Highways need help

The federal transportation bill expired last week, but members of Congress, fearing that an inevitable discussion about raising the gasoline tax would cast them in a bad light among voters, are not expected to take up a new bill.

Transportation bills, which flow new money into the federal highway trust fund, are generally revised and renewed every six years. The highway trust fund is what pays for federal highway, bridge and transit-system improvements. It is also a major source of funding for state transportation projects.

Congress plans to proceed as if the newly expired transportation bill, which had pumped $268 billion into the highway trust fund, were still in effect. If that thinking persists, the fund will essentially receive no increase over the next six years.

Not all members of Congress agree with that strategy, including Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn. Ever mindful of the bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed in August 2007, killing 13 people and injuring 145, he favors a $500 billion transportation bill.

The bridge collapse spurred analysis of the country’s infrastructure, which was found to be in abysmal shape. Oberstar argues that motorists are at greater risk of injury and death because of the poor shape of our roads, and that businesses large and small lose great quantities of money every time their employees get tied up in traffic jams because road improvements have not kept up with population growth.

If Congress proceeds on its course, and does not boost the fund, already obsolete and worn roads and bridges under state and federal jurisdictions will just get worse.

A federal tax on gasoline, of 18.4 cents a gallon, is the source of the highway trust fund’s money. The tax has not been increased in 16 years. One analyst cited by the Associated Press said an increase of 10 cents a gallon would allow for a $450 billion transportation bill. That amount could put tens of thousands of people to work while giving our infrastructure the lift it urgently needs.