Transportation Secretary Mary Peters has unveiled the Bush administration’s plan, “Refocus. Reform. Renew,” for reforming transportation funding and construction. It’s clearly a step in the right direction — designed to reduce Congressional pork peddling, focus federal involvement on the Interstate highway system, and level the playing field between highways and transit.
Whether a plan from the widely-loathed Bush administration can withstand the scrutiny of a Democratic-controlled Congress is another matter, especially considering that a member of the Donkey Clan will most likely occupy the U.S. presidency next January. Still, it’s worth reviewing. Here are the key elements:
- Federal focus on Interstates. The proper focus of the federal government should be on interstate transport and the Interstate highway system. Peters proposes setting federal priorities of making sure that system is “safe, maintained and un-congested.” By implication, there would be less money available for “bridges to nowhere” and other pork barrel projects far from the Interstate highways.
- Accountability. Create measures for rating Interstate performance: travel time reliability, hours of delay, and condition of bridges and pavement.
- Create a Metropolitan Innovation Fund. Reward cities willing to invest in transit, dynamic pricing for highways and new traffic technologies.
- Streamline review process. It currently takes an average of 13 years to design and build new highway and transit projects in the U.S. Streamline the federal environmental and planning process, without compromising standards, to allow projects to move forward more quickly.
In an ideal world, the federal government would get out of the transportation business entirely (with the possible exception of maintaining the Interstates) and turn the fiscal resources over to states and regions, which are better positioned to set priorities and coordinate transportation investments with land use. Of course, that will never happen. Congress, whether run by Democrats or Republicans, will never relinquish its influence over tens of billions of dollars worth of boodle. So, Peters’ program may be the best that can be accomplished in the real world.
As a side note, the Department of Transportation contends that its Metropolitan Innovation Fund would level the playing field between highways and transit. The plan would expand the number of transit projects eligible for consideration and provide a bigger pool of federal money for them through the Metropolitan Innovation Fund. The plan also would expand financing options available to local governments through state infrastructure banks, private activity bonds and expanded federal credit flexibility.
There is a catch, though: The Peters plan would tie Metropolitan Innovation Funds to the use of congestion pricing. The plan proposes to eliminate all federal restrictions on congestion pricing in metropolitan areas and allow localities to reinvest revenues generated from pricing on transit. Congestion pricing, the thinking goes, would encourage motorists to avail themselves of mass transit as an alternative. The Metropolitan Innovation Funds would “award funds to cities that effectively combine peak period highway pricing, expanded transit options and technology into a single mobility strategy.”
Bacon’s bottom line: To my way of thinking, the Peters plan represents a big step forward from the system we have in place now, which effectively treats revenues from the federal gas tax as a funding source for Congressional patronage. I am ambivalent about the idea of taking tax revenue from motorists and using it to subsidize mass transit, but it could be acceptable under tightly defined conditions, as explained elsewhere on this blog.
Interestingly, the Metropolitan Innovation Funds would create a funding mechanism for the Rail-to-Dulles heavy rail project along the lines I’ve outlined in previous posts and columns: Use congestion tolling to allocate scarce roadway capacity in and out of Tysons Corner and apply the proceeds to a combination of spot road improvements, traffic light sequencing and other “smart road” initiatives, and construction of heavy rail.
If there were some way to make MIF transit subsidies contingent upon appropriate zoning for Transit Oriented Development around transit stations — or, even better, tied to the evolution of “balanced” communities — the Peters plan would be better still.