PD Editorial: Transportation plan is full of potholes

Anyone who drove to Thanksgiving celebrations saw the deplorable state of the nation’s roads firsthand. Granted, traffic is always terrible around Turkey Day, but because roads, bridges and other transportation infrastructure are crumbling, travel headaches aren’t reserved for holidays anymore. This critical problem for mobility and the nation’s economy is hardly a secret, but Congress can only muster support for the most tepid of transportation bills.

House and Senate negotiators have been haggling over competing versions of a transportation-spending bill for months. Their current deadline for action is Friday, but previous postponements prove that such deadlines are pliable. Americans never know when they might hear House and Senate leaders announce they have reached a deal.

Not that the deal that’s in the works is anything to celebrate. Congress lacks the will to pass the sort of strong, comprehensive transportation bill that the nation needs. And America does need such a bill. The nation’s roads and bridges are failing or on the brink of failure. In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers scored the nation’s railways and bridges at a C+ and the roads and transit systems received a D. In California, 34 percent of major roads were in poor condition or worse, and 2,769 bridges were found to be structurally deficient.

In order to fully fund transportation maintenance, improvements and growth, Washington would need to increase revenue somehow. The obvious way to do that is to increase the federal gas tax, which has been stalled at 18.4 cents per gallon for more than 20 years.

Unfortunately, the thought of any tax increase is a deal breaker for too many conservative lawmakers. Given partisan divisions, they aren’t about to compromise, even on something as sensible as transportation funding. About the only good thing that might be said about the transportation bill is that it’s better to have some federal funding stability than the repeated stopgap measures that have prevailed in recent years. This one spells out a six-year spending plan.

If only it also contained six years worth of funding. It has money for the first three years, but the following three would require congressional action again. Every spending measure becomes an opportunity for partisan brinksmanship these days, and it’s hard to imagine this one would be any different. Money for the final three years is hardly guaranteed.

Not everyone is so pessimistic of course. The transportation plan might fail the American people, but it serves special interests well.

One provision could force all states to allow trucks with extra-long double trailers on interstate highways. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has led the opposition, and many senators don’t like it, but it could still survive negotiations if the House is insistent.

Another provision would cut funding for the already-overwhelmed National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the agency that investigates and issues recalls for dangerous vehicle defects such as the General Motors ignition switches that were linked to more than 100 deaths.

Some transportation planning is better than none, but there’s little to like in this weak package.