Transportation Infrastructure

HAVING BALKED at raising gas taxes a year ago, Maryland reversed course this year — a victory of practicality over poll-driven politics that will pay dividends for years. With impressive speed, lawmakers adopted the first gas-tax hike in a generation in response to a coordinated push by Gov. Martin O'Malley and the two top leaders of the General Assembly, all Democrats. The legislation is expected to raise about $4.4 billion for new transportation projects and maintenance over six years, a relatively modest amount, given the need.

HAVING BALKED at raising gas taxes a year ago, Maryland reversed course this year — a victory of practicality over poll-driven politics that will pay dividends for years. With impressive speed, lawmakers adopted the first gas-tax hike in a generation in response to a coordinated push by Gov. Martin O'Malley and the two top leaders of the General Assembly, all Democrats. The legislation is expected to raise about $4.4 billion for new transportation projects and maintenance over six years, a relatively modest amount, given the need.

As Congress debates how to meet the nation's long-term transportation needs, decaying roads, bridges, railroads and transit systems are costing the United States $129 billion a year, according to a report issued Wednesday by a professional group whose members are responsible for designing and building such infrastructure. Complex calculations done for the American Society of Civil Engineers indicate that infrastructure deficiencies add $97  billion a year to the cost of operating vehicles and result in...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley proposed a sweeping transportation plan Monday that relies in part on a new tax on gas to shore up a fund projected to run out of money for road and rail projects. The proposal — expected to yield $3.4 billion over the next five years — was endorsed by the two Democratic leaders of the General Assembly, boosting its prospects in a legislature that has resisted efforts to raise taxes on gas since 1992. O'Malley's bill promises to jump-start a stalled debate in...

All right-thinking people agree: America's infrastructure is in bad shape. The only debate is over how bad. Is our infrastructure "increasingly third-world" — per Slate's Jacob Weisberg — or a "national disgrace" and "global embarrassment" — as Barry Ritholtz suggested in a recent column for The Post ? Data seem to support this gloomy conventional wisdom. In the World Economic Forum's (WEF) latest Global Competitiveness Report , the United States' infrastructure ranked 23rd, behind that of...

At least $140 billion is needed to make major repairs or upgrades to a quarter of the bridges in the United States, according to a report by state transportation officials from across the country. The officials added that bridge repairs are just one element of a pressing need for more federal funding to improve the nation's deteriorating transportation infrastructure. SOURCE: Associated Press IN FACT The report was released just days before the anniversary of last year's Aug. 1 bridge collapse in Minneapolis, which killed 13.

Fred Hiatt's Jan. 21 op-ed, "She Brakes for Ideology," revealed basic and prevalent misunderstandings about how surface transportation systems work, how they are funded and how past policies have contributed to today's failures. Mr. Hiatt conceded that we should promote direct pricing of our transportation infrastructure but simultaneously argued that we should massively increase indirect taxes on fuel and public transportation trips -- including endorsing a plan that would triple the federal per-gallon gas tax in five years.

AUSTIN — Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) on Tuesday called for returning excess tax money to taxpayers and tapping the state's rainy-day fund for water and transportation infrastructure. Perry, 62, the longest-serving governor in the nation at just over 12 years, called for changing the constitution of the state, the nation's second most populous, to allow the return of tax money to the people who paid it when the state brings in more than needed. "We've never bought into the notion that if you collect more, you...

WE KNOW how you feel, Ray LaHood. After the transportation secretary said that he would consider a mileage tax as an alternative to the gas tax, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs issued a stern rejoinder. "I can weigh in on it and say that it is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration," Mr. Gibbs said. After we printed an editorial arguing that a mileage tax has promise and that the White House was too quick to dismiss the idea, readers also offered a rebuke.

Regarding the Jan. 14 Washington Business article " Idea of replacing gas tax popular in Va. ": Nearly everyone quoted runs a business that relies on vehicles: a cab driver, a moving company, a limousine service and a courier service. Of course these businesses support cutting the gas tax. What about consumers? People who care about the environment? Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell's proposal to create a fee for fuel-efficient cars is absurd, creating a disincentive to using less gas and protecting the environment.

