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Budget includes $476B highway bill

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By Steve Bennish, Staff Writer 9:07 PM Monday, February 13, 2012

No solution appears to be in sight for a funding crisis in Ohio’s highway budget as the president Monday unveiled his proposed six-year, $476 billion highway and surface transportation bill.

The proposal is down from the $556 billion in Obama’s budget last year. But with Washington trapped in political gridlock, few are betting the proposal or even a large portion of it will make it past Congress.

Beefing up infrastructure spending has been an Obama administration refrain. But after three years of the president pushing for a national infrastructure bank, there’s no sign of one being created.

More fuel-efficient vehicles, increasing use of electric vehicles, and continuing high, long-term unemployment that translates to less traffic has ominous implications because highway funding budgets are so dependent on fuel taxes, said Steve Faulkner, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Transportation. The number of jobs in the state still is around 500,000 below Ohio employment in 2000. Meanwhile, construction costs rise.

“Our costs go up, but we are not seeing any kind of revenue increase to coincide with it,” Faulkner said.

Faulkner noted that Congress hasn’t produced a new transportation bill in the past three years, but has voted for eight reauthorizations.

If Obama’s transportation proposal is passed, it would help secure funding for the Brent Spence Bridge replacement project that the president used as an example of what his jobs bill could accomplish during a visit to Cincinnati in September.

The $80 billion per year average in the budget is much more than what the House has proposed ($57.8 billion) and the Senate has proposed ($54.5 billion).

“Because of the formula they use, it could mean more money” for the bridge, said Brian Cunningham, spokesman for the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments. “But do they have the funding to finance $80 billion since they were struggling to finance the $54 billion? Where do they come up with the other $25 billion?”

Leaders from both political parties have said the replacing the Interstate 71/75 bridge that crosses the Ohio River is critical since usage tops 165,000 vehicles a day — double what it was designed to support when it opened in 1963.

“We’re still short on funding, and we need to keep working on that,” Cunningham said of the $2.5 billion project. “But both states have made a commitment to the project, and we continue to move forward.”

In Ohio, officials are looking at potential revenue sources including leasing the Ohio Turnpike and increasing use of bridge and highway tolls, Faulkner said. The alternative is that ODOT becomes a “maintenance only” organization because it won’t be able to pay for new construction, he added.

Ohio officials in January declared a transportation funding crisis. On Jan. 17, Ohio Department of Transportation officials released funding projections that would push back by decades the state’s biggest highway projects.

Obama’s proposal calls for significant funding for high-speed trains — $47 billion over six years. But neither the House nor the Senate bills contain any money for high-speed rail. Nor is there any money in the current budget.

Obama’s budget also calls for a $50 billion “upfront” infusion for roads, bridges, transit systems, border crossing railways and runways in the current fiscal year to spur job creation. The president’s transportation budget money would come from redirecting funding for fighting in wars. But critics have said the notion of taking war “savings” to pay for other programs is budgetary sleight of hand. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been largely financed through borrowing, so stopping the wars doesn’t create a pool of ready cash, just less debt.

Staff writer Ted Cox and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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