Transportation Infrastructure Panel Advocates Long-term Planning and Funding

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R) and Teamsters President Jim Hoffa urged broad, long-term planning and funding for transportation infrastructure at a Newsmaker event at the National Press Club on Wednesday.

Foxx noted that the 34th short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund is now in effect and that, "This is what is slowly killing our transportation system."

But even a solvent Highway Trust Fund is not the goal, but a tool, he said. He offered the goal of reducing congestion and travel times.

Including fuel costs, "Americans are now paying close to $1,000 annually to endure travel delays," he said.

Just making the fund solvent would continue to raise travel times, he said.

Foxx advocated the Grow America Act, proposed in the 2016 budget, which would increase investment in transportation by 45 percent, to $478 billion, according to the Department of Transportation.

Barbour broadened the discussion to include air, rail, maritime, and inland waterways. He emphasized that business location decisions depend first on work force availability and then on transportation capacity.

The transportation infrastructure is critical to international competitiveness, he said, citing American ability to sell soybeans to China despite higher production costs than Brazil because of a transportation system superior to Brazil's.

Ports that can take larger ships will be needed because the Panama Canal's capacity will be doubled when expansion is finished by 2017, he said.

"Things can happen," he declared. As an example, he said inland waterways users persuaded Congress to raise their user fees by 45 percent last year in order to fund improvements and maintenance that the users wanted.

The "silo" effect of Congressional authorization and appropriation processes creates piecemeal planning, Barbour said. He finds the solution in comprehensive planning outside that can be funneled into the Congressional processes.

He lamented use of a third of the highway trust fund for mass transit, claiming it erodes support from those who pay the user fee taxes.

Foxx responded that mass transit removes drivers from the highway and thereby reduces congestion and travel time.

Every day 750,000 members of the Teamsters are at work in the transportation system Hoffa said.

The need is for a long-term comprehensive transportation plan of five or six years, he said.

"The experts are there; they know how to do this, and the question is do we have the will to do it," he said.

He added that if the country is growing it is just not practical to think it can avoid raising taxes for transportation