Congress Passes New Transportation Bill

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Capitol Hill lawmakers have finally approved a 5-year, $305 billion federal transportation bill that puts an emphasis on eliminating some of the country’s worst highway bottlenecks. The new law leaves much to be resolved. Among other things, critics warn it doesn’t provide enough funding to deal with infrastructure issues – nor does it provide a long-term source of funding.

The new transportation bill won approval in the House of Representatives by a 359 to 65 margin. That was followed by an even more lopsided 83 to 16 vote in the Senate, sending the measure to President Obama for his signature.

Much of the new money set out in the 1,300-page bill will, as expected, go for highway projects, both to repair a national bridge and road infrastructure some see as in danger of collapse. A key goal is to eliminate highway bottlenecks such as the one in Chicago, at the intersection of Interstates 90, 94, and 290, that routinely experiences backups as long as 12 miles during rush hours.

With the Department of Transportation forecasting freight traffic on U.S. highways will increase 45 percent over the next 30 years, the bill will help smooth the flow of trucks and cars alike, especially in key corridors along the coasts and in Midwest cities like Chicago and Detroit.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will get a little help from $1 billion approved for vehicle safety programs, though that does not meet all the goals NHTSA had set. The agency has come under fire in the wake of a series of recent safety scandals, such as the General Motors ignition switch debacle blamed for over 100 deaths.

The new transportation bill covers a wide gamut of projects, some observers see as included to curry favor with political and industrial constituents, as well as to garner the support of organized labor. One provision provides funding to help ensure the safety of city bus drivers who have been the target of numerous assaults by thieves and unruly passengers in recent years. Dairy farmers, meanwhile, won the right to exceed highway weight limits, in some cases, for trucks hauling milk to market.

Safety advocates lost one key battle: lawmakers sided with the trucking industry and a government-funded website will no longer carry scores for trucking companies. But after years of debate, safety proponents finally will see rental car companies forced to pull vehicles affected by recalls from their fleets until they’re repaired.

Lawmakers steered clear of what is often called a "third-rail" issue in Washington, any discussion of raising the gasoline tax that has remained flat, at 18.4 cents a gallon, since 1993. There had been calls for an increase at a time when fuel costs are lower than they have been in years, and some proponents had hoped to see lawmakers switch to a sales tax approach, basing the fee on a percentage of pump pricing. 

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