National Transportation Policy Project Releases Authorization Recommendations
By LUCAS WALL
AASHTO Journal
June 12, 2009
The Bipartisan Policy Center's National Transportation Policy Project released Tuesday a framework for comprehensive reform of the federal surface transportation funding system, becoming the latest in a growing stack of reports to call for transforming policy in the next six-year authorization bill.
NTPP's plan, "Performance Driven: A New Vision for U.S. Transportation Policy," proposes restructuring federal programs, updating the criteria for formulas, and creating a performance-based system that directly ties transportation spending to broader national goals. These goals include economic growth, connectivity, accessibility, safety, energy security, and environmental protection. States would be measured on how greatly they improve access, lower congestion and petroleum consumption, reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, and decrease fatalities and injuries.
"Currently transportation funding is distributed on a politically driven basis with little analysis of benefits and no accountability for results," according to the policy project, which is a bipartisan group of 26 members formed in February 2008 and chaired by four former elected officials: Dennis Archer, previous mayor of Detroit; and Sherwood Boehlert, Slade Gordon, and Martin Sabo, who served in Congress. "Existing programs do little to target federal support for transportation programs to further economic growth or link to jobs and productivity."
The report calls for a complete restructuring of federal transportation funding programs from 108 current areas to six core funding categories that would be mode neutral. Three categories would be formula grant programs for maintaining and enhancing connectivity, sustaining core assets, and essential access. A fourth program would award performance bonuses to states who best achieve the goals. The other two programs would focus on directing money toward new infrastructure construction.
"If we as a nation are going to invest in transportation, we ought to be able to see results," Archer said. "When you get a report back on what was accomplished, everybody wins."
Sen. Mark Warner, D-VA, who worked on the National Transportation Policy Project prior to his election last year, praised the group for advocating solutions whereby states and metropolitan areas can develop their own responses to transportation problems.
Mode neutrality "enables states like Virginia to make their own decisions about how to spend federal money as long as their investments meet accountability standards and promote national goals."
The 136-page report and the 20-page executive summary are available at bpcntpp.org.
Lucas Wall can be reached at lwall@aashto.org or 202-624-3626
