Transportation Experts Say Funding Remains the Biggest Roadblock to Solving America's Congestion Crisis

KANSAS CITY, Mo., April 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Contributing to a lively, growing debate about the future of America's transportation infrastructure, employees at one of America's leading architecture/engineering firms say adequate funding remains the No. 1 challenge.

The HNTB Companies, consistently ranked as one of the A/E industry's top transportation firms, recently surveyed its 3,400 employees to better understand professionals' perceptions of America's growing congestion crisis.

"Establishing a vision for America's 21st century transportation system and developing a plan to pay for it is long overdue," said Paul Yarossi, president of the HNTB Companies. "We must create mobility and eliminate the strain congestion is placing on our citizen's safety and quality of life and our country's security and economic competitiveness."

HNTB's research follows recent recommendations from the congressionally mandated National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. Earlier this year the 12-member board of public and private industry leaders outlined a broad range of potential solutions, including calls for the increased use of public-private partnerships, tolling and congestion pricing, as well as an increase in the federal gas tax and a complete overhaul of the way projects are selected, funded and delivered.

Survey respondents said the most important recommendations are the development of a program to fund projects that reduce congestion in America's largest metropolitan areas (89 percent), pass legislation to keep the federal Highway Trust Fund solvent and prevent highway investments from falling below guaranteed levels (87 percent) and remove barriers that prevent states from implementing alternative revenue generating strategies, such as tolling and congestion pricing (70 percent).

More than half of U.S. urban interstates are now congested, and it's projected that next year federal Highway Trust Fund revenues will no longer be sufficient to fully fund planned federal transportation spending. The commission stated all levels of government in the United States are spending less than 40 percent of the $225 billion to $340 billion needed. As one HNTB employee commented in the survey, "Not all funding can be spent on new facilities while existing facilities are in poor shape and functionally obsolete."

Legislation was introduced recently in the U.S. Senate to create an agency and a National Infrastructure Bank to facilitate and fund large federal projects, with a preference for those that leverage private financing and public-private partnerships.

Yarossi said additional research by the firm this year will explore the viewpoints of the firm's transportation clients as well as the general public, echoing calls from survey participants who encouraged the firm to aggressively share information and insights to policy makers.

"In the next 12-18 months Congress will help define the future of America's transportation system," he said. "The voices of the people who design, develop, inspect, maintain and use our nation's transportation infrastructure must be heard."

Survey participants represented a broad cross-section of the firm, from 39 states and a wide range of transportation specialties, including highways, bridges, technology, tolling, public transit, freight fail, construction management and aviation.

The HNTB Companies is an employee-owned organization of infrastructure firms. The three operating companies of HNTB Companies include HNTB Corporation, a transportation, engineering, planning and construction management firm; HNTB Architecture Inc., whose design professionals provide services to the buildings market; and HNTB Federal Services Corporation, which provides federal-sector clients diverse infrastructure services. The HNTB Companies employ more than 3,400 people in more than 60 offices nationwide.