BY MITCH MAC DONALD, GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR outbound
this we know is true
FOR ALL OUR FRUSTRATIONS WITH THE LACKLUSTER ECOnomic recovery, we haven’t yet lost our faith. Experience tells us that no
matter how dark the storm clouds, the sun always breaks through in
the end. And so it will be with the U.S. economy. Growth will happen
somehow, some way, sometime. This we know is true.
And when it does, one of the first indications will be an uptick in
traffic on the nation’s highways. As the economy gathers strength, there
will be more freight to move. The more freight there is to move, the
more trucks on the road. This we know is true.
If you’ve been in this business for a while, you know this has potentially disastrous implications for both public safety and the free flow of
commerce. The nation’s transportation infrastructure is already severely overstressed. Our highways are at or beyond
capacity. Our roads and bridges are crumbling.
And things will only get worse as freight volumes
rise. This we know is true.
What makes the situation all the more frustrating is that we’ve seen it coming for some time now.
For years—decades, in fact—various constituen-cies from the freight community have warned of
the consequences of neglecting the aging U.S.
infrastructure. But their warnings have gone largely unheeded. There’s really nothing being discussed, proposed, debated, or done about this
problem beyond what’s been going on for nearly
30 years—a whole lot of nothing.
The reason? Money. Fixing our roads and
bridges and building new ones will take money—
piles and piles of money. So far, Congress has failed to allocate anything
close to the kind of funding needed. And no one’s holding out much
hope, given that Congress has yet to reauthorize the program that
merely maintains current levels of service. That program—known as
the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act - A
Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU)—expired in February and has been
surviving on a series of continuing resolutions ever since.
Truth is, Congress will likely continue its present course of inaction
unless the pressure becomes overwhelming. And there’s little chance
that will happen as long as the pressure’s coming solely from the freight
community. The measures backed by freight interests—say, proposals
to expand the Interstate Highway System, to underwrite road and
bridge repairs, or even to develop a national strategic freight plan—
simply do not generate the interest or support of the motoring public.
And without that support, they cannot gather the momentum needed
to propel them through Congress.
Perhaps, then, it’s time to try something new.
Perhaps the time has come to stop looking at
the problem from two perspectives: that of the
motoring public and that of the freight community. Perhaps it’s time to find common
ground, identify a path that’s acceptable to all,
and finally get the job done, including allocating adequate funds for the task.
That common ground might be right in front
of us. According to a recent survey by engineering and construction firm HNTB Corp., a
sizeable number of Americans
are open to the idea of using tolls
to generate much-needed transportation funding. The company’s latest “America Thinks” survey found that more than four
out of 10 U.S. citizens would
support the expansion of toll
roads as a means of raising revenues. Only about 15 percent
said they would prefer to pay for
roadwork through higher fuel
taxes, while the remainder do
not want to pay for road projects at all.
So, perhaps a significant expansion in tolls,
both on new and existing (albeit better-main-tained) roads, is a proposal we can all unite
around. It’s not a new idea, but we need a common denominator if we hope to make progress.
We also need both the commercial carriers and
the private motorists to come together. Then,
and only then, will we have Congress’s ear.
Then, and only then, is there any real chance
this problem can be solved.
