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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2015
States seek options for highway, bridge funding
Oregon has plans but
not enough money for
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By JEFF BARNARD
The Associated Press
AP Photo/Molly Riley
A banner hangs on an overpass on Interstate 395 advertising the new I-95 Express Lanes in Alexandria, Va., in December As
legislatures convene across the country, lawmakers and governors are grasping for ways to address an aging network of
roads, highways and bridges during an era in which federal money for such projects has remained stagnant or declined. In
Virginia, the new I-95 express lanes were funded in part by private investors who have a long-term contract to collect tolls.
The AP and Associated Press
Media Editors are beginning
a yearlong collaborative proj-
ect about infrastructure needs
throughout the country The ¿rst
of these stories focuses on the
declining level of federal fund-
ing for highway and bridge proj-
ects. Governors and legislatures
around the country are scram-
bling for alternatives as the fed-
eral share fails to keep pace with
current and anticipated needs.
By DAVID A. LIEB
The Associated Press
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EFFERSON CITY, Mo. —
Frustrated over stagnant or
declining federal highway fund-
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ating their drive for new taxes,
tolls and fees to repair an aging
road system whose historical
reliance on fuel taxes no longer
is providing enough money to
cover its costs.
Figures compiled by The
Associated Press show the total
amount of money available to
states from the Federal High-
way Trust Fund has declined
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period ending in 2013, the latest
year for which numbers were
available. During that span, the
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federal highway money dropped
in all but two states.
The shortfall has led to
rougher roads requiring more
frequent, short-term repairs, sus-
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muter routes that simply have
more vehicle than the roads
were designed to carry.
In response, states are de-
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Transportation funding increas-
es could be on the agenda in
as many as one-third of the
state legislatures this year. That
comes after roughly one-fourth
of the states increased transpor-
tation taxes or fees during the
past two years.
The state proposals stand in
stark contrast to the inaction in
Congress, where a temporary
funding patch is scheduled to
expire in May and lawmakers
have been at odds over a long-
term highway plan.
“You’re seeing states all
across the country that are look-
ing to do something, because
they realize you can’t count on
the federal government,” said
Missouri state Rep. Dave Hin-
son, a Republican who supports
the idea of raising the state sales
AP Photo/Elaine Thompson
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, at podium, with Transportation Secretary Lynn Peterson
and construction workers, speaks from the construction site of a new floating bridge on
Lake Washington in Medina, Wash., Dec. 16.
tax for road improvements.
The annual amount available
to states from the Federal High-
way Trust Fund has hovered
around $40 billion since 2007.
Even though total state and fed-
eral road funding exceeded the
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the past decade, the pace has ta-
pered off in recent years as the
amount coming from the federal
government declined.
Roads, highways and their
bridges form the basic frame-
work of everyday life in Amer-
ica. They provide the crucial un-
derpinning of daily commutes,
the trucking industry’s transfer
of food, computers and other
goods from seaports to subur-
ban strip malls, and summertime
trips to beach towns and moun-
tain getaways. They also are
generally an afterthought until
they no longer are up to the task.
Governors, lawmakers, local
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across the country say that is
where the country has arrived,
with a decades-old highway
infrastructure that is not receiv-
ing enough money to match its
needs.
“A lot of those facilities are
in need of really massive rehab,
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ting the hundreds of bridg-
es that are likely to fail in
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getting too old to support
heavy trucks.
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way to pay for it all, and
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solution are dim.
The federal gas tax
hasn’t been raised in 21
years, and Oregon’s share
has been declining for
years.
The state gas tax, a
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transportation infrastruc-
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erated enough to repair the
state’s roads and bridges
as cars have gotten better
mileage or quit using gas
at all, and a new system of
charging motorists by the
mile rather than the gallon
is still in the experimental
stage.
Leaders in the Oregon
Legislature agree some-
thing must be done, but
there is strong disagree-
ment over how.
The result has been that
while per capita state and
federal highway funding
in Oregon was up 16 per-
cent from 2003-2008, it
dropped 11 percent from
2008-2013, according to
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Associated Press.
“We’re looking at a
pretty big cliff” with no se-
rious discussions in sight,
Oregon Rep. Peter De-
Fazio, top Democrat on the
U.S. House Transportation
and Infrastructure Com-
mittee, said of the funding
picture.
Earthquakes were not
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in Oregon until the 1980s,
and bridges built before
that weren’t designed to
withstand them. Scientists
think the region is due for
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cials want to make safety
improvements to get ready.
“Areas of the state
will be cut off for years
by highway,” said Oregon
Department of Transporta-
tion Assistant Director for
Communications Travis
Brouwer. “You’ll be rely-
ing on helicopters.”
