U.S. Senate Passes Two-Year Transportation Funding Bill

On Wednesday, March 14th, the U.S. Senate passed S. 1813, also known as the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21). The bill written by U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and James Inhofe (R-OK), and passed the U.S. Senate by a vote of 74-22. MAP-21 would spend $109 billion over two years to fund the nation's highway and transit systems. This amount is equal to current transportation funding levels plus inflation. Some other major provisions of the bill include:

- Consolidates the number of federal transportation programs from about 90 down to less than 30, to focus resources on key national goals and reduce duplicative programs
- Eliminates earmarks
- Improves the existing Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program (CMAQ) by including particulate matter as a pollutant and requiring that large metropolitan areas develop a performance plan to ensure that CMAQ funds are being used to improve air quality and congestion in those regions
- Maintains the Transportation Enhancements (TE) program and offers more flexibility to states who use these funds
- Creates the National Freight Network Program, which consolidates existing programs into a focused freight program that provides funds to states by formula for projects to improve regional and national freight movements on highways, including intermodal freight connectors
- Modifies Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Program (TIFIA) by increasing funding for the program to $1 billion per year, increasing the maximum share of project costs from 33% to 49%, and setting aside funding for projects in rural areas on more favorable terms
- Extension of the federal transit benefit parity, which expired at the end of 2011, allowing transit users a tax-free deduction of up to $240 from their paychecks for expenses incurred traveling to work
- Establishes performance measures that will hold states and metropolitan organizations accountable for improving the conditions and performance of their transportation assets

For further information on MAP-21, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has put together an overview the bill's various programs, linked here

AASHTO Executive Director John Horsley hailed the passage of MAP-21, and noted that, "Members of the U.S. Senate are to be commended for their strong, bipartisan passage of a multi-year, $109 billion surface transportation reauthorization bill that sustains highway and transit funding at current levels."

MAP-21 now moves on to the U.S. House of Repesentatives, where recent efforts to pass a 5-year transportation authorization bill have fallen apart.

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Have We Stopped Dreaming Big in the United States?

We used to dream big in the United States.  There was a time when we looked across our land and made plans to travel further, faster, and more efficiently.  We didn’t let details stop us; we didn’t ask the price before embarking. We knew what was for the good of our nation, and we built accordingly.  We were a nation that built, and built big.

Driving the "Golden Spike" 

It was May 10, 1869 when history was made in the United States.  Dignitaries gathered at Promontory Summit, Utah to drive the Golden Spike, the final spike in the first transcontinental railroad in the United States.  Before this date, cross country travel was an arduous and sometimes deadly journey.  It was rarely made as a round trip venture.  With the completion of the railroad, it was now possible to travel from New York City to San Francisco by rail.

The Panama Canal

August 15, 1914 was the next great date in transportation history for the United States when the SS Ancon became the first ship to cross the Isthmus of Panama through the Panama Canal.  The opening of the canal not only changed American history, but redefined international shipping.  The Panama Canal made coast to coast shipping a much easier and safer proposition by no longer requiring ships to sail around Cape Horn, a dangerous proposition, even in the largest of sailing vessels.

June 29, 1956 is arguably the last date of significance in American transportation history.  On this day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, which created the modern interstate system.  After a grueling journey across our nation during a 1919 Army convoy, Eisenhower knew we needed a better system of roads in our country.  After experiencing the Autobahn during WWII, Eisenhower created the Interstate Highway System to safely move goods, people, and military armaments across our nation.  The Interstate system is, for all intents and purposes, complete at a cost of approximately $485 billion.  It is the largest public works project in the history of man.

Our past history demonstrates that the size of our dreams and aspirations were not limited by anything, least of which being the size of the treasury.  We seemed to have lost our way over the past decade.  Rather than dreaming big by redefining mobility for American citizens and creating a new transportation network, we have allowed our representatives to think small, excruciatingly small.  Our current federal transportation bill expired in 2009 and has been extended with no change in funding levels or priorities.  By all estimations, the recent bill proposed in Congress is not likely to pass, leaving our federal government with no transportation plan.  Within our own state, transportation is cited as an important issue among voters and representatives, yet our Governor has not acted on the recommendations of his own Transportation Funding Advisory Commission.

