Bob Poole

The Brookings report is a well-done analysis of the importance of international gateway airports to the U.S. economy. But its most visible recommendation—to allocate a larger share of federal airport grant money to major airports—will likely be dead on arrival, politically.

The Brookings analysts are correct in finding that the current AIP grant program represents a huge cross-subsidy. The money comes from the Aviation Trust Fund, and the largest source of that money is airline passenger ticket taxes and segment fees. Passengers using large hub airports constitute 70% of all US airline passengers, and hence generate 70% of the ticket taxes. But large hubs get only 12% of AIP grant money. By contrast, small hubs and non-hubs account for 11% of passengers and ticket tax money, but those airports get 34% of AIP grants. And reliever and GA airports, generating no ticket tax revenues, get 21% of AIP grants.

But to raise alarms about this is to mistake a feature for a bug. AIP was designed to cross-subsidize small airports. Congress absolutely loves the pro

Various smart growth and transit groups are upset about the changes Congress made to the federal TIFIA program, in particular changing the criteria for TIFIA loans from a laundry list of factors (including livability and sustainability) to primarily financial feasibility. But these changes restore TIFIA to what it was originally intended to be—not an all-purpose transportation loan program but a way to leverage limited federal dollars to support big-ticket infrastructure improvements.

The large increase in TIFIA’s budget (from $122 million per year to $750 million next year and $1 billion the following year) is a response to demand from state DOTs greatly exceeding the program’s capacity in recent years. And the streamlined criteria will make U.S. DOT’s decisions about which projects to fund more straightforward and less subject to politicization based on inherently subjective factors introduced by the Obama administration that Congress has now deleted.

I had to laugh at the suggestion by Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s Steven Higa

It’s increasingly obvious that the fuel tax system of paying for highways is running out of gas. Charging for road use based on gallons consumed rather than miles driven only worked as long as everybody consumed gallons at more or less the same rate.

The users-pay/users-benefit principle is still a sound one—after all, it’s how we pay for the services of other capital-intensive network utilities: electricity, telecom, natural gas, water, etc. What’s broken is the relationship between use and payment.

That’s why we need to begin the shift from gallons consumed to miles driven as soon as possible—and this shift can be encouraged in the currently pending reauthorization bill. The way to do this is to reduce current federal barriers to tolling and pricing on federal-aid highways, especially the Interstates.

Ever since the ISTEA reauthorization 20 years ago, each reauthorization bill has chipped away at what used to be a pretty thorough prohibition of tolling on federal-aid highways. But nearly all of this has been brought about

I’m not surprised that crafting a reauthorization bill in 2012 is more contentious than usual. That’s because this is the first such bill to be developed in the new era of fiscal stress for the federal budget. Given the out-of-control growth in annual budget deficits and the national debt, the size and cost of the federal government will be cut back in coming decades—and transportation will be no exception.

This context explains why there is more similarity between the House and Senate bills than you would imagine based on most pundits’ commentaries. Here is a short list of similarities, drawn from my recent article in Public Works Financing:

Program consolidation—both bills would dramatically reduce the number of separate programs, letting states make more choices in how to spend federal funds; Optional “Enhancements”—both bills would no longer require a set percentage of the major highway program to be spent on things like bike paths, scenic trails, and other “transportation enhance

The partial shutdown of the FAA came about because Congress failed to agree on extending the current law and hence the aviation excise taxes that fund most of FAA. These disagreements have been going on since autumn 2007, when the previous authorization expired. The bill Congress failed to pass would have been the 21st short-term extension.

The air traffic control system accounts for about 80% of the FAA’s budget and the lion’s share of its staff. While ATC operations are continuing (as an essential service), the entire ATC modernization program, known as NextGen, is now suspended (along with all airport grants).

The situation is absurd. Not a single one of the numerous issues holding up the FAA bill concerns air traffic control. The latest stumbling block was over how small the cutback would be in the EAS subsidy program. The biggest unresolved battle is the House’s effort to overturn a recent change in policy on airline unionization by the National Mediation Board. There have been battles over foreign aircraft repair stations, Fedex workers, slo

Unlike numerous critics, I’m generally positive about the reauthorization proposal outlined by T&I Chairman John Mica last week. In fact, I give it two cheers out of three. Of all the various proposals floated during the past two years, it’s the only one that’s fully paid for. Continuing to bail out the Highway Trust Fund with general fund monies is not sustainable—and risks undoing the Trust Fund’s legal status as a user-fee supported entity that can only be used for transportation.

So my first cheer is for Mica’s recognition that in the era of fiscal constraint this country will be in for a generation, we have to sort out roles and responsibilities among federal, state, and local governments, not just in transportation but across the board. In transportation, this means refocusing the Trust Fund on what is truly federal: the Interstates and the National Highway System. The federal government can no longer afford to do hundreds of nice-to-have things like sidewalks and bike paths that should be state and local responsibilities.

Every reputable study during the last four years has found that the United States is under-investing in its highway system. That includes the Policy & Revenue Commission, the Infrastructure Financing Commission, and the U.S. DOT’s own biennial Conditions and Performance Report, released last year. The latter is especially important, because its scenarios included several different benefit/cost ratios. Looking only at projects with B/C of at least 1.5, the DOT’s report found that America (federal, state, and local) should be investing $27 billion per year more in our highways just to keep conditions (i.e., pavement) and performance (i.e., congestion) from getting worse as the country grows. To improve things, we could invest $59 billion per year more, again putting money only into projects whose benefits exceed their costs by at least 50%.

More than half of those totals are for reconstruction and repair of existing highways and bridges. But the balance consists of capacity additions, such as adding lanes to truck-clogged Interstates and adding networks of