The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Subsidyscope project—which put out an misleading look at Amtrak’s finances a month ago [top story]—last week unveiled a report we can add to the volumes of literature that debunk the myth that U.S. roads “pay for themselves.” Over the past 25 years, they found, the percentage of highway costs funded by means other than user fees (gas taxes and tolls) doubled. They point to two leading factors influencing this trend: the lack of a change in the gas tax since 1993 (combined with inflation) and the increased reliance on bonds to pay for new highways. Sadly, I doubt this report will gain as much media attention as its predecessor.
Along similar lines, the Texas DOT posits that, in order to pay the full cost of a 15-mile stretch of Interstate highway ($1 billion), the statewide gas tax would have to be $2.22 per gallon—not including the price of the gas itself. Yet that highway was built and is being maintained, with general US and Texas taxpayers paying the lion’s share. That same $1 billion could have paid for the construction of 333 miles of railroad track, according to California estimates.
Another example of the consequences of chronic underinvestment: The New York Postlearns that a number of Amtrak-owned bridges in New York City are “in crumbling condition,” scoring “poor” or worse in internal inspections. Ironically, an effort to fix recent, delay-causing problems with the swing bridge carrying Amtrak’s Empire Corridor trains over the Harlem River wound up closing the bridge from Tuesday night until about 1:00 pm on the day before Thanksgiving. The Wednesday morning trains to Montreal and Toronto were combined and detoured via the Hell Gate Bridge, while passengers on the other trains had to use Metro-North’s Grand Central service for part of their journeys.
Fortune magazine documents recent high-speed rail advancements on the other side of the Atlantic, including the extension of TGV service from Paris to Strasbourg—and how trains are beating airlines on certain segments.
Office buildings in the Washington, DC area are sitting largely empty—except in the city center. In a region with the second-worst traffic congestion in the nation, employers are locating in areas more easily reached by transit. Downtown Washington’s offices are 10% vacant, while fringe area workspaces are around 30% empty.
“We are on the verge of jumpstarting ... [a] game-changing endeavor,” Secretary LaHood remarked, referring to the Recovery Act grant announcements coming within the next few months. LaHood is also throwing his weight behind making subway and light-rail safety a responsibility of his Department.
Two more newspaper columnists join the call for a passenger rail renaissance: the Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Tom Belden, American Reporter correspondent Rudolph Holhut.
LCL: More high-speed rail rumblings from the Middle East. * * * Political leaders want to spend more money on transportation infrastructure—but there’s none to spend. * * * The Midwest High Speed Rail Association gets good vibes from Thanksgiving travel numbers, including a 6.7% decrease in the number of air travelers.
The Government Accountability Office issued a report this week showing that all 50 states received more highway transportation funding than they paid into the national system through the gasoline tax.
The overdraft, according to the GAO, took place because “overall, more funding was authorized and apportioned than was collected from highway users, since the account was supplemented by general funds from Treasury.”
I’m appreciative of the forthright way that the oversight agency puts forth its findings in this document. But the GAO isn’t exactly doing advanced calculus here. For years, NARP has been highlighting the $34.5 billion in general funds transferred to the Highway Trust Fund in the past few years. This transfer was necessary to cover the deficit between the funds provided by the gasoline tax and the money spent on highways. NARP has also been at paints to point out that this $34.5 billion is almost as much as has been spent on Amtrak over its 40-year history. Perhaps the GAO’s authority—recognized across party lines—will help this message make a lasting impact.
I’m writing this from Los Angeles (the location of NARP’s Council of Representatives meeting). While transit officials in this city have made great strides in developing a modern rail and bus network, it is impossible not to see the ways in which the over-building of highways has deformed development in this region. If we can eliminate the myth of the “user fee”, I think we’ll have made great strides in correcting an infrastructure imbalance that is choking growth in cities across America.
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