We are at a crucial crossroads in the development of our transportation infrastructure.  With gasoline prices reaching record levels, highways experiencing daily congestion, and our air quality continuing to decline, something has to be done.  We are presented with the opportunity to make bold plans, plans that will redefine the United States in the twenty-first century.  Tapping the spirit that conceived of and built a transcontinental railroad, the Panama Canal, and the Interstate Highway System will give us nothing short of a magnificent solution.  Quarreling over the short term costs, the proper role of state and federal government, and preserving a system that no longer suits our needs does not improve mobility for our nation.  We need to dream big again, we need “magic to stir men’s blood.”

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PA House Democrats Introduce Transportation Funding Reform Bills

In late 2011, Representative Mike Hanna (D-76) and Representative Dan Frankel (D-23) introduced three pieces of legislation that greatly reform the way in which Pennsylvania funds its transportation system.  The three bills are very close to the three bills introduced by Senator Jake Corman (R-34) in to the Senate in November 2011.  The three bills follow the recommendations of the Transportation Funding Advisory Commission (TFAC) Report which was release in August 2011.  Governor Tom Corbett has not publicly supported either the report in August or the subsequent bills in the House and the Senate.

The transportation funding reform is more than funding reform bills, they are also modernize PennDOT, and generate savings within the department.  The three bills, HB 2099, HB 2101, and HB 2112 address each of these issues in a very similar fashion to Senate Bills SB 4, SB 1326, and SB 1327.

HB 2099 amends the Title 75 by increasing the fees PennDOT collects on such things as driver’s licenses, vehicle registration, violations of traffic control devices, and also sets the minimum average wholesale price of motor vehicle fuels.  Included is an increase from $36 for vehicle registration to $49.  Penalties for traffic control device violations will be increased to $75, not including any other fees or infractions the violation may involve.  The bill also addresses the “average wholesale price” of motor vehicle fuels.  The “average wholesale price” is the price that the state is able to tax motor vehicle fuels when it is before it is sold on the retail market.  The current average wholesale price is capped at $1.25 per gallon, or rather, the state is only allowed to tax the first $1.25 of wholesale fuel sales.  HB 2099 ramps this price up to $2.70 by 2017, but also does not limit the wholesale price at $2.70.

HB 2101 amends Title 75 to create an Intermodal Transportation Fund, amend the vehicle registration and driver’s license renewal periods, changes penalties imposed for driving without insurance, modifies regulations governing the use of radar speed control, changes inspection requirements for new cars, and allows for advertising revenue along state owned right of way.  The Intermodal Transportation Fund will be a dedicated fund that directs investments in aviation, rail freight, passenger rail, ports, and waterways.  This was a recommendation in the TFAC report, as these areas of transportation are drastically underfunded at the state level.  To offset the increased expenses of HB 2099, Pennsylvania drivers will benefit from expanding vehicle registration from one year to two and no more registration stickers.  New cars will also be made exempt from needing a safety inspection during the first two years.  The bill will allow for third party driver’s license exam centers to administer and issue a driver’s license; the tests will not differ to those administered by the state.  The bill increases the penalty for driving without insurance to $500 for reinstatement prior to the three month suspension.  Included in the bill is a provision that will allow PennDOT contractors the use of electronic speed monitoring (radar) within a work zone.  Lastly, the bill will allow for PennDOT to lease space for commercial advertising where it is not prohibited by Federal law.

The text of HB 2112 was not made available at the time this was written, however a summary was available and it appears as though the bill will amend Act 44 of 2007 to shift the entirety of the $450 million annual payment made by PennDOT by the PA Turnpike into a mass transit fund.  The money will be solely available for mass transit systems throughout the state.  The bill will also increase the portion of the state sales tax which is directed to mass transit.  Currently the portion of the sales tax dedicated to mass transit is 4.4%, under HB 2112 it will increase to 6.5%.

These three bills compliment, and are almost identical to the three Senate bills.  It is the hope of many legislators, transportation officials, and those in the transportation industry that 2012 is the year Pennsylvania begins to solve the problem of infrastructure funding.

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