ARTBA - a dysfunctional destructive lobby (EDITORIAL)

The roadbuilders lobby ARTBA claim boldly on their website: "We Advance the Interests of the U.S. Transportation Construction Industry." They do nothing of the kind. They advance the interests of Washington DC transportation construction lobbyists (themselves) and they do a grave disservice to the construction industry and to the nation.

That's because they cling stubbornly to the degenerate and collapsing tax-&-grant model for financing roads based on the gargantuan six yearly surface transportation bills with their preposterously longwinded titles acronymed down to silly names like "iced tea" and "Safety loo" - the latter alluding appropriately to the summer smell of an outhouse or porta-potty. The authors of these monstrous bills are either tone deaf to the colloquial language not realizing the semantic absurdities they create, or else they are having a joke at the expense of the lobbies who sponsor them.

In their "Recommendations for SAFETA-LU Reauthorization" ARTBA advocate a new "Vision" but this Vision turns out to be just the same old failed effort to hike the gasoline tax which they have been futilely pushing to defeat after defeat since 1980-something.

Of course they just could get lucky this time.

They could seize the moment with oil prices collapsing from their present highs to ram through a federal gasoline tax increase. But the ten cents a gallon they advocate would soon be lost in the morass of earmarking, and diversions into the environment and transit, the rest spread around the country mindlessly in dribs and drabs.

ARBTA repeatedly cite the massive roadbuilding in China and India as "Global Competition" for the US. They're right about that at least:

"China has a massive strategic transportation plan underway, building 42,000 miles of new interstates in just 20 years. India is building 25,000 miles of expressways, and the European Union is busy adding nearly 10,000 miles of new highway..." ("Recommendations...")

China, India and the Europeans are not doing that construction on the basis of any "Vision" of earmarked fuel taxes, however. They are able to generate huge and continuing investments in roads precisely where they have rejected lobby-dominated tax-&-grant programs and adopted toll financing.

As for planning in China the central authorities are mostly concerned with trying to reassert authority they've lost to the decentralized provincial and city initiatives, and the market. They have been trying to crack down on "unauthorized" tollroads, while the pace of construction proceeds way ahead of central plans. Similarly in India the states are racing one another to initiate new tollroads through concessions, leaving national plans in the dust.

Virtually all the roads cited by ARTBA in China, India and elsewhere are being funded by investors as self-financing roadways built where the market discerns a need, and entrepreneurs see a future stream of toll revenues that will cover the costs and offer a return on the investment.

These countries are succeeding in building infrastructure because they are following the capitalist path, tapping private capital, while we in the US remain mired in lobbyist-ridden ersatz socialism.

Now ARTBA do say we should use toll financing more, but they mention it as a kind of "throw the tollies a bone" afterthought - and cast tolling as a supplement to their Vision of an enlarged tax-&-grant system.

Won't work.

Nothing kills a toll project with more finality than the prospect of grant money. So long as there is a hope Washington DC or the state capital will come through with grants, local communities won't do tolls.

Taxes and tolls don't mix.

China, India and the European countries building roads so energetically are doing so precisely because there are no earmarked taxes, and there are no grant monies available. People there understand it's a toll road or no road, so once they decide they need the road, there's no dithering. They call for private sector proposals, the capital markets are tapped, and the roads get built as tollroad concessions.

Self-financing.

Emulating China and India in this regard would be a huge boost for the road construction business in the US, and for the economy. It would get us out of the morass of corrupt earmarked projects and mindless bureaucratic spending programs. It would direct resources to where the need is greatest since those are the toll projects that have the largest prospective profits.

Don't hold your breath waiting for ARTBA to act in the interests of road construction. The lobby would lose its reason-for-being.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-06-03

ADDITION: A reader for whom we otherwise respect emails to suggest we should apologize for mocking the name of the SAFETEA-LU legislation saying that the "Lu" part is the name of the beloved of a prominent Congressman. If true this just amplifies the point that this federal tax-&-grant program is a preposterous racket. What narcisstic and pathetic self-indulgence! But regardless of their origins these programs have ridiculous names, and they are a disgraceful and dysfunctional way to do transportation financing. 2008-06-03 20:20