WASHINGTON — With every pothole, traffic jam or Metro delay, Washington- area commuters can see the impact of the diminishing value of federal transportation funding. And now, a number of local leaders want to come up with a long-term fix to turn things around.
“Why is it needed? The United States is falling behind in infrastructure investment. Our infrastructure is crumbling,” says Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va.
Both Maryland and Virginia have been able to reach deals on the state level in the last few years to steadily raise gas taxes in order to fund transportation projects, but the federal government is still the most important player in most construction projects.
“We used to invest 6 percent of our economy in infrastructure investment; now, it’s down to 2.4 percent. The competition, led by the Chinese, is cleaning our clock. The Chinese are investing nine percent, while we’re only putting up 2.4 percent, so that can’t be sustained without a serious transfer of competitive leadership to the Chinese,” Connolly says.
The Democrat is running against Republican Suzanne Scholte, Green Party candidate Joe Galdo and Libertarian Marc Harrold in the Nov. 4 election.
He says the lack of changes to federal funding plans over nearly two decades and the declining amount of gas tax per mile as cars get more efficient means there should be a concerted effort to find a solution beyond the temporary patch agreed to this summer.
The temporary patch set up what could amount to a transportation funding cliff next year.
“We have to find either an enhanced form of revenue or a new form of revenue, but we have to fund investments,” Connolly says.
“I think the chances of that happening, at least in the remainder of this Congress, are virtually nil,” he adds.
The 113th Congress is in recess until after the mid-term elections, when the House and Senate will return for a lame duck session.
Follow @WTOP and @WTOPTraffic on Twitter and WTOP on Facebook.
