House-Senate Joint Transportation Hearing: Texas Needs All Tools on the Table
Panels of transportation experts, local elected officials and business leaders expressed a dire need for additional transportation funding to address the congestion problems throughout the state at Monday's joint hearing of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security and the House Committee on Transportation. Participants of the hearing agreed on the vital need for the Legislature to identify solutions to the state's transportation funding challenges during the upcoming legislative session.
Panel members discussed possible funding mechanisms for the Legislature to consider in the next session including ending diversions from the gas tax, increasing and indexing the gas tax, increasing vehicle registration fees, enacting a local option tax or vehicle sales tax, and reauthorizing the use of public-private partnerships.
Texas Transportation Commission chairwoman Deirdre Delisi told the Legislature that the state needs long-term stability to fund future transportation projects. Delisi pointed out that the state is facing serious financial challenges in regard to transportation through declining revenues and declining purchasing power of gas tax funds, unreliability of federal aid, increasing efficiency of vehicles and increasing costs of construction. She continued that the state needs every tool in the toolbox available to get projects underway.
Senate committee chair John Carona observed that privately financed toll roads are more expensive to build and maintain than publicly financed roads, but Delisi argued that the private sector has greater capacity to secure financing for these projects. She said the state does not currently have the budget or borrowing capacity to finance important transportation projects, so it must turn to the private sector to provide the financial support necessary for needed projects.
Delisi sited SH 130 as an example of a project that would otherwise not have been built without the use of a public-private partnership. For more on how public-private partnerships have made projects happen throughout Texas, watch the TSRT video entitled “Road-Building Innovations: The Dallas-Fort Worth and Texas Experience” . The video features transportation projects that are underway after years of planning and hopeful thinking, and testimonials from officials directly involved in the projects demonstrating how they can serve as a model for the rest of the state and the nation to build and maintain transportation infrastructure.
"You're going to need every tool you have," Michael Morris, Director of Transportation for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, told the Legislature. "You are in so much trouble, you don't have the right to pick and choose which funding tools to use," he continued.
Bill Hammond of the Texas Association of Business urged the Legislature to gradually eliminate diversions and to allow the state to once again use public-private partnerships to build new infrastructure.
Peggy Venable of Americans for Prosperity also highlighted the need to end diversions as a funding mechanism. "We recognize that significant transportation dollars are siphoned off for other purposes," she said. "If legislators and local government officials agree that transportation is a priority, we should end those diversions – all of the diversions – before we consider any additional taxing authority."
Considering its current financial situation, the state will run out of money for new transportation projects by 2012 without a new funding method. This would mean no new roads or projects would be built, and the state would only be able to maintain current infrastructure. The 2030 committee reported its transportation needs summary to the Legislature, saying that the state needs to invest at least $315 billion through 2030 to maintain roadways, combat urban traffic congestion, and increase mobility and safety.
Click Here to view a video of the hearing.
To read more about the hearing, read the articles below:
Fort Worth Star-Telegram: North Texans revive push for local-option transportation funding bill
San Antonio Express-News: Legislators debate road funding
El Paso Times: State could look at fuel tax hike
Panel members discussed possible funding mechanisms for the Legislature to consider in the next session including ending diversions from the gas tax, increasing and indexing the gas tax, increasing vehicle registration fees, enacting a local option tax or vehicle sales tax, and reauthorizing the use of public-private partnerships.
Texas Transportation Commission chairwoman Deirdre Delisi told the Legislature that the state needs long-term stability to fund future transportation projects. Delisi pointed out that the state is facing serious financial challenges in regard to transportation through declining revenues and declining purchasing power of gas tax funds, unreliability of federal aid, increasing efficiency of vehicles and increasing costs of construction. She continued that the state needs every tool in the toolbox available to get projects underway.
Senate committee chair John Carona observed that privately financed toll roads are more expensive to build and maintain than publicly financed roads, but Delisi argued that the private sector has greater capacity to secure financing for these projects. She said the state does not currently have the budget or borrowing capacity to finance important transportation projects, so it must turn to the private sector to provide the financial support necessary for needed projects.
Delisi sited SH 130 as an example of a project that would otherwise not have been built without the use of a public-private partnership. For more on how public-private partnerships have made projects happen throughout Texas, watch the TSRT video entitled “Road-Building Innovations: The Dallas-Fort Worth and Texas Experience” . The video features transportation projects that are underway after years of planning and hopeful thinking, and testimonials from officials directly involved in the projects demonstrating how they can serve as a model for the rest of the state and the nation to build and maintain transportation infrastructure.
"You're going to need every tool you have," Michael Morris, Director of Transportation for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, told the Legislature. "You are in so much trouble, you don't have the right to pick and choose which funding tools to use," he continued.
Bill Hammond of the Texas Association of Business urged the Legislature to gradually eliminate diversions and to allow the state to once again use public-private partnerships to build new infrastructure.
Peggy Venable of Americans for Prosperity also highlighted the need to end diversions as a funding mechanism. "We recognize that significant transportation dollars are siphoned off for other purposes," she said. "If legislators and local government officials agree that transportation is a priority, we should end those diversions – all of the diversions – before we consider any additional taxing authority."
Considering its current financial situation, the state will run out of money for new transportation projects by 2012 without a new funding method. This would mean no new roads or projects would be built, and the state would only be able to maintain current infrastructure. The 2030 committee reported its transportation needs summary to the Legislature, saying that the state needs to invest at least $315 billion through 2030 to maintain roadways, combat urban traffic congestion, and increase mobility and safety.
Click Here to view a video of the hearing.
To read more about the hearing, read the articles below:
Fort Worth Star-Telegram: North Texans revive push for local-option transportation funding bill
San Antonio Express-News: Legislators debate road funding
El Paso Times: State could look at fuel tax hike
Posted by Emily at February 2, 2010 12:47 PM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: funding tools transportation
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: funding tools transportation
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