A new transportation commission is calling for drastic changes, including major investments in rail and transit.
The two-year study by the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission recommended broad changes and warned that urgent action is needed. The Commission was formed by Congress in 2005 to study the future needs of the nation’s surface transportation system and to recommend funding options.
Their recommendations:
- Ease traffic congestion by expanding state and local public transit systems and highway capacity.
- Protect the environment by smoothing traffic flow, encouraging alternative commute options such as carpooling and public transit and promoting energy-efficient construction and lighting in transit systems to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
- Rebuild and expand the nation’s rail network to meet a growing demand for alternatives to congested highways.
- Raise the federal gasoline taxes to 40 cents per gallon over five years and index it to inflation (the current 18.4 cent gas tax hasn’t been raised since 1993)
- Work to cut traffic fatalities in half over the next 17 years by urging states to embrace new strategies to improve safety.
- Seek to develop new energy sources with new research programs costing $200 million annually over the next decade.
It is time for a "new beginning," the report said, calling the current strategy of patchwork repair "no longer acceptable."
Unfortunately the Bush Administration opposes these recommendations. Three of the 12 commission members dissented, opposing gas tax increases and claiming that private-sector investment and tolls would be sufficient. The dissenters included commission chair Transportation Secretary Mary Peters and two other Bushies.
It’s also rumored that an important pro-light-rail section of the report, written by Commission member Paul Weyrich and adopted by a 9-3 majority vote of the commission, has disappeared from the Commission’s final report. Weyrich is a leader of the American conservative movement and one of the country’s most knowledgeable supporters of public transportation, especially light rail. Read the deleted section at the National Corridors Initiative website.
The report comes as state governments and several major business groups are calling on the federal government to raise gas taxes to pay for substantial transportation improvements.