The authors of the national study telling us we have the nation's worst traffic problems say there's no "rigid prescription for the ‘best way' " to cure them. They recommend we find our own paths out of the mess. The governments in the D.C. region are following various routes, sometimes emphasizing investment in infrastructure and sometimes better management of the assets we already have. These five recent developments illustrate the divergent paths. Virginia General Assembly The...

The roads are lumpy, traffic is wretched and nobody has the billions of dollars needed to make it all better. So, what's new, you ask? There's a new number: $2,195. That's the latest calculation of how much bad roads and dense traffic cost the average driver in Washington's Maryland suburbs each year. It comes as the latest effort to put a dollar sign in front of a number to which average folks can relate: their personal cost. It's an attempt to bring ground-level reality to a discussion...

Hours after President Obama asked Congress to address "an aging infrastructure badly in need of repair," the gavel came down Wednesday on a House hearing at which committee members were told: ●The nation's infrastructure will require a lot more money. ●The federal gas tax should go up — maybe double — but isn't the ultimate answer. ●It's time to let states collect tolls on federal interstates. ●Americans eventually will pay for every mile they drive. ●And...

AUSTIN — Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) on Tuesday called for returning excess tax money to taxpayers and tapping the state's rainy-day fund for water and transportation infrastructure. Perry, 62, the longest-serving governor in the nation at just over 12 years, called for changing the constitution of the state, the nation's second most populous, to allow the return of tax money to the people who paid it when the state brings in more than needed. "We've never bought into the notion that if you...

Maryland's powerful Senate president sought Tuesday to jump-start a stalled debate over transportation funding, offering a plan to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes and urging the governor to work harder on an issue "crying out to be addressed. " In an interview with The Washington Post, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) also floated the idea of leasing the $2.6 billion Intercounty Connector (ICC) to a private operator as he outlined an approach to raising new...

Regarding the Jan. 14 Washington Business article " Idea of replacing gas tax popular in Va. ": Nearly everyone quoted runs a business that relies on vehicles: a cab driver, a moving company, a limousine service and a courier service. Of course these businesses support cutting the gas tax. What about consumers? People who care about the environment? Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell's proposal to create a fee for fuel-efficient cars is absurd, creating a disincentive to using less gas and protecting the environment.

The Jan. 22 Local Digest item "Roadways' names could be up for sale," which reported that Virginia is considering selling naming rights to its transportation infrastructure, brings to mind some lucrative possibilities. Route 1, now known as Jefferson Davis Highway, could become Abraham Lincoln Boulevard. Route 29, or Lee Highway, could become U.S. Grant Highway. And Route 50, or Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway, could be renamed McClellan-Meade Turnpike. To avoid the possibility of egotism being involved, the folks behind the...

Despite strenuous objections from residents, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted 8 to 2 on Tuesday to raise real estate taxes in Tysons Corner to help pay for billions of dollars of new transportation infrastructure — improvements that the county sees as vital to its plan to remake the area into an urban downtown. The supervisors had wanted to exempt residents from the tax, and they still hope that the Virginia General Assembly will provide a remedy that will allow homeowners to be...

Despite strenuous objections from residents, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted 8 to 2 on Tuesday to raise real estate taxes in Tysons Corner to help pay for billions of dollars of new transportation infrastructure — improvements that the county sees as vital to its plan to remake the area into an urban downtown. The supervisors had wanted to exempt residents from the tax, and they still hope that the Virginia General Assembly will provide a remedy that will allow homeowners to be...

Montgomery County planners have proposed converting some lanes on the county's busiest roads to buses-only. Eager to avoid widening roads, the planners say bus-only lanes would be a faster and more affordable way to improve transit and limit growing traffic congestion. The idea of taking asphalt from private vehicles in one of the country's most traffic-clogged regions is likely to draw protests from some motorists. But Larry Cole, a Montgomery transportation planner, said the county's...