Skip to main content

Obama Administration urged to focus on real solutions to infrastructure funding

US trucking industry leaders have called on the Obama administration to focus on the real challenges and real solutions to the nation's infrastructure funding woes.
April 29, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
US trucking industry leaders have called on the Obama administration to focus on the real challenges and real solutions to the nation's infrastructure funding woes.

"We expect that in the coming days Secretary Foxx and the Obama administration will present their transportation reauthorisation plan to Congress," said 4626 American Trucking Association (ATA) president and CEO Bill Graves. "While this proposal will be lauded as a great step forward for transportation, that will only be true if the administration offers long-term solutions to our highway and bridge infrastructure shortcomings – and not yet another in a series of quick fixes."

ATA has repeatedly and consistently, called on Congress and the administration to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent by using user fees to ensure consistent, long-term federal funding.

The ATA is concerned that if reports are correct that the administration's plan will centre on proceeds from the unlikely passage of corporate tax reform and increased use of inefficient tolling and private finance options. Graves said. "A strong, well-funded federal highway program is critical to our nation's economic success and another round of band-aids and hollow promises won't get it done."

ATA also hopes the administration's plan will focus what resources it does have on the right projects for the supply chain and the nation.

"It is critical that the administration's funding blueprint puts resources where they can do the most good," said ATA chairman Phil Byrd. "The administration should carve out a program to fund the needs of freight transportation that focuses on the mode that moves the most goods: trucks. This administration needs to make much needed investments in repairing our existing roads and bridges and looking for ways to add capacity to meet our growing needs."

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Buttigieg 'to put $150bn' into public transit
    January 20, 2021
    Cash part of proposed $1 trillion infrastructure package from new US administration
  • The role of GIS in climate change resiliency
    May 29, 2014
    Climate change will pose global and local challenges and that includes risks to the transportation infrastructure. Climate change adaptation and resiliency has captured the attention of the transportation community for some time now. Because transportation infrastructure is often designed to last for 30, 50, or 100 years or even longer, transportation professionals are concerned not only about the impact on our existing investments, but also how to design more durable transportation systems for the future
  • NTSB urges standards for connected vehicles
    July 24, 2013
    In response to fatal school bus accidents at intersections in New Jersey and Florida last year, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recommended that the government should set performance standards for new safety technology that allows cars and trucks to talk to each other and then require the technology be installed in all new vehicles. Vehicles equipped with the technology can continuously communicate over wireless networks, exchanging information on location, direction and speed ten tim
  • The bottom line - US surface transportation system needs major investment
    December 12, 2014
    The 2015 Bottom Line Report on transportation investment needs, released by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the American Public Transportation Association, estimates that to meet current demand it will require an annual capital investment over six years by all levels of government in the amount of $120 billion in the nation’s highway and bridge network and US$43 billion in America’s public transportation infrastructure. To meet the combined surface transportation