State DOTs are in need of help. Is Congress listening?

Given the focus on coronavirus, or COVID-19, pandemic on basically all aspects of daily life, things in the freight transportation and logistics world that typically would receive more attention, in normal times, are still important but essentially on the sidelines.

One of those things on the sidelines, despite a Tweet here or there from President Trump is the need for some federal guidance, leadership, and assistance in helping State DOTs (Departments of Transportation stay afloat financially. That was made clear in a letter penned to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) from Jim Tymon, Executive Director of AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) and Patrick McKenna, AASHTO President and Director of the Missouri DOT.

The AASHTO executives noted in the letter that despite the uncertainty and rapidly-changing nature of the pandemic, state DOTs are working tirelessly to ensure the health and safety of their residents, employees, and the traveling public as they maintain their transportation systems. And they pulled no punches in what State DOTs need to get through these trying times.

“We now urge Congress to take two important steps related to surface transportation infrastructure in the next COVID-19 legislation— the ‘Phase 4’ emergency relief and economic recovery package,” wrote Tymon and McKenna. “First, we request an immediate $49.95 billion in flexible federal funding to offset what we estimate will average at least a 30 percent loss in state transportation revenues in the next 18 months. This federal backstop will help to ensure state DOTs can operate and maintain their systems without disruption and allow current transportation projects and plans to continue. Second, in order to boost years-long economic recovery that will be necessary once the national emergency subsides, Congress should look to pass a major transportation investment package in the form of surface transportation and water transportation reauthorization. These actions to shore up our nation’s highway, transit, passenger rail, and water transportation systems will send a bold signal to raise consumer and investor confidence and expectations for economic recovery, while strengthening our national transportation system for decades to come.”

The need for a major transportation investment package could not be more understated, at this point, given the limited methods for bringing in the needed revenue outside of the federal gasoline tax that goes towards the Highway Trust Fund and has not seen a single increase since 1993 (not a typo). That inactivity literally goes back decades and remains the transportation elephant in the room that Congress ostensibly views as politically radioactive.

What’s more, the current federal surface transportation authorization, the FAST (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation) Act is set to expire at the end of September and that expiration date is getting closer every day. But, in an election year on top of a pandemic, it stands to reason we will see another lengthy series of continuing resolutions to keep needed funding at current levels. Those are always fun, said nobody ever.

The need for Congress to move its feet and get cracking on a new bill sooner than later was made clear in the letter.

“Transportation investment is a proven platform for economic activity with long-lasting mobility and productivity benefits,” wrote the AASHTO leaders. “Yet the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act which has provided five years of funding stability and certainty to state DOTs will expire in just six months. In the upcoming aftermath of the economic shock due to COVID-19, Congress must take bold and historic action to revitalize our nation’s economy and secure our long-term future by enacting a robust, long-term surface transportation package that invests in highway, highway safety, transit, and passenger rail programs in every state and community across America. In addition, Congress should look to once again reauthorize the Water Resources Development Act on time.”

The letter also touched upon the nation’s cumulative transportation investment backlog, with highway and bridges at $786 billion and transit at $116 billion, which is due to what it called decades of underinvestment.

And it called for a doubling of the amount of current federal surface transportation funding and another six years of reauthorization, which would eliminate the backlog by the end of the decade and also sustain the multiyear economic recovery and growth.

In times like these, it is an “all hands on deck” approach, to be sure, when it comes to getting through this pandemic, whenever that happens and whatever a new post-coronavirus world will be and look like. That is guesswork at this point. But what is not guesswork are the legitimate points being driven home to Congress by AASHTO’s leadership. Let’s hope Congress is listening.