DALLAS — Public infrastructure funding falls short of what's needed to keep pace with U.S. population and economic growth, and alternative revenue sources such as sales taxes on gasoline threaten to place the financial burden on those least able to pay, the Transportation Research Board said in a
The current transportation system is barely adequate to meet today's demands, the transportation board's executive committee said, and it will have to be maintained and expanded to accommodate another 66 million people and an 80% growth in gross domestic product during the next 25 years.
"Whether the transportation system can meet these needs is an open question," the committee said.
TRB is one of six major divisions of the National Research Council, which serves as an independent advisor to the federal government and others on technical and scientific questions of national importance.
"The performance of the transportation system is neither reliable nor resilient, yet transportation's role in economic revival and in global economic competition has never been more important," the board said in its said.
More than $100 billion is spent by federal, state and local governments on maintaining and adding to the more than four million miles of roads and highways in the U.S., but that is not enough, the report warned.
As the Highway Trust Fund approaches insolvency due to lagging federal gasoline tax revenues and inflation, finding the funding for highway projects is expected to become even more difficult.
"Obtaining federal funds to maintain and expand the transportation system will be a challenge, as will increased reliance on state and local governments, which have been unable to close the funding gap," the report said.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold its first hearing Wednesday on replacing the two-year Moving Ahead For Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) surface transportation funding bill set to expire at the end of fiscal 2014.
The current federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per gallon is not sufficient to generate the funding needed for highways and public transit, the report notes, and the shortfall will get worse as vehicles become more fuel efficient. The additional traffic from a growing population wears out the roads and bridges even faster, which makes the funding gap even worse.
Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has said he intends to have a House vote on a new long-term funding package by August, in advance of MAP-21's termination on Sept. 30.
Shuster said earlier this month that an increase in the gasoline tax is unlikely in 2014.
Witnesses at the Senate session will include Thomas Donahue, president and CEO of the United States Chamber of Commerce, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, and Kentucky Transportation Secretary Mike Hancock, current president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
The Chamber officially supports a bill by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., that would raise the gasoline tax by 15 cents over three years.
The Congressional Budget Office said earlier this month that a six-year highway bill would require $100 billion of new revenue or a similar amount transferred from the general fund.
The CBO report said the HTF would have a revenue shortfall of $13 billion in fiscal 2015 due to a decline in gasoline tax collections and a cumulative deficit of $113 billion by fiscal 2021.
The Transportation Research Board report criticizes Congress for preventing the Transportation Department from conducting a pilot program on the technical and political barriers to taxing motorists on miles driven and not fuel used. Instead, the Transportation Research Board said the gasoline tax remains as the main funding for transportation projects.
States are cautioned in the report that a growing shift from a volume-based gasoline tax to a sales tax based on the pump price of gasoline "places a greater burden on those who use the system least and who are least able to pay."
Revenues being placed into the aviation trust fund are not keeping pace with airport capital needs, the report added, and that means airport infrastructure projects are being financed with transfers from the general fund.
"Uncertainty about the federal government's willingness to pay as much as 25% to 40% of annual federal aviation agency budgets for operations from the general fund threatens the level of air traffic services offered, the modernization of the air traffic control system, and capital grants to fund infrastructure renewal and expansion at airports," the report said.
