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Archive for the ‘Funding’ Category

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The Highway Trust Fund and Surface Transportation Programs in the Federal Budget

Tuesday, July 1st, 2014
Figure 1: Receipts, Outlays, and Balance or Shortfall for the Highway Trust Fund Under CBO’s April 2014 Baseline

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE
The federal government spends more than $50 billion per year on surface transportation programs, mostly in the form of grants to state and local governments. Much of this spending is for highways and mass transit programs financed through the Highway Trust Fund. Those programs have an unusual treatment in the federal budget, and the way they are classified in the budget facilitates the spending of more money from the trust fund than there are dedicated revenues to support such spending. Those revenues come from excise taxes on the sale of motor fuels, trucks and trailers, and truck tires, and from taxes on the use of certain kinds of vehicles.

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Infrastructure Spending in the US: Outlook to 2025

Thursday, June 26th, 2014
Figure 1: Infrastructure spending in a national context, Figure 2: Infrastructure spending by broad sector, Figure 3 and Figure 4

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
By 2025, annual investment in infrastructure across our sectors in the US should top $1trn, having grown by an average of just over 3.5% a year. But the US will likely have been long since left behind by China, where we expect annual spending will reach over three times this level. We estimate that the US’s share of global spending will likely decline gradually over the coming decade to just over a tenth of total global spending by 2025.

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MDOT: Michigan Needs to Build Roads That Last

Thursday, June 26th, 2014

It’s easy to find examples of roads in Michigan that saw repairs just a few years ago and are falling apart again. It’s also easy to see why drivers and taxpayers think shoddy workmanship is to blame. Michigan follows national design and construction standards, and is a leader in roadwork warranties. MDOT can and does build quality roads, but Michigan’s current investment in transportation doesn’t support much more than short-term fixes for our aging system.

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States’ Fiscal Initiatives Offer a Solution to the Impending Trust Fund Shortfall

Friday, June 6th, 2014

Innovation Newsbriefs
Vol. 25, No. 8

While transportation stakeholders and the Washington press corps are agonizing about the impending Highway Trust Fund shortfall and its impact on the federal transportation program, they are ignoring developments outside the Beltway that go a long way toward mitigating the prospective funding shortage. For in fact, individual states, far from standing idly by, are responding to the fiscal uncertainties in Washington by stepping up and augmenting their transportation budgets.

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Posted in Aging Infrastructure, Funding, Guest Post, Highway, Innovation Newsbriefs, Local, National, Policy, Private Investment, Roads, Tax, The Infra Blog

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Hopes for a Long-Term Transportation Bill Are Fading

Tuesday, May 27th, 2014

Innovation Newsbriefs
Vol. 25, No. 7
With federal transportation spending outpacing tax receipts by some $1.25 billion/month, the cash balance of the Federal Highway Trust is drawing perilously close to the point where the U.S Department of Transportation will be obliged to institute cash management strategies—such as slowing down or delaying state reimbursements — to keep the Trust Fund account solvent. Based on current spending and revenue trends, this point —a cash balance of $4 billion in the Highway Account —will be reached in late July according to the latest U.S. DOT estimate However, CBO estimates that “both the highway account and the transit account will end the end of the fiscal year with a positive balance” according to an April 14 memo from the Congressional Budget Office (Subject: CBO’s Highway Trust Fund Runs, April Baseline)

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Paul Yarossi, Executive Vice President, HNTB

Wednesday, May 21st, 2014
Paul Yarossi, Executive Vice President, HNTB

Paul Yarossi is Executive Vice President of HNTB and President of HNTB Holdings, Ltd. As president of HNTB Holdings Ltd, Paul Yarossi serves on the company’s board of directors and is responsible for overseeing and directing the firm’s governance, capitalization strategy, compliance and audit functions, as well as its external and government relations. He also participates in a number of high-level roles on behalf of the industry, which gives him a broad perspective on current issues and trends. He previously served as chairman of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, the U.S. transportation construction industry’s representative in Washington, D.C. ARTBA is bringing recommendations forward regarding the next federal highway funding bill. Yarossi has presented testimony to the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, and the U.S. House Oversight Committee.

“…We continue to look at infrastructure rehabilitation and expansion as a cost rather than an investment…I think we need to change how we talk about infrastructure and start telling people less about what they won’t have and more about what they’ll get in return for their money.”

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Infrastructure Planning And Investment: A Widening Gap

Wednesday, May 21st, 2014
HUDSON VALLEY INFRASTRUCTURE: REDUCED PUBLIC INVESTMENT

HUDSON VALLEY PATTERN FOR PROGRESS
In the past few months, the tragic gas explosion in Harlem and Vice President Biden’s description of LaGuardia Airport as a “third world airport” made national news. In the Hudson Valley, the massive rebuilding of the Tappan Zee Bridge and a proposed $153 million private desalination plant have made headlines. The common topic: Infrastructure. Today, the world demands solid and dependable underpinnings to the activities of daily life. Infrastructure means livelihoods—think of the 14.2 million workers employed nationally in the sector (Brookings, 2014). It means survival, especially in terms of critical resources such as water and roads. And it means a set of unprecedented challenges, at all levels.

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Ten Years and $400 Billion in Federal Highway Spending Later, Are We Any Better Off?

Friday, May 16th, 2014

The federal government has spent $365 billion out of the Highway Trust Fund’s highway account since 2005, pouring money into new roads, capacity improvements, and system preservation. At the same time, fewer people are driving, and those that are are doing it less: total annual vehicle-miles traveled haven’t budged for almost a decade even as we’ve added 20 million new residents, and per-capita VMT has fallen significantly. The number of cars on the road has remained essentially unchanged, cars per 1,000 residents peaked in 2007, and young people are doing just fine without a driver’s license, thank you.

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Janet Kavinoky, Executive Director, Congressional & Public Affairs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Wednesday, May 14th, 2014
Janet Kavinoky, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Janet F. Kavinoky is a nationally recognized expert in transportation policy, funding, and finance. As executive director in the Chamber’s Congressional and Public Affairs Division, Kavinoky leads all transportation strategy, policy, and lobbying efforts. She has expertise in developing consensus policy positions among diverse stakeholders and lobbying Congress and executive branch agencies on a wide range of legislative and regulatory matters relating to surface, air, and water transportation.

“We need to look at infrastructure going forward, in the same way, I think, that an entrepreneur does when they’re pitching a business plan to an investor. An entrepreneur helps the investor visualize what’s going to happen, lays out a strategy, and inspires confidence to execute on that strategy. “

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Robert Puentes, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program

Monday, May 12th, 2014
Robert Puentes, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Robert Puentes is a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program where he also directs the program’s Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative. The Initiative was established to address the pressing transportation and infrastructure challenges facing cities and suburbs in the United States and abroad.

“There’s no doubt that the paralysis in Washington is real and pervasive. I think we overemphasize, though, the federal role in a lot of this…I think, in fact, the federal paralysis is making states, cities, metropolitan areas experiment with a whole host of different things in order to get projects done.”

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