Welcome to the Texas
Infrastructure Policy Forum

With the expectation that Texas will double in population by 2050, our State faces an immense challenge in building highways, water and wastewater supply facilities, schools, transit and other public projects to sustain our quality of life and to keep our economy competitive.

This section of our Web site is dedicated to a special Infrastructure Policy Forum, a public service exchange for a wide variety of relevant news articles, studies, updates, comments and points of view.

We hope you visit this Forum periodically, and we invite your input and feedback.

Texas Council of Engineering Companies
 

Infrastructure News

Texas CEC Commentary

 

September 10, 2009

It’s time to stop patching the roof and get serious about addressing Texas’ mobility problems in something other than a piecemeal fashion.

Investments in transportation infrastructure historically have been funded by user fees. Highway users pay a fee on each gallon of gasoline and diesel purchased, air travelers pay a boarding fee on airline tickets, and so on.  A highway user driving a car that gets 20 miles per gallon and paying a combined 40 cent per gallon state and federal user fee pays two cents per mile.  With some variations for the fuel efficiency of vehicles, the more a citizen uses the system, the more he or she pays in user fees.   For the most part, with the exception of toll roads, that’s the way our existing transportation network was built – through consistent, sustained capital investment programs planned over years.

Contrast that with the approaches to increasing transportation spending taken during the last decade. At the national level, the Congress in 2003 made a decision to spend down surpluses in the Highway Trust Fund rather than increase user fees.  As a result, the Trust Fund went broke.  An $8 billion infusion of general revenues was required in August 2008 and another $7 billion was required in August 2009.

Congress is currently considering a renewal of the legislation authorizing the federal transportation program.  Congressional leaders believe $500 billion is needed over the life of the next six-year bill – a significant increase from the $284 billion authorized over the previous six years.  But existing federal user fees are only adequate to support a $236 billion program.  And the Obama administration is proposed to postpone the reauthorization for 18 months, kicking the can further down the road.

At the state level, the issuance of Texas Mobility Fund bonds backed by drivers responsibility fees increased state transportation funding for five years, but that program is now for all practical purposes complete, with future fee revenue going to pay off bonds.  In 2005, the Legislature authorized borrowing against the future gas tax revenues, essentially charging on the state’s credit card.  In two years that program will be maxed out, leaving a legacy of $500 million in annual debt service payments.  In 2009, the Legislature allocated $2 billion in general obligation bond proceeds to transportation, but made no commitments for funding after the current biennium. 

What does this mean for transportation planning?  It means start, stop, one foot on the brake, one foot on the gas, race up to the edge of the cliff, back up – hardly an efficient way to proceed.  With annual construction spending fluctuating from $2 billion to $5.5 billion, then back down, then back up, and no guarantee for the future, long-term planning programs look like a marathon running sprinting for a mile, then walking.

It’s time to stop asking what are we doing for the next year and start asking what are we doing for the next decade.  It’s time to stop focusing on one-time fixes and put in place a longer-term solution. 

Long-term capital programs are best financed by consistent, predictable revenue streams that are (ideally) protected from inflation.  Major mobility projects can take a decade or more to plan, design, and construct.  It’s difficult, if not impossible, to plan a long-term statewide mobility program with annual or biannual clumps of money, even if those clumps are in the billions.  Currently, TxDOT and its local transportation partners are canceling contracts for projects scheduled to be constructed in 2012 and after, on the theory that they should not plan and design projects in 2010 that there is no money to build in 2012.  That approach to long-term mobility is not good policy.

The long-term goal is best achieved by a ten-cents per gallon highway user fee, 100 percent dedicated to multi-modal mobility (even if that requires a constitutional amendment), and indexed to inflation.  It’s time for Texas to have that discussion.
 

May 1, 2009

A key part of the transportation agenda for the 81st session moved forward this week as the House Transportation Committee approved HB 300, the Sunset bill for the Texas Department of Transportation.  The bill includes significant reforms and accountability measures for the agency and could bring positive changes.

The measure:

  • Creates a legislative transportation oversight committee with the chairs of the House and Senate Transportation Committees, two other senators, and two other house members to provide oversight during a short transition phase.  The committee is authorized to contract with a management consulting firm to review the agency’s organizational structure, appropriate staffing levels, best practices, and streamlining.
  • Grants metropolitan and rural planning organizations greater responsibility for project selection in their areas.
  • Requires a 10-year project-specific business work plan with schedules for project phases, milestones, and funding and a finalized project plan for each biennium so that legislators and the public can have more predictability about when projects will be built.  The bill also improves accountability for the execution of this plan by creating a number of business plan performance measures with a mandate for performance review.  These are key reforms that move the agency toward the best practices of most modern public works organizations.
  • Puts an attrition policy in place to address TxDOT’s overstaffing in the planning, design, and project management area, creating greater efficiency in a time of diminished resources.
  • Creates an inspector general's office focused on business process improvements.
  • Creates a separate department of motor vehicles in order for TxDOT to focus re strictly on its mission of mobility.
  • Retains the five-member commission, but with three members appointed by the Governor, one by the Lt. Governor, and one from a list recommended by the Speaker.

Rep. Carl Isett (the lead sponsor), Chairman Joe Pickett,

and otherson the committee who worked on the substitute

bill should be commended.
 

April 16, 2009

The Easter break is past the halfway point of the current legislative session, and that is a good place to take stock of what the Legislature has accomplished – and not accomplished – in dealing with needed improvements to the state’s transportation system.

The most positive news is that the Senate has passed Sen. John Carona’s SB 855, a measure that will give voters the option of approving local fees and taxes to pay for specific local projects.  Sen. Carona has made clear that he would prefer a statewide approach to transportation funding.  But in the absence of leadership support for ongoing, stable funding sources (as opposed to one-time bonds), he has chosen to create local options that require voter approval.  This is an important step forward and the House should follow suit.

The Sunset bill for the Texas Department of Transportation will be the vehicle for legislative improvements to TxDOT’s governance, operations, and efficiency.  The Sunset bill is pending in the House Transportation Committee, which is expected to report a substitute bill next week.  The outcome should be judged on whether the bill creates a transparent, project-specific business planning process for the agency so that citizens can know what projects will happen when and know that performance will be measured.  Accountability in this area is not about having a plan; rather it is about executing a plan and having that execution monitored and measured.   Finally, the Sunset bill should move the agency in the direction of a staffing level in its project delivery function that is more appropriate to a time of diminished budgets and greater delegation of project authority to local governments.

The Senate Finance Committee has approved legislation to implement the sale of Proposition 12 state general obligation bonds for transportation authorized by voters in 2007.  The committee has also approved the creation of a state revolving fund that can receive some of these bond proceeds and use them to provide credit enhancement and direct loans for local projects. 

On the negative side, it appears that the promise by state leaders last summer to reduce the diversion of transportation-related revenues to non-transportation uses may be affected by the economic downturn.  The Appropriations bill passed by the Senate and pending in the House has a minimal reduction in diversions, although this still could change.   There is movement in the Senate toward a constitutional amendment proposed by Sen. Carona that would phase out diversions over eight years, but that measure has far to go.

All in all, the Legislature’s record so far is encouraging progress, but much work remains to be done.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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