No. 644

September 15, 2009

Getting What You Paid For--

Paying For What You Get

Proposals for the Next Transportation Reauthorization

by Randal O'Toole

Executive Summary

ation and devolving federal transportation pro-

When Congress passed the Federal Aid High-

grams to the states.

way Act of 1956, it gave the Bureau of Public

Short of that, Congress should make every

Roads a clear mission: oversee construction of a

effort to return to a system where people get what

safe, high-speed Interstate Highway System. As

they pay for--that is, transportation user fees are ded-

that system neared completion in the 1980s, the

icated to systems that benefit the people who paid

mission of the Department of Transportation

those fees--and people pay for what they get--that is,

became increasingly murky. Now the department

people pay the full cost of the facilities they use.

is supposed to reduce congestion; attract people

As a second-best solution to abolishing the

out of their automobiles; clean the air; promote

Department of Transportation, this paper offers

economic development; improve livability; create

eight proposals essential for the 2009 reautho-

a sense of community: and accomplish a variety

rization to achieve these goals. These proposals

of other often conflicting goals--most of which

include

are not easily quantifiable.

As the mission became muddied, each surface

1. Apportion funds to states based on popu-

transportation reauthorization since 1982 has

lation, land area, and user fees

included an increasing number of earmarks,

2. Require that short-term plans be efficient

divided revenues among more and more different

or cost efficient

funds, and added lengthy rules for how those

3. Create a citizen-enforcement process that

funds may be spent. Each earmark, apportion-

will ensure efficiency and cost efficiency

ment, and rule has made transportation spend-

4. Eliminate long-range transportation plan-

ing incrementally less efficient.

ning

This increasing politicization of something

5. Allow unlimited use of road tolls

that began life as a fairly efficient program is the

6. Eliminate clean-air mandates

predictable result of government involvement in

7. Avoid earmarks

what is essentially a private economic activity. The

8. Remove employee protective arrangements

inevitability of such decline is a good argument

from transit law

for abolishing the U.S. Department of Transport-

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Randal O'Toole is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and author of The Best-Laid Plans: How Government

Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future and the forthcoming Gridlock:

Why We're Stuck in Traffic and What to Do about It.

.