Postcards From Our National Transportation Funding Meltdown

At an event billed as a
“town hall” held at USDOT headquarters yesterday, top department
officials answered questions about the future of the nation’s road,
rail, bus, and bike networks — even as the prospects of passing a
comprehensive transportation reauthorization bill anytime this year
appear as dim as ever. Already, reauthorization of the transportation
bill is nearly a year overdue, as lawmakers have failed to muster the
will to pay for it.

Maryland
Senator Ben Cardin addresses the crowd yesterday. Photo: Adam Voiland

A
plenary session that focused on the Mid-Atlantic region prior to the
town hall provided a few glimpses of how the continued legislative
deadlock is plaguing local agencies and preventing the evolution of
transportation planning beyond the car-based status quo.

The head of the District Department of Transportation, Gabe Klein,
called the current moment one of the scariest times in transportation
history. He warned that lawmakers have difficult and uncomfortable
decisions ahead about how to pay for the reauthorization bill.

Klein emphasized the need for diversified sources of funding for
transportation investment, despite the political challenges. He noted,
for example, that local jurisdictions, like DC, should have the latitude
to explore congestion pricing as a way to raise revenue.

During the same panel, Richard Sarles, the interim general manager of
the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) explained
that his agency is spending much of its funding on efforts to improve
the safety of its system after a catastrophic Metro collision last
summer. With little clarity about what the future holds, Sarles warned
that there simply aren’t funds available to address large expected
increases in ridership on city transit systems in the coming years.

Reform-minded lawmakers, most notably House Transportation and
Infrastructure Chair Jim Oberstar (D-MN), have made it an urgent
priority to reauthorize the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible
Efficient Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA-LU, or, more commonly, the
transportation bill). But with revenues from the stagnant
gas tax flagging, lawmakers
can’t agree on how to raise the funds needed for the bill, and they’ve postponed
dealing
with the problem by passing a series of emergency extensions.

The frustration was evident among attendees at yesterday’s
conference. “There’s no innovation right now,” said Faramarz Mokhtari, a
planner at the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.
“The status quo is continuing.”