Since 1956, the primary federal funding source for transportation infrastructure has been the Highway Trust Fund which was initially established as a method to speed the completion of the Interstate System. For the last 50 or so years, the trust fund and its Mass Transit Account have served us well. They have allowed us to build and maintain roadway and transit infrastructure that has enabled our economy to grow and thrive.
Sadly, the trust fund is on the verge of collapse. It is time that we start considering new options for the next 50 years. How will we ensure that we are able to maintain what we have and build new infrastructure that will support or economy in a sustainable way for the next two or three generations of Americans?
As the globe shrinks due to increasingly mobile capital and labor supplies, competition for economic development gets fiercer. Places across the world are finding ways of funding and constructing sustainable transportation infrastructure that will enable and support continued economic expansion for years to come. Check out thes numbers from the Urban Land Institute and Federal Railroad Administration:
17 – Number of new subway lines Shanghai will add by 2010
6 and 4 – Number of new light-rail and high-speed rail lines Shanghai will add by 2010
40 – Percent growth of rail ridership in the United Kingdom in the last decade
225 – Top speed of France’s high-speed passenger train, the fastest in the world
6 – Number of countries France’s high-speed passenger train connects
150 – Top speed of the U.S.’s only high-speed passenger train, operating in the Boston-New York-Washington corridor.
0 – Number of rail line miles on the Boston-Washington corridor that have been upgraded to accommodate the high-speed train’s top commuting speed.
Fifty years is a long time and the world will change a lot before we hit the mid-century mark. If we want to remain competitive as a nation, state and region, we have some tough questions to answer and serious work to do.
How will we fund our transportation system for the next 50 years?
Will there be room in the national, state, and regional agendas for the expansion of our sustainable transport network?
