Running out of gas: dropping revenue from the fuel tax poses a dilemma for how to pay for maintaining and improving roads and bridges.

• Author: Reed, James B.

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America's transportation infrastructure is at a crossroads.

Years of underinvestment coupled with declining revenues and a "no new taxes" attitude have built into a crisis.

The average annual cost of maintaining the nation's roads, bridges and transit systems is about $277 billion, but the annual amount of transportation revenues at all levels of government-including federal and state fuel taxes, tolls and fares--is only about $219 billion, according to the National Cooperative Highway Research Program.

Unless there are innovations and new money, roads, bridges and mass transportation systems will fall further into decline and disrepair. Short-term fixes have been exhausted and the long-term options will be politically painful.

The extent of the shortfall was obscured while federal stimulus money helped states pay for thousands of smaller transportation projects in 2009 and 2010. But the short-term successes of the stimulus could not fix the growing gap between available revenue and what is actually needed to maintain our transportation infrastructure.

Meanwhile, states still await reauthorization of federal transportation legislation that will add certainty to a very unstable existing situation, but will likely fall short of expectations for bringing new money to the equation.

The key problems are declining revenue from the gas tax and increasing costs to maintain the system.

A FEDERAL SHOT IN THE ARM

President Obama made clear that the $787 billion federal stimulus package in 2009 was intended not only to help pull the economy out of a tailspin, but to provide desperately needed money for essential infrastructure projects.

The act provided states with $48.1 billion for highways, transit and other transportation projects as part of the largest new investment in infrastructure since building the interstate highway system in the 1950s. By the end of 2010, stimulus funds had supported more than 10,000 backlogged projects, according to the U.S. House Transportation and infrastructure Committee. More than a thousand bridges had been repaired or built, 35,399 miles of roads improved, and hundreds of projects suddenly made possible.

"These funds allowed us to put people back to work, while at the same time getting to a large backlog of much-needed improvements," says Minnesota Senator D. Scott Dibble. "We were able to rehab long deteriorated roads and improve the safety of our system."

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These short-term successes, however, masked underlying problems. The approaching end of the stimulus dollars what many officials are calling the "ARRA cliff"--has lawmakers concerned about what lies ahead.

CHRONIC SHORTFALL

Recession-driven declines in overall driving coupled with larger numbers of fuel-efficient...