Today marks the start of Infrastructure Week, an annual discussion among diverse groups advocating for bold leadership to fix America’s struggling public infrastructure. Conversations generally center on the central variable in the equation – funding – rendering participation for the privately owned freight railroad industry different from various transportation modes and infrastructure stakeholders.
We lack a hard “ask,” aside from not upending a proven economic regulatory framework that since its implementation has allowed the industry to spend more than $635 billion on its 140,000 mile network. Yet with renewed interest in Washington in tackling key issues that affect freight rail, transportation and infrastructure systems writ large – our uncompetitive tax code, inefficient regulatory processes and an insolvent Highway Trust Fund – we can certainly contribute to the discussion.
Freight rail, after all, takes trucks off the road in droves, helping ease the burden on public roads, bridges and highways. With that in mind, I hope participants of Infrastructure Week can focus on salient public policy debates, realizing how action on those items – such as reforming the tax code to attract investment or expediting the permitting process for important projects – may help in the larger endeavor regarding American infrastructure.
But in the spirit of the week, we also recommend policy directly related to infrastructure.
First, we must have an honest discussion about the future of the Highway Trust Fund and the need for transportation modes to be treated equally.
Since 2008, lawmakers have transferred $143 billion in general funds to the Highway Trust Fund, “free” taxpayer money for federal-aid highway program beneficiaries such as commercial vehicles. This is in large part because the Highway Trust Fund is fueled by a gas tax last raised more than two decades ago that fails to cover costs of infrastructure upkeep.
Increasing contributions in some form from heavy highway users is therefore imperative. Even if embracing innovative funding strategies that attract private funding, we cannot escape the reality that, adjusted for inflation, 80,000 pound trucks today underpay their federal cost responsibility by around 27 cents per gallon of fuel.
The tradition in which users of highway systems pay for that infrastructure should not be broken, and the Trump administration, Congress and the wide net of advocates participating in this week’s infrastructure discussion should consider solutions such as a weight distance fee to establish an equitable system. This would better account for impact to infrastructure and has worked in varying forms in states such as Oregon.
Should tax reform serve as a vehicle for increased federal infrastructure spending, it must only be a onetime transition to making the Highway Trust Fund solvent for future generations through sustainable funding mechanisms.
There is also a crucial need to maintain truck size and weight limits, instituted due to concerns about the uncompensated damage heavy trucks cause to U.S. highways. Keeping sensible limits in place will prevent further damage and taxpayer subsidization of truck-induced road and bridge deterioration.
While a cadre of shippers currently seeking a program to expand truck weights in select states claim that a sixth axle would lessen the damage the heavier weight would cause to infrastructure, the added axle does little to lessen the impact on bridges, as they are primarily impacted by gross vehicle weight. With 64,000 structurally deficient or functionally obsolete bridges spread across the country, adding to their stress and wear is not a way to improve infrastructure.
A drastic shift in truck weight limits further complicates the mighty challenge to repair an American infrastructure system the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) recently graded as a “D-plus.” Taxpayers would be left picking up the tab while the policy scale tilts against a critical freight rail industry that received the highest grade – a “B” – precisely because it invests so highly in its private network.
Saying no to these heavy trucks is something anyone invested in fixing roads and bridges should find easy.
Last, Washington policymakers should advance policies both to improve public spending and stimulate private infrastructure investment. For freight railroads, this is realized by stopping efforts by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) to undermine the successful partial deregulation structure for freight railroads, making the business tax rate more competitive globally and streamlining government processes to improve the regulatory system. Taken together, the private freight rail sector would be well situated to continue to make massive investments to their infrastructure to power the U.S. economy.