Potholes going untended on Arkansas highways — not to mention the delay of larger projects — can be blamed largely on the federal government.
Or, more accurately, they can be blamed on the U.S. Congress’ inability to provide long-term funding authority for surface transportation.
It’s 2015, a decade since the Congress managed to approve long-term spending from the Highway Trust Fund.
Instead, the Congress has been approving short-term fixes while a larger debate rages over how to keep the fund flush to pay for the nation’s infrastructure needs.
The Highway Trust Fund is supported primarily by an 18.4 cent-per-gallon fuel tax that hasn’t increased since 1993.
Congress continues to resist raising the tax and has found other ways to prop up the Highway Trust Fund for a few months at a stretch.
That stopgap approach wreaks havoc with planning for highway maintenance and new construction, which is done in the states through entities like the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. They are never quite sure if or when the federal funding, which is typically 80 percent of the cost of a federal highway project, will come through.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx last week lauded Arkansas’ decision not to let bids for federal highway construction projects estimated to cost $355 million.
State highway officials put the projects on hold because of the uncertainty about the federal reimbursements for such work.
The current federal funding mechanism runs out on July 31. The money tap will be turned off, unless Congress authorizes something new. Unfortunately, federal lawmakers appear to be heading toward yet another stopgap answer, nothing more permanent, nothing that Arkansas can really count on for long-term planning.
“I have to say to the leadership of Arkansas that their willingness to say exactly how this uncertainty is affecting them is laudable in a way, because that’s a hard thing to do,” Foxx said, explaining that most states are covering up the full effects of the funding uncertainty.
“I don’t think there’s a state in the country that isn’t being impacted by the long series of short-term measures and the uncertainty that still exists out there, but I have to give Arkansas credit for having the guts to say what the impacts are, and I want more states to do that.”
Obviously, this isn’t just Arkansas’ problem. All states are having the same experience. And Foxx is suggesting that, if more states were as honest about the impact as Arkansas is, maybe highway users would take note and lean on the Congress to get something resolved.
States are becoming more risk-averse, Foxx said, noting that six states have pulled back on projects because of federal funding uncertainty.
More probably should.
State Highway Commission Chairman Dick Trammel defends the delay of projects here, although he says drivers will notice.
“We’re going to see a lot more potholes and a lot more damage to our highways particularly with the winter we had,” he said. “But we have to be financially smart.”
AHTD had the foresight to pull projects before they were started, he explained, given the uncertainty of reimbursement. He praised AHTD “for predicting what could happen.”
Federal funding has long been a key factor in Arkansas highway construction, so highway leaders have had to keep close track of that flow of federal dollars. Some 70 percent of Arkansas road construction depends on federal reimbursement, according to an AHTD spokesman.
Not only can’t some roads be built, there is a larger economic impact when the jobs for road-builders dry up. The 75 projects that have been delayed here represent “the tip of the iceberg as it relates to the Arkansas economy and impact that inaction by Congress has caused,” said Danny Straessle, AHTD spokesman.
The same argument applies nationwide, but that doesn’t change the fact that Congress can’t seem to face the problem. Most likely, the solution lies in an increase in federal fuel taxes. Again, they haven’t changed since 1993.
Unfortunately, higher taxes won’t be any more welcome than new potholes in the nation’s highways.
Brenda Blagg is a freelance columnist and longtime journalist in Northwest Arkansas.