Editorial: A Start to Budgeting, Not the End

This Editorial appears in the May 29 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

The infrastructure section of President Donald Trump’s budget proposal is highly problematic in that it probably would lead to a sharp increase in tolled highways and bridges, but for now, we are hopeful that this is just an opening-round statement and not the final word on spending and taxes for fiscal 2018.

Members of both houses of Congress — the power- of-the-purse people — should work with the administration to produce a more beneficial approach to the nation’s infrastructure needs. There is every reason to believe that senators and representatives from small states will be especially eager to contribute to this process.

As we report, the administration is sticking with its 10-year, $1 trillion vision for infrastructure improvement, a worthy strategy we endorse. However, the plan includes sticking with direct federal spending levels from the status quo 2015 FAST Act and making up the rest through public-private part- nerships, or P3s, and those are usually funded through tolling.

We continue to recommend federal fuel taxes on diesel and gasoline as the best way to maintain and even expand interstate highway capacity. Yes, most legislators hate to raise taxes — usually a very fine instinct — so we readily acknowledge a place for P3s, but more as a specialty rather than the core of a financial plan.

Legislators from rural areas — Republican Sens. John Thune of South Dakota and John Barrasso of Wyoming are good examples — have spoken about how P3s are incompatible with lightly populated states. Tolling as a business venture requires density of traffic, and many states don’t have that.

We also hear from trucking association executives who say their rural roads are in need of attention. They cringe at the scenario where tolls on big roads will drive traffic onto smaller untolled roads.

This is a major reason why “devolution,” pushing a lot more transportation planning from the federal level to the states, is a poor choice.

States should maintain a strong role in organizing important small and medium roads, but a federal big-picture presence is absolutely critical. The idea of all this concrete, asphalt and steel is to move freight and people over long distances.

That’s a federal job, not one for state houses.

In seeking a national infrastructure deal, last week’s event is Chapter One, not the end. Administration officials and legislators still have a long haul ahead of them.