A New Plan for Transportation: Reform, Refocus, Renew

This morning I am in Atlanta – a city that knows what it means to be rebuilt and reborn – to unveil the Bush Administration’s comprehensive new transportation plan.   

We propose to refocus, reform, and renew our approach to the nation’s highways and transit systems by completely overhauling the way U.S. transportation decisions and investments are made.   

Any commuter, shipper, or business owner can tell you our current approach is broken, which is why we are proposing a clean break from the past.    Our plan is intended to spur local, state, and federal debate about how best to incorporate the new reforms into the highway legislation Congress will begin work on this fall.

The plan starts by refocusing the nation’s transportation programs.  The federal government will take responsibility for maintaining and improving the condition and performance of the Interstate highway system.  These highways carry over 25% of the nation’s traffic and three quarters of the nation’s long-haul trucks.  Making sure they are safe, well maintained, and un-congested must be a key federal priority.

Our plan confronts the growing problem of urban traffic by giving officials the flexibility to make investments based on what gets people where they need to go as quickly and as reliably as possible.  If new subways, street cars, or bus routes represent the best investment, communities will have greater freedom – and significantly more resources – to pay for those projects.

We also refocus and redouble our efforts to make our roads and bridges as safe as possible using a strategic, data-driven approach.  Our criteria will be clear:  make our roads safer.

Our plan reforms the nation’s approach to transportation by consolidating the 102 various programs that have sprouted up over the past two decades.  And we pilot changes to the federal review process because it shouldn’t take more than a dozen years to design and build new highway and transit projects.

We also begin the long overdue process of weaning ourselves from the gas tax.  Our transportation policies must not contradict our national objective to reduce fossil-based fuel consumption.   So we make it easier for states to create  infrastructure banks, expand the use of federally backed transportation loans, and eliminate federal taxes the discourage facilitate investments in transportation projects. 

And yes, we make it easer to implement road pricing,   making it easier for states to take advantage of the over $400 billion in private-sector funds available worldwide for infrastructure investments.  The idea is simple:  have federal funds leverage new investments in transportation, instead of replacing them.

Finally, our plan will renew the nation’s transportation network by encouraging massive new investments in our Interstate highways – to expand roads and support new transit systems in the nation’s cities, to bring easier and quicker commutes, and to cut shipping times.

Most important, this plan will renew America’s belief in our transportation network. 

Trying something new is never easy.  But we must if we are going to keep our cities competitive and clean, if we are going to keep our economy vibrant and vital, and we must if we are going to get America moving again. 

Click here to read more about the plan.

-Secretary Peters

Comments

[Matt]

"We also begin the long overdue process of weaning ourselves from the gas tax. Our transportation policies must not contradict our national objective to reduce fossil-based fuel consumption."

It remains, as ever, unclear to me how reducing the tax on gasoline is consistent with a goal of reducing fossil fuel consumption; if we are addicted to oil, as our President has noted, then we should perhaps consider taxing our consumption of it to reflect its true costs. Most of the world pays more for gasoline than we do (http://www.gtz.de/en/dokumente/en-flyer-international-fuelprices-2007.pdf). Over the last few months, we have seen the effects that higher fuel prices have on driver behavior; it seems likely that a higher gasoline tax would not only reduce consumption (and by extension, the strain on the highway system, the consumption of foreign energy, and the production of greenhouse gases), but if structured appropriately, likely also reduce the strain on the Highway Trust Fund.

In the end though, making heroin cheaper doesn't help the addict quit - the same is true for gasoline.

[Carl Gerald]

This all sounds wel and good but very basic or vague. I live in Michigan about half an hour from the Port Huron, Sarnia, river crossing, the Blue Water Bridges. In the last ten years I have witnessed so much construction/reconstruction to the I-69 corridor from Flint to the bridges. The point of what I am getting at here is: Why not build it right the first time? Here in the north our climate is nearly what Germany experiences and the Autobahn has stood up to the passing of time with very little maintainence. Why can't the same thing be done in the colder tier of this country? I had heard that someone several years ago tried to get the same idea through our state house or senate and they recieved death threats, probably from someone in the road repair business. We have got to stop giving in to the people who do this and stand up for what is right

It seems to me if we got the Michigan expressways off of the gas tax for Michigan that would do away with on big cash cow.

Plus Michigan is a border state, our expressways and medians should be top notch and they are not. The first 50 or so miles should be clean and smooth like a red carpet laid out to welcome our Canadian friends into this beautiful state or welcome our fellow ganders that may be travelling in Canada back home.

I'll get off the soapbox for now.

[John Anderson]

I saw no message about freight and passenger rail. We have a third rate passsenger rail system that was systematically destroyed to facilitate the conversion to the automobile and the interstate highway system. AMTRAK is a disgrace outside of Washington to Boston Corridor. No Passenger rail service to Phoenix the fifth largest metro area in the country. Further, more than 90% of cross country freight is moved by the railroads, and is a disgrace that there has been no infrastructure improvements to move freight THROUGH CHICAGO in less that two days when shipping from California to New York.

I know bridges and highways have serious infrastructure problems; but the Federal Governments total disassembling of the wonderful rail service this country had for 100 years prior to 1950 is a disgrace.

[Don Burrell]

Some comments on the New Transportation Approach for America: While there are many encouraging points made in the press release, notably increased support for transit, I am uneasy with the lack of acknowledgement of the contributions being made through bicycling and walking.

Most of the transportation problems being addressed, urban congestion, safer roads and bridges, rising fuel prices, and quality of life are all favorably impacted through increasing the share of trips made by bike and walking. The recent increase in fuel costs in particular, though not from taxes, has had a noticeable effect of more people reducing their car travel in favor of travelling by bicycle (as well as car-pooling and transit).

While the complexity of the current federal transportation program is criticized, its derivation from the Intermodal Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 carries forward the progressive requirements for addressing these non-motorized modes through the state and metropolitan transportation planning and project design work. The Federal Highway Administration has been in the forefront of these efforts most notably with the most recent, April 2007, Guidance for bicycle and pedestrian provisions of the federal transportation legislation, Policy for Mainstreaming Nonmotorized Transportation.

I expect that it is the intention of this new approach to address these needs through local program flexibility. However, I am not confident that this approach will not revert to accommodating cars without consideration for including bicycle and pedestrian travel.

The point was made by Secretary Peters that transportation spending over the last ten years has increased over 100% while congestion increased by 300%. Obviously, we are not going to buy our way out of the problem by continuing to focus on accommodating more cars.

[Devin Quince]

we need to realize that our addiction to oil cannot support the unsustainable dream America has been living in. We need to start buying locally and stop demanding that we be able to get California ceaser salads in Maine in January.

[Robert Rk]

Global economic growth can be attributed to many factors, but transportation services are key to tying every market together. Today, improved transportation services provide businesses with greater opportunities for new markets and consumers with greater access to new products. On behalf of BGI worldwide (http://www.bgiworldwide.com) hope that New Plan for Transportation: Reform, Refocus, Renew will extend opportunities to the needs and facilities of life and business.