National Transportation Policy Project Issues Bold Commentary on Transportation Commission's Report
Published By: Bipartisan Policy Center
February 26, 2008
Washington, DC
– At
their second meeting, the National
Transportation Policy Project
(NTPP) will release a bold Commentary on the
National Surface Transportation
Policy and Revenue Study Commission’s Report
calling it, “an important
milestone but short on specifics” for
transportation policy. The NTPP – a
project of the
To read the NTPP’s full Commentary click here to download it.
“The National Commission’s report has envisioned a new destination for transportation policy, but it falls short by not providing the detailed road map for how to get there,” said NTPP co-chair and former Senator Slade Gorton. “The National Transportation Policy Project will work to create that road map and fill in some of the key gaps in their report.”The NTPP’s Commentary presents five key aspects of the Commission’s Report and identifies important areas where its recommendations could be expanded and enhanced with regards to performance-based funding, climate change and energy security, road pricing, gas taxes, mobility and congestion relief, and safety. It also provides alternative action steps for developing more detailed, actionable policy proposals for advancing new approaches to national transportation policy.
2) The NTPP endorses the Commission’s concept of moving towards performance-based transportation policy, but notes that their recommendations do not go far enough in specifying how performance would be measured for the purpose of distributing funding.
NTPP Goals: Create metrics that effectively measure performance. Develop mechanisms for linking federal funding to performance indicators.
“We applaud the National Commission’s support of a performance-based transportation system, though achieving it will be a great challenge,” said NTTP co-chair and former Congressman Martin Sabo. “In order to develop such a system it is vital that we link measurement to funding decisions to ensure money is spent in an efficient and effective manner.”
3) The NTPP endorses the Commission’s concept of mode neutrality with respect to transportation funding, but believes they do not follow through on this concept in their recommendations.
NTTP Goals: Make changes in institutional and funding arrangements to implement the concept of mode neutrality in the federal transportation policy. Place more value on policy goals than the modes of transportation used to achieve them.
4) The NTPP believes the Commission has not given climate change and energy security the necessary emphasis in transportation policy.
NTPP Goals: Include climate change and energy security as measures of transportation system performance. Link environmental and energy issues to funding. Explore the policy options offered by financing mechanisms such as tolling, fuel taxes, VMT charges, or others. Recognize the links between economic growth, environmental impacts, and energy security.
“Climate change and energy security must be at the forefront of the future of transportation policy in this country,” emphasized NTTP co-chair and former Congressman Sherwood Boehlert. “The Commission was not as thorough in these areas as is dictated by current circumstances, and we must aim to correct that by working to integrate both of them into federal transportation funding decisions.”
5) The NTPP believes the Commission does not go far enough in specifying how to integrate road pricing and other cutting-edge solutions as components of federal policy, thus leaving their recommendations without a viable solution to metropolitan transportation problems.
NTPP Goals: Develop incentives to actually implement road pricing on a wide scale. Develop a better understanding of the potential for utilizing new technologies to facilitate metropolitan accessibility. Work to more fully integrate information technology and transportation networks.
“There is enormous potential for integrating information technology into our transportation network for the purposes of increasing sustainable economic growth, and the National Commission did not fully capitalize upon this potential, added NTTP co-chair and former Virginia Governor Mark Warner. “Our Project will strive to modernize the transportation system in order to achieve goals of national connectivity and metropolitan transportation improvements.”
Growing congestion, aging facilities and inadequate capacity have come to characterize
The NTPP was launched in January 2008 and charged with creating a new vision of transportation policy, one that focuses on national economic, environmental, and security goals. This Commentary is rooted in the work of NTPP co-chairs former Senator Slate Gorton, Congressmen Martin Sabo and Sherwood Boehlert, former Virginia Governor Mark Warner and the Project’s 23 members who make up a diverse group of business and civic leaders, and experts in the transportation field. The Project is a year long endeavor to create and put forward effective policy solutions that will adopted by the new Administration and Congress and ultimately impact the authorization of federal surface transportation programs 2009. To read the NTPP’s full Commentary click here to download it.
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About the
BPC:
Former Leaders Baker, Daschle, Dole and Mitchell formed the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) to develop and promote solutions that can attract the public support and political momentum to achieve real progress. The BPC will act as an incubator for policy efforts that engage top political figures, advocates, academics and business leaders in the art of principled compromise. In addition to advancing specific proposals, the BPC also intends to broadcast a different type of policy discourse that seeks to unite the constructive center in the pursuit of common goals. For more information please visit our website: www.bipartisanpolicy.org
