As part of any request, a viable solution must be presented.
How are you proposing to build a four-lane highway without a funding mechanism?
The need for road and bridge projects are well known and many in number, the snag has been how to squeeze the turnip that will pay for these public works projects.
About a third of the people will agree to a fuel tax increase (gas and diesel fuel tax), another third will opine that fossil fuels are a dying source of power and, yet another third will state flat out that they can not afford yet another tax or even an increase in the existing taxes-no matter if it's license registration, motor vehicle excise or fuel tax.
The solutions are not nice in any scenario; a "strong arm" effort like recent health care legislation on a national level, or piecemeal small efforts by a state or regional government. The former will only lead to repeal and the later is a classic example of "too little, too late".
The proposal that is best suited for long term success is an educational effort to inform the public about the costs of road and bridge construction and the average life of a newly constructed road or bridge. With a comparison to a household budget and a roof that needs replacing maybe we can draw some support for a SAFE (Sustainable Accountable Fair Economic) Funding plan for roads and bridges.
Step 1. Collect data to determine average cost to build a typical rural two lane road and bridge.
Step 2. Collect data on the life of a typical rural two lane road and bridge.
Step 3. Collect data on the number of users and the burden placed on the road or bridge.
Step 4. Use budget math to calculate costs incurred by various users.
For a public information presentation, a sample of local examples should be used. For example:
1. Collect data to determine average cost to build a typical rural two lane road and bridge.
A recently constructed State highway (near the public meeting site) would provide a good example of the high costs of a new road and bridge. For transparency and to build credibility the costs will be based on recent bid lettings:
$1,000,000 per mile is a typical amount for this area. Demonstrations of high costs could be presented as dollars per foot of road way or square foot or square yard of pavement.
For Example, a typical mile of rural pavement is 24 feet wide and 5280 feet long or 126,720 square feet or $7.89 per square foot or over $71 per square yard as compared to household carpet at $15 per square yard or shingles at $40 per square (100 sq. ft.).
2. Collect data on the life of a typical rural two lane road and bridge. Recent research would indicate loaded trucks make about 600,000 to 700,000 passes over a test section before reconstruction is needed. Since this is one lane and a typical rural road has two lanes the life of the pavement could be argued to be about 1.2 to 1.4 million passes. Cars do not burden the pavement structure but do demand snow/ice removal, pavement striping and traffic control ancillary costs of up $4000 per mile per year.
3. The math would indicate cars and other light load vehicles would be assessed $0.05 per mile and trucks would be assessed $0.50 per mile.
4. Since fuel taxes are tethered to petroleum product use, a future model should be based on tracking the route used with subsets for vehicle weight, congestion and safety enhancements.
In summary, the most equitable funding system would be one that reflects the replacement costs of the pavement and bridge structure with subsets that also recognize congestion and safety costs. The system should be able to reimburse the highway owner for the burden placed on each segment of the transportation system, in such a case a city street would collect fees when a detour of a state highway was forced in play due to a crash. The billing would follow other utility billing models with details allowing for easy reconciling of accuracy. The bottom line will be a move from all travelers paying for burden placed on pavement and bridge structures to a method of payment based on sustainable, equitable and accountable facts.
------------------------------
Barry Anderson P.E., M.ASCE
Granite Falls MN
------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 11-14-2017 04:29
From: Derek Sherman
Subject: Sustainable Funding of Our Road Network
Having a sustainable modality of financing road maintenance and construction is paramount to having a road network that is cost effective and serves the public's transport requirements. Historically for the federal government and states fuel taxes have been the main source road financing; in recent years the revenues collected have not increased sufficiently to maintain the condition of road network. A Framework for Infrastructure Funding by the American Transportation Research Institute, a trucking industry funded institute, (November 2017) provides an overview of road funding in the USA. This excellent report should be utilized by organizations including the ASCE who are concern about the deteriorated state of our road infrastructure in their efforts to lobby and change Congress' reluctance to increase the fuel tax to finance the Highway Trust Fund. This should be done in light of the on-going legislative proposals for tax reform in Congress.
Six methods of financing road development are briefly described in the report, each is evaluated and the results are summarized in the following table:
Methods of Funding Road Infrastructure
The report correctly indicates that a fuel tax is administratively the simplest to implement, is the most cost-effective in terms of collecting the tax, is equitable since all vehicle operators pay according to their use of road system, and is most effective in collecting funds for the network as a whole. The report proposes increases to the fuel tax to fund the backlog of road maintenance and improvements to restore our national road network to, maybe, an ASCE C or B rating. ASCE should review the report as quickly as possible to endorse it or make modifications to it and propose the revision as a joint report.
------------------------------
Derek Sherman P.E., M.ASCE
Transport Infrastructure Consultant
Mitchelville MD
------------------------------