Transportation officials are urging Maryland lawmakers to consider raising taxes and fees on Maryland drivers as federal funding appears increasingly unreliable.
“Financially we’re in a lot of trouble at the moment,” said Peter J. Basso, chief operating officer of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
He projected a 35 percent drop in federal funding for state highways by 2013.
“This kind of [transportation] program [in Maryland] will be a shadow of itself if we don’t do something about the revenues,” he told a commission charged with studying Maryland’s transportation funding structure. Maryland receives 25 percent of its transportation funding from the federal government.
He proposed raising Maryland’s 23.5-cent-per-gallon gas tax, which hasn’t been increased since 1993.
Transportation consultant Susan J. Binder said the state needs to act fast in raising revenues.
“My main message today is ‘don’t wait for the feds,’” said Binder, senior associate of Cambridge Systematics Inc.
She said the state cannot rely solely on accounting maneuvers and pushing debt into the future to keep its transportation funding solvent.
“We need funding, not just financing,” she said.
