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Transportation News and Notes
Administration Revises Highway Trust Fund Estimates
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently announced that the
Highway Trust Fund (HTF), which is financed primarily by gas tax
receipts and funds federal surface transportation programs, is expected
to reach a deficit of nearly $4 billion in FY2009. Earlier estimates
had pegged the FY2009 shortfall at $700 million. OMB also estimates
the deficit could reach $9 billion in FY2010 and $15 billion in FY2011.
Upon release of the updated figures, American Association of State
Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Executive Director John
Horsley stated that if the “massive deficit were to be offset by
obligation limit reductions, it would require reducing the distribution
of federal funding to the states by as much as $16.5 billion in FY
2009. It takes four dollars in obligation reductions to save one
dollar in spending.” Horsley added that the shortfall would
potentially require cutting the Federal-Aid Highway program from a
planned obligation level of $43.2 billion to $26.7 billion. The HTF
forecast was released as part of OMB’s mid-session review of the budget.
This issue was a major topic of discussion in the Transportation Policy
Roundtable at NADO’s Annual Training Conference, which took place in
Austin, Texas, August 25 – 28. Kent Van Landuyt, Missouri Department
of Transportation Assistant to the Director, and Larry Russell,
American Road and Transportation Builders Association National Field
Director, gave presentations analyzing the impact of the funding
shortfall on local communities and potential policy strategies for
addressing the funding gap. These presentations are available on
NADO’s website www.nado.org/conferences/archive/annual.php?con_id=77&content=con_presentations.
Learn more about the discussion surrounding the reauthorization of the
highway and transit bill in 2009 at the National Rural Transportation
Peer Learning Conference, being held September 26 – 28 in Chattanooga,
Tennessee.
Transportation Finance Resources Available
The U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has released Financing Freight Improvements,
a report that explores federal funding and financing tools and public
and private sector approaches available for investing in freight
transportation improvements. View the report at www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/publications/freightfinancing/index.htm.
In an effort to expand the dialogue about innovative finance and public-private partnerships
(PPPs) for highways, FHWA also developed a new Web-based Toolkit,
a collection of project examples, model documents and contracts, case
studies, guidelines, and Federal reference materials. The toolkit is
available through the FHWA PPP website www.fhwa.dot.gov/ppp.
For a historical view of public entity spending on infrastructure, refer to Trends in Public Spending on Transportation and Water Infrastructure, 1956 to 2004.
This new report from the U.S. Congressional Budget Office analyzes
spending on infrastructure at the federal, state and local levels of
government. To view the document, go to http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/85xx/doc8517/08-08-Infrastructure.pdf.
Call for Abstracts: 11th National “Tools of the Trade” Conference
on Transportation Planning for Small and Medium-sized Communities
Tools of the Trade provides practical techniques for transportation
professionals in small (under 50,000) and medium-sized (50,000 -
250,000) communities. The conference will take place in Portland,
Oregon, in September 2008. The Conference Committee seeks papers or
presentations on the following topics: Transit Planning, Local
Transportation Issues, Small Urban System Planning, Project Programming
Process, Livable Communities and other issues.
If you are interested in making a presentation, submit a one-page
abstract in Word by October 1, 2007. For more information, visit www.trbtoolsofthetrade.org/pdf/conf/2008/CallForAbstracts2008.pdf.
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