Fawn, you’ve come right to the heart of the matter. It’s true: we’re in the midst of a fight that’s going to pose a huge challenge to the consensus on the need infrastructure investments. We’ve seen it again and again through the course of American history. Fights to expand opportunity and realize the promise of American democracy get undermined by internal splits. What begins as a march under a common banner ends in a panicked fight for scraps.

The challenge to us, as a diverse community that believes that our national transportation system can build a more just, prosperous, and connected America—the challenge to us is to commit to a larger vision of what we're fighting for. Proverbs says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” A vision is what lets us fight shoulder to shoulder when we’re tempted to turn on each other.

America was founded on a vision of unity amid diversity. Unity is part of our country’s name and its motto: E pluribus unum—out of many, one. In our individual strivings, in the cares and pursuits of our personal lives, we are many; in our public lives, where we are bound together by a commitment to each other’s success, we are one. A commitment to a shared public life is what made America possible. A commitment to community is the heart of what it means to be an American.

At times it feels we’ve never been more divided than we are today. A frenzy of budget-slashing is pitting rich against poor, black against white, city against suburb, and worker against worker. But the heart of the TEN vision for America—which we call “One Nation, Indivisible”—is that our national transportation system can be a force to bridge our divides: geographic, economic, racial, political, and spiritual.

Eighty-two percent of Americans want more transportation options, including 79% of rural voters. Transportation investments—especially in public transportation—have been shown time and again to be a powerful engine of job creation and economic growth. Transportation has long been an area of bipartisan cooperation and compromise. And when we ensure our transportation investments connect us to opportunity rather than isolating and dividing us, we help forge the commitment to community that made America possible.

In the months to come, we won’t agree on everything. But that doesn’t mean we are doomed to lose our way in petty conflicts. We at TEN are committed to the fight for our common future as Americans. Transportation investments have to be at the center of that. That’s the core of TEN’s vision for America, which we invite you to read and respond to. That’s the core of the message we brought to Capitol Hill last week. And that’s what we believe can bind us together in our common fight for the future of the country we love.

Many prior postings in this blog have made strong arguments that an increase in federal support for transportation is a sound investment that will promote economic efficiency, growth in employment, and quality of life. If these arguments do not carry the day, there will need to be careful consideration of the rationale we will use to determine the appropriate level of federal investment in transportation.

I find it difficult to understand the rationale followed in Chairman Ryan’s budget. He concludes that highway and transit funding should be reduced to the amount of the revenues that are now received by the Highway Trust fund from taxes established in 1993. This approach would appear to reduce highway and transit funding by 30% or more -- much larger reductions than those proposed in many other programs that would be frozen at 2008 levels. For example, the aviation bill recently passed by the House included reductions of about 6%.

Highway and transit trust-fund revenues come primarily from a gas tax last increased in 1993. The increase was first used for deficit reduction and was only added to the Trust Fund in 1998. The 1993 tax is not indexed for inflation and will yield less revenue if fuel efficiency improves. Why should the revenues which this tax produces be the amount at which we will support federal transportation programs?

From the beginning of the trust fund in 1956 through 1998, trust fund taxes were periodically adjusted to the level that would produce the revenues needed for a sound program. Program needs were determined first, followed by establishing revenues to meet the needs. The 2012 budget proposal reverses the process and uses the revenues produced by a 1993 tax to determine the level of the program. Had the Congresses of 1993 and 1998 realized that they were capping the highway and transit programs forever, they would have given it a lot more thought.

"Politicians don't like to choose between trucks and railroads and pedestrians and bikes." So what to do? There is an easy answer to this question: Treat all modes alike - abolish all federal funding for all transport modes.

Sustainable aviation, maritime and rail services should be financed out of payments by willing customers. Local roads by property taxes, and long-distance roads by dedicated fuel taxes or (better) by VMT fees. Transport financing in the US has traditionally been based on the "user pays" principle, and this is no time to abandon this principle, on which we rely for the distribution of food, water and other essential services.

"To govern is to choose". Cutting all transport financing by an equal percentage is an abandonment of governing responsibility. But cutting it all to zero would allow other entities - states, local authorities and private providers - to give these important problems the attention and funding that the federal congress lacks. It does not lack them for want of interest, but because it has more appropriate matters to attend to, such as trillion-dollar deficits.

My advice is for all transportation interests to hang together and continue to press for higher levels of funding. Reality demands those higher levels and patriotism demands that we continue to call for a bill that will allow the nation to remain competitive and maintain its quality of life. If the coalition splinters, it will only give our opponents more reason to deny adequate funding. Don't forget that the proposals coming out of the House are only that, and grown ups in the Senate and Administration are sure to tone down the extremist views of Republican House members.

Now that Congress has finally completed their work on the FY 11 budget it is time turn attention to the FY 12 budget and the tremendous challenge of balancing the many needs of our country and getting our enormous debt under control. For those of us in the transportation arena, there is the added complication of the need to reauthorize the major surface transportation programs. At Washington Metro, we have put in place a six year, $5 billion dollar capital program to address safety issues, rebuild our 35 year old system and bring it back to state of good repair. Our needs, like a great deal of our U.S. infrastructure are great. The current state of the Washington Metro illustrates clearly the results of what happens to a once great system that has been neglected and consistently underfunded.

But is also important to focus on the tremendous benefit transit brings to the nation's capital. On a daily basis, Metro buses and trains take 500,000 cars off the road reducing congestion thus saving people time. Businesses benefit from Metro’s transit services by spending less on fuel and not having to pay employees to sit in traffic. The Texas Transportation Institute reports that the congestion relief created

through Metro services saves people in the region an estimated 26 million hours of travel time and an estimated $521 million each year Metro helps promote the economy by saving people money. Recent research by the American Public Transit Association (APTA) estimated that people using public transit save over $9,000 a year in avoided parking, gasoline, insurance, maintenance and repairs costs. Metro also benefits those residents who do not use transit. Indeed transit across the United States provides these types of benefits to the communities they serve.

As we begin serious debate on the surface transportation reauthorization, I want to applaud the unity of purpose that has been shown between business and labor in highlighting the need for continued infrastructure investment. There are needs in all forms of surface transportation, transit, rail and highways. Working together we can find solutions that address local, regional and national transportation issues. We need to use every dollar wisely and make decisions based on metrics that deliver the greatest benefit to U.S taxpayers.