Free Republic

On Sunday, the Senate released the final text of the so-called bipartisan (but really liberal) infrastructure bill — all 2,702 pages. According to Breitbart, the huge bill was written in secret for months outside the normal legislative process. Buried in the measure is a pilot program for a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee (MBUF) which is basically a long-term plan to make it too expensive to drive a car. One of the “fun” parts of the supposed bipartisan bill (fun for believers of the climate change hypothesis) can be found on page 511 of the measure, which you can...

The surface transportation construction industry has long had to rely on Washington for its prosperity. We spend most years holding our breath and hoping we will receive more Federal funding to fix our crumbling roads, bridges and highway systems. Currently in the United States, 7 percent of bridges are structurally deficient, and 19 percent of major highway pavements have deteriorated. Yet, our existing financing structure has few tools to address the looming reconstruction challenges facing existing infrastructure. In 2020, Congress passed a one-year extension of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. While the one-year extension of the FAST Act...

Investors are hoping to seize upon the $1 trillion infrastructure plan proposed by President Donald Trump to transform the nation’s highways, bridges, and tunnels into assets they can monetize by adding tolls and other user fees.The Trump infrastructure plan, which the administration plans to roll out this week, is centered on the idea of “asset recycling,” which refers to the process of securing new infrastructure spending by leasing the operations of existing public property to private operators.The privatization-centered scheme has the nation’s largest toll operators salivating. Transurban, Cintra, and TransCore, three major toll operators, have retained federal lobbyists to influence...

Greater reliance on user fees, federal loans rather than grants, and corporatization are three keys to the Trump administration’s infrastructure initiative released as a part of its 2018 budget. The plan will “seek long-term reforms on how infrastructure projects are regulated, funded, delivered, and maintained,” says the six-page document. More federal funding “is not the solution,” the document says; instead, it is to “fix underlying incentives, procedures, and policies.”In building the Interstate Highway System, the fact sheet observes, “the Federal Government played a key role” in collecting and distributing monies to “fund a project with a Federal purpose.” Since then,...

In 1994, the Florida Legislature and the Miami-Dade County Commission adopted legislation creating the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, also known as MDX, in an effort to maintain toll dollars in Miami-Dade to improve the quality of life of county residents. Fast forward 23 years — Miami-Dade’s population has grown to more than 2.6 million residents and out-of-town visitation has nearly doubled; thus, increasing the use of our roadways by both residents and visitors. This combination equals only one thing — ever growing traffic. The Florida Department of Transportation, Florida’s Turnpike, MDX, and Miami-Dade County have spent billions on expanding the Palmetto...

President Trump has promised to eliminate regulations and rebuild the nation’s aging infrastructure. Federal agencies are awash with regulations and provisions based on the presumption that government is, and should be, the sole provider of infrastructure. But now that we understand the merits of public-private partnerships, which can provide more accountable public-purpose infrastructure, these numerous regulations and provisions serve as major obstacles preventing the improvement of highways and other infrastructure. Back in 1995, Reason Foundation published a policy study itemizing a number of these regulatory barriers. Sadly, most of them still exist today. If a state or municipal facility has...

Public agencies with toll-setting authority should take note of a recent federal court decision relating to the uses of user fees and toll revenue, as well as the stated goals of the plaintiff in that case.The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York recently clarified the constitutional uses of toll revenue in American Trucking Associations v. New York State Thruway Authority, 13 Civ. 8123 (CM) (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 10, 2016). In this case, commercial trucking companies and the American Trucking Associations (ATA) claimed that the New York State Thruway Authority violated the Constitution by charging inflated toll rates...

The federal Highway Trust Fund is running out of money, and some senators have proposed to fix the problem by raising gas taxes. This, however, is the wrong solution because it treats the symptom, and not the underlying reason for the shortfall. Here are five reasons for not increasing gas taxes. 1. The problem is not a shortage of funds but an excess of spending. For more than 50 years after Congress created the Highway Trust Fund in 1956 it was able to avoid a shortage of funds by a simple measure: it didn't spend more than was collected in...

The Bush administration proposed on Monday that airlines pay billions in user fees to replace ticket and other taxes that currently underwrite much of the nation's air traffic control system. ... Business jet owners and other private fliers would likely pay higher fuel taxes as part of the new formula, industry officials said.

Ever wanted to own a toll road? How about one with 85 mile-per-hour speed limits alongside a congested interstate -- one where you had exclusive rights to sell food, gas and lodging? You can buy all that and more if you've got a few billion dollars and can convince the Texas Transportation Commission to let you build the Trans-Texas Corridor. In 2002, Governor Rick Perry campaigned on a promise of a privately financed and operated toll road system -- 4,000 miles to be built over the next 50 years. The cost is estimated at $180 billion. Few within the transportation...