AASHTO sets transportation goals

A new report from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) sets out eight major surface transportation goals:

• To increase federal highway funding from $43 billion a year to $73 billion a year, and to increase funding for transit from $10.3 billion a year to $17.3 billion a year, by 2015 To supplement state and local revenues through alternative financing options

• To double transit ridership over the next 20 years

• To preserve the 47,000-mile Interstate Highway System so it lasts for another 50 years

• To add nearly as much capacity to the Interstate Highway System as it already has, over the next 50 years

• To reduce annual fatalities on US Highways by 10,000 per decade

• To reduce congestion and energy consumption, and improve air quality

• To establish a National Rail Transportation Policy to address the needs of passenger-travel and freight users.

The report also outlines the wide variety of financing approaches various levels of government can deploy, and urges creation of a Presidential Commission on Highway Safety and a new panel, the Transportation Revenue Advisory Commission, that would make impartial and objective assessments of the needs of the surface transportation system and adjust tax levels, subject to override by Congress.