Does anyone know if STVI is a player ? ===>
May 13, 1997
Extra $1 Billion of Highway Funds Still Not Enough, Advocates Say
Clinton Administration and Congressional negotiators have agreed to $1 billion of added spending over five years for transportation, but funding still falls short of the hopes of highway advocates.
Under the new plan, spending for highways would be about $22 billion a year - more than the $20 billion approved for the current fiscal year but well below the $26 billion sought in the Senate and $32 billion hoped for in the House. The latest plan would provide additional money for mass transit, airports, and port facilities.
The funding level for highways, which some say is still in flux, is expected to affect the renewal of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), which has determined Federal policy and spending on surface transportation projects for the past six years and is scheduled to expire on Sept. 30.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is now drafting a bill to renew ISTEA, but will probably have to revise it because the chairman, Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), had hoped the budget would call for $32 billion a year, and may consider renewing ISTEA for four years, rather than six. Many special set-aside programs are likely to be affected by the lower spending level. Some 400 House members have requested over $100 billion for special projects in their districts, while the Administration recommended $175 billion as the entire funding level for ISTEA, which includes no set-asides. The lower funding level will also make it difficult to change the formula that determines how Federal highway aid grants, which are financed with gasoline tax revenues, are distributed among the states.
A heated debate is expected over the redistribution of highway funds because Southern and Western states claim they are subsidizing the Northeast under the present formula in ISTEA. States like Arkansas pay more to the Federal Government than they receive back, while states like New York pay less than they receive from the program. Under one Southern plan, New York could lose up to $400 million a year in highway funds, threatening the quality of New York's roads and bridges or putting pressure on state and local taxes.
Meanwhile, Congressman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) joined Congresswoman Susan Molinari (R-NY) in introducing legislation to ensure that New York State gets its fair share of Federal highway funds. The bill would also protect programs designed to improve air quality standards.
As a senior Member of the House Transportation Committee, Boehlert will play a major role in the rewriting of ISTEA. In the Senate, Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is known as an environmentalist who is less driven to build roads than his House counterparts. But many Senators wanted at least $26 billion and Chafee's staff is looking at several proposals to stretch dwind-ling Federal dollars with innovative finance.
A Heated Debate
The sharp differences of opinion on this issue were underscored recently on the radio show, "Talk of the Nation," which featured Hank Dittmar, executive director of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, and Taylor Bowlden, vice president for Policy and Government Affairs, with the American Highway Users Alliance, who appeared to discuss ISTEA and the way the legislation should be shaped.
Dittmar's group favors giving local officials "a greater say in making transportation decisions to benefit the environment and transportation." Recently, he observed, the country has witnessed "more mass transit in the planning and construction stages. ... We think [ISTEA has] been a big step forward."
Bowlden, however, said he thinks "ISTEA has diverted the focus of the Federal highway program away from our real needs, away from the reason we have a Federal highway program in the first place, and that is to facilitate the interstate commerce, which includes both the movement of goods and people around the country, and to provide for our national defense mobility, and also to improve the safety of travel." He urged Congress to take a close look at priorities and allocate funds accordingly.
"We're actually not saying the way to get out of problem is to build more roads," he insisted, but added that the Federal priority should be the National Highway System. "The National Highway System is just 4 percent of all the roads in the country... but they're by far the most important roads in the country. They carry 40 percent of all highway traffic, 75 percent of truck traffic, and 80 percent of all tourist traffic. ... It's a matter of upgrading [existing highways] so that they'll be safe and efficient highways."
Dittmar pointed out that "upgrading" most often means widening roads to cure congestion, which he likened to "trying to cure obesity by loosening your belt. You just spread out to fill the available space. Studies show that for every 1 percent in highway miles that we add, we get about a .9 percent increase in traffic" and more urban sprawl.
The solution, said Dittmar, is to "provide low-cost mobility for people who can't afford to drive... and that's a rural problem as well as an urban problem.
Bowlden disputed his reasoning, however, noting that in the past decade, "the only form of commuting that increased was people driving themselves to work alone, while every other form of commuting, including transit, actually decreased in terms of the percent share of commuters using that mode of transportation. Demographically people and jobs are moving to suburbs, [and] you have to have a transportation system that is sufficiently flexible to meet people's needs. Rail lines don't offer that kind of flexibility."
But Dittmer argued that unless mass transit is adequately developed, the traffic congestion that is afflicting the suburbs will continue to undermine "the very quality of life that we moved out there to get. We can retrofit our suburbs to provide choices. And that's what ISTEA is allowing local officials to do."
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