The Oregon Highways
Seismic Plus Report is-
sued last October calls
for replacing 138 bridges,
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the next 50 years in four
phases at an overall cost
of $5 billion. Phase one fo-
cuses on U.S. Highway 97
on the east side of the Cas-
cades, Interstate 5 through
the Willamette Valley, and
two routes connecting
them.
Even without the threat
of earthquake, 900 of Or-
egon’s 2,700 bridges need
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$230 million a year, nearly
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available, Brouwer added.
Without more money, by
2035 about 350 will have
weight restrictions.
Paying for road work
the usual way, through
increases in the gas tax
and DMV fees, has raised
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publicans, unless Demo-
crats drop plans for legisla-
tion to combat greenhouse
gases with a low-carbon
fuel standard, which has
passed the Senate.
That low-carbon fuel
standard is likely to raise gas
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cult to ask Oregonians to
pay even more to raise mon-
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said Rep. Cliff Bentz, an
Ontario Republican.
Meanwhile, another pi-
lot program to demonstrate
the workability of a pay-
by-the-mile tax applying to
high-mileage vehicles that
don’t pay their share via
the gas tax kicks off July 1,
with 5,000 volunteers. An
earlier attempt based on
GPS trackers was scrapped
over privacy complaints.
AP Photo/Mark Duncan
Traffic rolls on the Ohio Turnpike in Strongsville, Ohio, in
September 2011. Entering into public-private partnerships,
selling advertising sponsorships at highway rest areas
and collecting additional fees for distracted driving are
among the creative ways Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s admin-
istration is working to boost transportation revenue amid
lagging federal outlays.
‘You’re seeing states all across
the country that are looking to do
something, because they realize
you can’t count on the federal
government.’
— Missouri state Rep. Dave Hinson
a Republican who supports the idea of raising the state sales tax for
road improvements
almost reconstruction from the
ground up,” said Jim Tyman,
director of policy of at the
American Association of State
Highway and Transportation
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The association estimates
AP Photo/Elaine Thompson
Work continues on the new Highway 520 floating bridge across Lake Washington as
traffic moves along the adjacent, existing four-lane bridge between Medina, Wash., and
Seattle, in the distance, Dec. 16. Washington has imposed fees on owners of electric
vehicles, and Gov. Jay Inslee recently proposed a carbon-emissions tax on the state’s
largest polluters that would help finance transportation projects. He describes it as
“transportation pollution paying for transportation solutions.”
that annual road and bridge
spending by all levels of govern-
ment is falling $32 billion short
of what is needed.
About 20 percent of the
nation’s 900,000 miles of in-
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in need of resurfacing or re-
construction, and a quarter of
its 600,000 bridges are rated as
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tionally obsolete, according to
federal data analyzed by the
American Road & Transporta-
tion Builders Association.
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having an impact because states
rely on federal dollars for an av-
erage of about half their capital
expenses for roads and bridges,
according to the association.
The rest is covered with state
money, which comes predomi-
nantly from fuel taxes.
Gasoline tax revenue has
grown little since 2007, as vehi-
cles have become more fuel-ef-
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driving.
To compensate, lawmakers in
Maryland, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Pennsylvania and
Wyoming passed gasoline tax in-
creases during the past two years.
But about half the states have
AP Photo/The Medford Mail Tribune/Jamie Lusch, File
This viaduct carries Interstate 5 traffic for more than
a half mile over Bear Creek and city streets in Med-
ford. The Oregon Department of Transportation has
hired an engineering firm to consider how to fix the
aging structure to withstand a major earthquake.
Oregon has a plan for retrofitting the hundreds of
bridges that are likely to fail in a major earthquake,
or are getting too old to support heavy trucks. But
current funding sources fall far short of what is
needed.
not raised their gasoline taxes in
at least a decade, and the feder-
al gas tax has remained at 18.4
cents a gallon since 1993. In
Congress, Republican leaders
have said there aren’t enough
votes to pass a gas tax hike.
Many states are now consid-
ering alternatives.
Virginia recently scrapped its
per-gallon gasoline tax in favor
of a new tax on the wholesale
price of gas and a higher tax on
other retail sales. The state also
has turned to public-private part-
nerships, including a new $925
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partly by private investors who
have a long-term contract to col-
lect tolls.
Lawmakers in Minnesota,
Utah and Missouri also are ex-
pected to consider proposals
this year that could levy a sales
tax on fuel, allowing the states
to reap more money when the
price of gasoline rises. And
Michigan voters will decide in
May on a 1 percent general sales
tax for transportation.
Fractured Framework is a
national reporting project be-
tween The Associated Press and
APME, the Associated Press
Media Editors association.