It’s Time to Stop Driving for Highway Dollars

If you haven’t heard the news yet, the Federal Highway Administration just announced that Americans seem to be driving less: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pressroom/fhwa0811.htm. 

With sample Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) data – which is the number of miles that vehicles are driven – we can see that, since last November, overall VMT is down over where it was this time last year.

This is significant for three reasons: first, this hasn’t happened since 1979.  Second, this has significant positive ramifications for our environment.  According to our latest estimates, fewer cars on the road has translated into a 9 million metric ton decline in greenhouse emissions for the first quarter of 2008 alone.  And third, this underscores the financial challenges of the Highway Trust Fund (the federal source of financing for Interstates and National Highways). 

It’s a challenge with massive financial consequences – the less Americans drive, the less revenue is generated for the Highway Trust Fund. The less revenue in the Highway Trust Fund, the less funding is available for states to keep roads healthy and efficient – resulting in more traffic tie-ups, more inefficiency, reduced driving and even less funding. 

This latest trend is yet another reason that we need to overhaul the highway financing system.

The system invented by President Eisenhower over 50 years ago got America this far… but it can’t take us much further. New funding methods that are not dependent on fuel consumption are needed and needed now.

- Acting FHWA Administrator Jim Ray

Comments

[Nick C]

Please remember – keep it equal. It's not fair to toll a project that's just getting built now because some other project (*ahem, I-99*) had the political pull to get it done 20 years ago.

[Aaron Antrim]

This post says that less funding for the Highway Trust Fund will result "in more traffic tie-ups." However, it seems that a decrease in VMT will reduce congestion, meaning a reduced, or in some cases, eliminated, need for road capacity expansion projects.

Public transit ridership is way up right now. Since much of its funding also comes from gas taxes, I am concerned about the question of how the funding mix will meet growing public demand for transit.

[Alexander]

Newsworthy indeed!

Yet not even a breath about the likely correlation between lowered VMTs and today's price at-the-pump.

Whether or not at the hand of market forces, ironically, the federal government's promoting improved fuel economy imposes a goal that neccesitates lowered revenue used to build and maintain our highways.

So, while today's news about the highway trust fund (HTF) does not likely correlate to improved CAFE standards, it really is only a matter of time before fueling technologies create an imbalance in the HTF, as well as alleviate mobile-source air quality problems.

This only goes to prove that we really can't plan our highways to affect better air quality, when the source ultimately correlates more to combustion than to congestion.

So, in driving a hybrid, we pay a little bit more for the car, but quite a bit less for the road on which it drives.

As for our beleaguered HTF, it's time to take a hard look at multiple financing mechanisms, including - but not limited to - P3s and a shift in the trust fund's reliance on fuel taxation to a tax that equates to the one mechanism common to almost every form of terrestrial transportation on pavement: the rubber tire.

From bikes to autos, scooters to semis, these devices are a common denominator and typically sold based on a life-expectancy in terms of miles.

Since the cost and taxation of fuel has led to neither marked improvements in economy, nor remarkable gains in highway financing resources, it's time to bless who brought us to the ball, but seriously consider changing dance partners.

[Barry Culler]

With less commuter travel, road maintenance costs will be reduced due to less traffic wear on roadways. It is noted this cost reduction will help offset future reoccuring costs for maintenance work related to environtmental wear, traffic signage & lights, road / bridge safety inspections, and car counting. The time schedule to perform certain maintenance tasks might accordingly be delayed by 4 or 5% to accomodate fund receipt.

The reduction in commuter travel is good (lowers fuel demand) and helps to relieve highways and airports of traffic congestion and delays and immediate capital investment in additonal roadways.

As alternative fuels (E-85, hybrids, etc ) and means of transportation (rail, intercity) are encouraged and with the law of supply and demand, our national transportation system is certain to shape up to secure America's future.

It is agreed that we have not done much since Eisenhower's time with our great interstate system.

Tires appear directly related to road wear / travel and could be a better form to fund our future alternatives. Bigger tires get taxed more. They might be taxed at the point of sale if we are not currently doing this. But.. no double dipping to fund the trust.

Good Luck..

Barry Culler
william.culler@faa.gov

[FRP]

The fourth paragraph in the piece does not really hold together. I cannot see how one can get from "the less Americans drive" to the "more traffic tie-ups"?! How can less traffic spell more congestion?

In addition: sure, less driving means less money is available for road maintenance, but it also means fewer cars doing wear and tear on the roads, and thus, presumably, less need for maintenance.

The real issue here is that the federal gas tax has not been indexed to inflation, so it has, in essence, fallen over time. Indeed, given the run-up in the price of materials used for road construction and maintenance, real revenues from it have fallen precipitously.

I appreciate this blog.

[Anonymous]

So why does FHWA keep widening roads and building new roads claiming that congestion is out of control if, in fact, Americans are driving less and less?

[KLH]

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=547068

[mrbview]

Your press release title is factually incorrect. Americans are not "driving at historic lows". There has been a notable (perhaps historic) one-time DECLINE in 2008, the first such notable decline on record. However, Americans continue to drive at near record levels.

VMT is a sign of economic vitality and quality of life. A rising VMT can be simply connected to a rising population. Rising VMT means more business meetings, more sales opportunities, more trips to soccer games, trips to grandma's house, and trips to the beach.

This is an irrational attempt to promote pricing. It is anti-freedom and anti-economic growth.

The better argument to make is that the HTF is in long-term trouble due to improvements in fuel-efficiency and that would be a rationale to shift to a form of road pricing.

- Marcus Bowman, IAC Transportation

[Anonymous]

People are driving less because the price of fuel is higher. This is exactly the opposite of what Secretary Peters claimed a few months ago when she rejected the call for raising the gas tax to keep up with inflation. Tolling and public-private partnerships are not the answer, as you appear to be suggesting, as they have many unintended consequences that no one likes to mention.