This Editorial appears in the Jan. 16 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
The nation’s roads and bridges are still ailing, as Congress and the White House continue to fiddle while we await some concrete action on infrastructure funding. Unfortunately, some states are turning to draconian toll increases as an expedient way through their various budget crises, with many of these steep price hikes aimed clearly at what is perceived to be the deep pockets of truckers.
We have had a steady stream of stories highlighting notable toll hikes in all parts of the country even as the House of Representatives and Senate dance around their competing versions of a new highway bill. Meanwhile, the White House has seemingly decided to sit out this waltz while talking softly about the need to fix our transportation network.
One of the major issues preventing a resolution of a new highway bill continues to the lack of agreement on how to fund a large, effective program to expand and repair the national infrastructure.
A debate last week between American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves and Patrick Jones, CEO of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, did a good job of highlighting the two primary alternatives these days: higher fuel taxes or higher tolls.
While the two officials agreed that the country’s transport network was in serious need of a transfusion, they differed sharply on how to fund it.
Graves again made the case for a fuel tax increase, which ATA has been urging for several years, as the easiest, fastest and fairest way to put money into the Highway Trust Fund.
While Jones acknowledged that increasing fuel taxes would be a fine way to fund road construction, because Congress appears unwilling to allow higher taxes, he said, the states must be allowed to boost tolls.
Without some substantial funding soon, Jones said, the nation’s interstate highway system will turn into “a heap of rubble.”
We agree with that sentiment, but we also continue to see a higher fuel tax as the best way forward, and we continue to have only one caveat in our support for this tax boost: that the money is dedicated to actual road and bridge improvements.
As Graves told the audience at the Eno Transportation Foundation last week, tolling “is not as efficient or effective a way to fund highway improvements as the federal fuel tax.”
We all need Congress and the administration to step up and appropriately deal with our national infrastructure.
