit maintenance backlog is 10% higher than a March 2012 estimate, Carter said.
"This backlog is expected to grow by $2.5 billion each year unless we make the investments now to slow or stop the growing maintenance deficit," he said. "Our current rate of reinvestment of about $10.3 billion from all sources is not sufficient to reduce the backlog in any meaningful way."
