Future Transportation Financing Options: Challenges and Opportunities

The funding of America's transportation system is a complex process that includes a number of stakeholders, both private and public. Financing options for rural states have not been at the forefront of the national debate. This project aims to understand all the financing options under consideration and to assess their viability in rural states. The cost to maintain, or preserve, the current national transportation system is well documented and has eclipsed the amount of funds available under the current financing structure. In short, our transportation system is failing and so is the national system of funding it. Much of the current literature on transportation funding warns that failure to fund transportation infrastructure can lead to major consequences, as transportation plays a significant role in the national, state, and local economies for access to jobs, recreation, education, healthcare, and shipping goods. This situation is also true in Vermont where the challenges of small population, small tax base, rural setting and aging infrastructure have exacerbated the problem. The federal gas tax (and most state gas taxes) is a fixed amount per gallon, not indexed for inflation. This has been long known as a weak revenue structure to transportation professionals. New environmental, economic and transportation policies are seeking to increase fuel efficiency for vehicles and are encouraging alternative fuels. The success of these policies will cause revenues from the gas tax to decrease. This paradox of conflicting policies is not widely observed in the public discourse. As the public becomes increasingly engaged in the debate over how the post-gas tax transportation system will be funded there is a need to construct a better framework so that the current financing structure and options can be readily displayed and made accessible to the public and to policy makers.

• Record URL:
  http://www.uvm.edu/trc/university-transportation-center/utc-current-project-list/
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Final Report TRC 09-003 http://www.uvm.edu/~transctr/trc_reports/UVM-TRC-09-003.pdf

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $40000.00
• Contract Numbers:

  DTRT06-G-0018

  TRC Project # 022920

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  University Transportation Centers Program
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Troy, Austin

  Aultman-Hall, Lisa

• Performing Organizations:

  UVM Transportation Center

  University of Vermont
  210 Colchester Avenue
  Burlington, VT  United States  05405
• Principal Investigators:

  Glitman, Karen

• Start Date: 20080701
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20090630
• Source Data: RiP Project 20756

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Financing; Fuel taxes; Research projects; Rural areas; Transportation policy
• Uncontrolled Terms: Transportation infrastructure
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Finance; Policy;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01569202
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: UVM Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: DTRT06-G-0018, TRC Project # 022920
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Jul 2 2015 1:01AM