Transportation Outlook for 2015
December 30, 2014 11:00 AM
Congress is facing a big challenge in 2015 in reaching agreement on how to pay for transportation infrastructure spending, according to Joshua Schank, president of the non-partisan Eno Center for Transportation. "There is no evidence so far that they are willing to grapple with it in a serious fashion," he said. "The House and Senate will be controlled by Republicans for the next two years, and they are basically anti-tax," he said. "If we have corporate tax reform, we can probably get a four-year bill. Absent that, the short-term fund transfers will continue."
Congressional approval of President Obama's proposal to allow tolling on existing lanes of interstate highways would give states another revenue option, said Pat Jones, president of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association. "We have a 46,000-mile interstate highway system that is beyond its useful life, and the Highway Trust Fund is broke," Jones said. "States should be allowed the flexibility to put tolls on interstates if the revenues are dedicated to highway upkeep."
Post-election promises of bipartisan congressional support in 2015 for a long-term, fully funded highway bill are an encouraging sign, said Joung Lee of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
The Highway Trust Fund is facing a $100 billion shortfall over the next six years because expenditures from it exceed revenues into it from federal gasoline and diesel taxes. The taxes generate almost $40 billion a year but federal highway and transit grants total more than $53 billion. Proponents of an increase in the federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per gallon say that is the simplest and most effective way to resolve the highway fund's structural shortfall, but most experts see corporate tax reform as the best solution for boosting highway spending. Image: TXDOT
The 29 miles of tolled express lanes that opened in mid-December on Interstate 95 in northern Virginia may be a sign of the future of highway funding, according to Pat Jones, executive director of the International Bridge, Tunnel & Turnpike Association. "I-95 is a significant project," Jones said. "Virginia is dipping its toes into interstate tolling, and there are a lot of other states eager to see how they do it."
President Obama used his last scheduled news conference of 2014 to press the new Congress being seated in January to fund increased infrastructure spending with revenues from reforms to the corporate tax code. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., seem agreeable to the idea, Obama said. "I think, talking to Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell that they are serious about wanting to get some things done," he said. "The tax area is one area where we can get things done." Image: Bloomberg News
