Where’s the bridge money?

…Insecure road funding is an unintended consequence of what is hailed as a healthy trend toward more fuel-efficient vehicles. Even though the number of cars on the road and miles traveled have grown, gasoline use – and thus gas taxes – have remained essentially flat. The result is that the gas-tax trust fund that has subsidized the nation’s road system for decades will run out of money by 2009.

Federal, state and local governments collectively spend about $70 billion each year on roads and bridges. That’s $9 billion less than is needed to maintain them and $62 billion less than is needed to expand the system to handle growth, Federal Highway Administration figures show.


To fix the problem, profound change is in order, said Mark Policinski, head of the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments.

“The next reauthorization is going to be, hopefully, seminal legislation akin to the Reagan tax cuts of the ’80s,” he said.

“We want to see more of an emphasis on public-private partnerships,” he said. Also, he said, speeding up construction planning is key, as is technology, such as digital passes for paying tolls, and tax breaks for businesses that help pay for infrastructure.

Cincinnati Enquirer