On the first weekday of what could have been “doomsday” for transit riders, buses and trains on Monday are running, and breaking down, as they normally do in a bitterly cold January across the Chicago area.
The repeated threats of service cuts are finally silenced, at least for the foreseeable future, which is not plotted very far out.
Fare hikes are on the immediate horizon, starting next month for Metra riders and possibly next year at the Chicago Transit Authority — in part to pay for Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s gift of free rides for life to senior citizens.
While much attention was focused in Illinois last week on whether the General Assembly would approve new state funding to prevent the dismantling of the CTA and Pace bus systems, the future of the nation’s transportation system took center stage in Washington.
Officials released a long-awaited study commissioned by Congress that examined all types of ground transportation in the United States, where to invest maintenance and modernization dollars and how to pay for it.
The study, undertaken by public- and private-sector officials over the last two years, called for the biggest expansion of transportation in the U.S. since the interstate highway system was created during the Eisenhower administration.
“Now we have outgrown this system and it is time for new leadership to step up with a vision for the next 50 years,” said the report, titled “Transportation for Tomorrow: Report of the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission.”
It said an investment of at least $225 billion annually is needed over the next half-century, in part to accommodate a projected increase in the U.S. population of 150 million over the same period.
“We are spending less than 40 percent of this amount today,” the study said.
It also recommended narrowing 108 federal surface transportation programs into a list of 10 goals.
They include rebuilding roads, the freight railroad system and urban mass transit; embarking on new efforts to relieve traffic congestion in metropolitan areas; improving connections between smaller cities and rural areas; reducing highway accident deaths; building a fast and reliable intercity passenger rail network; and protecting the environment as well as the nation’s energy security.
In addition, the report suggested ways to shave years off the time it takes for design, approval and construction of projects.
But nationally as well as locally, reaching agreement on funding sources represents the often elusive moment of truth.
The widespread expectation among experts and elected officials had been that the report would fine-tune the discussion on setting national transportation policy, leading up to the reauthorization of federal transportation legislation in 2009.
Timing seemed to help the cause of spending more money on upgrading transportation infrastructure. As if to validate the frequent dire warnings over the years about the decay and neglect of American roads and bridges, the Interstate Highway 35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed into the Mississippi River Aug. 1.
Government critics quickly said, “We told you so!” Then last week, the National Transportation Safety Board threw a wrench into that argument. The NTSB released a preliminary report highlighting design issues that might have weakened the structural integrity of the I-35W bridge.
Opponents of tax increases jumped on the issue.
“The work of the NTSB shows further that last summer’s knee-jerk reaction to increase the gas tax … before knowing what caused the collapse made no sense,” concluded U.S. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.).
Meanwhile, the Bush administration blasted the transportation study. The administration’s key objection was the recommendation to raise the federal gasoline tax, by a total of 40 cents a gallon over the next five years. After that, the tax would be indexed to inflation.
It would be the first hike in the federal gas tax, which is now 18.4 cents per gallon, since 1993.
“Ultimately, the commission report chooses to take the path of higher taxes, more wasteful spending, more congestion and greater pollution,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said Thursday in testimony before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Peters, who was a member of the commission, declined to sign the report. She submitted a “minority views statement” outlining her disagreements over raising the gas tax and the study’s recommendations on how responsibility over central planning should be reallocated.
Few people involved in the transportation field expected the study to kick-start any substantive action until after the November presidential election.
The report will be placed on a shelf for now, beside other blue-ribbon panel studies, awaiting the next threat of doomsday, the next bridge collapse or the next call for a national vision to benefit everyone who depends on transportation.
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Contact Getting Around at jhilkevitch@tribune.com or c/o the Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. Read recent columns at bancodeprofissionais.com/gettingaround
