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AASHTO’s Surface Transportation Policy Recommendations

The AASHTO Board of Directors began its recommendations to the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission with a call for action.

AASHTO’s Call for Action:

  • We are a vast nation that has overcome the tyranny of distance through wise investments in transportation that tied our communities together and linked us to the world.

  • We have built a modern transportation system that is the foundation for the strongest economy on earth.

  • Our nation has benefited from a transportation system that is safe, reliable, efficient, affordable, and secure.

  • Americans have enjoyed expanded opportunities for jobs, places to live, time with family, education, healthcare, recreation, and other services because of a world-class transportation system. Businesses have realized a competitive advantage and productivity growth.

  • Our generation inherited the world’s best transportation system made possible by the commitment of the past two generations to invest in the country’s future. We have spent that inheritance.

  • The 21st Century is an increasingly competitive world where countries such as China and India have set their sights on overtaking America as the preeminent economic power. Our prosperity and way of life are at stake. America must respond.

  • Only immediate bold action to invest in transportation will sustain our national competitiveness and personal opportunities. It is time to marshal the will and the resources needed.

Simply put, we believe the mission of the U.S. Surface Transportation Program is to keep the U.S. competitive in the global economy and meet America’s 21st Century mobility needs.

Vision, Reform and Bold Goals for the Future

As never before, we are engaged in an intensive competition in the global economy, now not only with our traditional trading partners such as Japan and the European Union, but also with China at 1.3 billion in population and India at over 1 billion in population. Because the economies of these two emerging megastates have been growing between 8 percent and 10 percent annually compared to 2.8 percent here in the United States, while we may be ahead for the moment, they are on track to catch up and possibly overtake us.
Part of what it will take to sustain our prosperity in the context of this global economy is a modern, efficient transportation system which enables the United States to increase productivity growth, create jobs, and compete head-to-head with all comers in our areas of comparative advantage.

As was outlined in AASHTO’s Call for Action, we believe the time has come to increase investment in our Surface Transportation System to the levels needed. This will require marshalling the political will necessary at the Federal, state, and local levels to generate the additional revenues required to make this quantum increase in investment possible. It will also require a strategy which goes well beyond just “more of the same.”

Meeting America’s surface transportation needs for the future will require a multi-modal approach, which preserves what has been built to date, improves system performance, and adds substantial capacity in highways, transit, freight rail, intercity passenger rail, and better connections to ports, airports, and border crossings. It will also require solutions which go beyond transportation improvements and include policies addressing land use, energy, global climate change, the environment, and community quality of life.

AASHTO believes three other elements will be required:

  • development of a compelling vision of the surface transportation system needed for America’s future;

  • development of a reform agenda to restore a sense of purpose for the Federal transportation program; and

  • development of bold goals that define a strategy for meeting the country’s needs.

Overview—Scale of Investment Required

Between 1993, the year in which Federal fuel tax rates were last adjusted, and 2015, construction costs will have increased by approximately 70 percent. We believe the best way to demonstrate the scale of transportation investment required for the future is to estimate what it would take to restore the purchasing power of the program at the levels authorized by SAFETEA-LU.

Over the past decade the Federal share of highway and transit capital investment has averaged 45 percent of the total. Under SAFETEA-LU Federal highway assistance is scheduled to increase to $43 billion by 2009, and Federal transit assistance to increase to $10.3 billion. To restore the purchasing power of these programs by the end of the next reauthorization cycle in 2015, Federal highway assistance needs to be increased to $73 billion and Federal transit assistance to $17.3 billion. For state and local governments to continue to fund their 55 percent shares of these programs, their highway investment would have to increase to $89 billion by 2015 and transit investment to increase to $21 billion.

AASHTO believes investment at these levels is the minimum necessary to keep us globally competitive and meet national needs. But one thing the scale of this challenge makes clear is that if we are to ramp up investment to the levels needed, all levels of government will have to continue to fund their share. The increase required at the state and local level is so great that it is highly likely than many states will have to supplement what they can fund through tax resources by turning to toll finance and public–private ventures. With supportive Federal and state policies, many believe the percentage of highway investment supported through tolls could increase from 5 percent today to 9 percent in the future. AASHTO supports giving states all the options possible to utilize tolls and public–private venture financing.

Recommendations

  • Surface transportation investment needs to be increased to the levels required to keep the United States competitive in the global economy and meet America’s 21st Century mobility needs.

  • To meet the Nation’s surface transportation system needs, all levels of government—federal, state, and local—must continue to fund their historical shares of the investment needed.

  • Meeting America’s surface transportation needs for the future will require a strategy which goes beyond just “more of the same.” It will require a multi-modal approach, which preserves what has been built to date; improves system performance; and adds substantial capacity in highways, transit, freight-rail, intercity passenger rail, and better connections to ports, airports, and border crossings.

  • Meeting America’s surface transportation needs will also require solutions which go beyond transportation improvements and include policies addressing land use, energy, global climate change, the environment, and community quality of life.

 

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