Transportation policy expert Ken Orski does a good job of pulling together developments, most recently at the Heritage Foundation in July and in a speech later that month to the Council of State Governments’ Southern Legislative Conference. The bottom line: Transportation decisions and policy are being devolved to the states, even as the Obama administration seeks to increase centralized command-and-control government in Washington.
The reason is money. Gasoline tax revenues are declining because of federally imposed mileage requirements and because people have been driving less — a trend that began when the economy collapsed and seems to have continued at least up to the most recent data available. Gas tax revenues are not enough to fund federal transportation at current levels, and Congress is unwilling to raise the gas tax. Using other revenue sources is controversial, and Congress keeps passing stopgap measures that keep money flowing to the states for a little while but do not address the need for long-term funding.
