Reauthorization Should Focus on Highways, ATA’s Windsor Tells Congressional Panel

This story appears in the April 4 print edition of Transport Topics.

Barbara Windsor, chairman of American Trucking Associations, told a congressional panel that the next surface transportation reauthorization measure should feature more effective highway-focused programs.

Joined by 39 other trade group and state government representatives who also testified during a two-day hearing last week before the U.S. House Highways and Transit subcommittee, Windsor said, “Unfortunately, our current highway system no longer meets our needs. The federal surface transportation program must be fundamentally reformed to maximize available resources.”

The hearing marked the next step as Congress trudges toward a decision on the spending measure’s contents and decides whether to move a bill at all during this session.

In recent weeks, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has led a series of 16 field hearings around the country that also were focused on the spending bill.

“ATA supports a consolidated highway program, with eligibility limited to the National Highway System and other highways with significant passenger and freight traffic,” she said. “We also need to cut government red tape and streamline the project delivery process.”

Windsor is president of Hahn Transportation, New Market, Md.

Her message at the March 29 hearing matched a stated priority of Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.), chairman of the subcommittee.

Calling the reauthorization process “more challenging than any other in recent memory,” Duncan emphasized the need for “streamlining the project-delivery process” and cutting down on more than 100 overlapping programs for highway, transit and safety projects.

“We often feel like circus animals,” said John Njord, executive director of Utah’s Department of Transportation, citing duplicative program reviews that force state officials “to jump through hoops” mandated by federal officials.

He also zeroed in on other mandates, citing a Federal Highway Administration requirement for  interstate highway exit sign markings that are going to cost his state $78 million.

Gregory Cohen, president of the American Highway Users Alliance, joined the chorus in favor of streamlined project approvals, urging Congress to set fixed deadlines for agency review procedures.

To free up $5 billion annually in Highway Trust Fund money, Windsor called for funding transit programs from the general fund instead of the road improvement coffers.

Other freight-focused groups weighed in, as well.

Truck driver Kristopher Kane, representing the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said reauthorization “represents an opportunity to halt those diversions [from the Highway Trust Fund] and refocus the investments toward their original purpose.”

OOIDA is “willing to entertain a variety of [funding] mechanisms, as long as funds are used for this program,” Kane said.

Windsor also criticized the Obama administration’s plan for sharp increases in transit and passenger rail funding, reiterated the willingness of ATA members to pay higher fuel taxes and repeated the group’s opposition to tolls as “a very inefficient means of revenue collection.”

Windsor also highlighted ATA’s drive to boost truck weights to as much as 97,000 pounds to improve productivity.

“More productive trucks will not harm the freight railroads,” she said, terming their continued opposition to increased size and weight as “very disingenuous, given our members’ importance to their traffic levels and bottom lines.”

Her reference was to truck/rail shipments that currently are the largest single type of freight that railroads carry.

Increasing truck payloads will “improve safety, lower freight costs [and] reduce emissions,” she added.

Other truck-related groups also testified.

Lisa Mullings, president of Natso Inc., said on behalf of truck-stop operator members that Congress would be misguided if it chose to privatize highway rest areas.

“It is deceptively easy to mistake this issue as a pro-business initiative, a move to privatize rest-area services,” she said, saying such moves aren’t a true privatization because they don’t provide better services.

“It is critical that Congress place an emphasis on alleviating freight congestion and provide a mechanism for planning future investments,” Kurt Nagle, president of the American Association of Port Authorities, said in his written statement.