Monday, Sept. 3, 2007 | 12:55 p.m.
Although the Nevada Legislature did little this year to reduce gridlock on interstates and other roads, anyone looking to the federal government for immediate relief will be disappointed.
The federal system of funding highway programs, in a word, is broken.
That's the perspective of Las Vegas transportation consultant Tom Skancke, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid's appointee on a national commission that by December will recommend changes in the way the federal government helps states meet their highway needs.
"The way we fund highways was good in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s , but it's not good for the 21st century," Skancke said. "The program needs to be fixed because it's underfunded. The revenue stream does not generate enough revenue to keep up with the transportation demands of this country."
Nevada last year received 22 percent of its $1 billion highway revenue stream from the federal government. The Legislature this year approved $1 billion in new highway spending over the next two years, but that falls far short of the $3.7 billion to $5 billion that experts say will be needed by 2015.
That shortfall could be exacerbated by the fact that the engine that drives the federal funding, the Highway Trust Fund, faces a projected $8 billion deficit by 2010, when the current legislation that finances highway construction and maintenance expires.
The problem is that the trust fund, which is supported by gasoline taxes and levies on heavy trucks, cannot keep up with the double-digit inflationary costs of road construction materials such as oil and steel. And there is far more demand for new roads across the nation than the money to pay for them.
"The greatest concern all of us have is that unless something is done at the federal level to change how transportation funding is provided, the federal government will no longer be a grantor of funds," said Jacob Snow, general manager of the Regional Transportation Commission.
"Instead, they'll be a facilitator for public-private partnerships. That's why states like Texas are talking about toll roads."
Privately run toll roads also have been considered as an option - at least in preliminary discussions - in Nevada.
Even if enough money can be found - a long shot given that Congress has not increased the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal gas tax since 1993 - Skancke said the way the federal government approves highway projects is grossly inefficient.
Because other agencies that must sign off on federally funded road projects, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service, are not under any deadlines to issue their approvals, delays often stretch to years, he said.
"The project delivery process needs a lot of work," Skancke said. "Right now it makes it very challenging for a state department of transportation to deliver a project in a timely and cost - effective manner."
From the time the Highway Trust Fund was enacted in 1956 through 2005, the last year for which Federal Highway Administration statistics are available, Nevada received $1.30 in highway funds for every $1 it paid into the trust fund.
But in 2005, it received only 94 cents on the dollar, 20 cents below the national average of $1.14. Nevada that year was one of only 10 "donor" states that contributed more money to the fund than it received back in highway funding, a difference of nearly $17 million.
Snow, though, said those statistics do not tell the full story because Nevada receives millions of dollars more than it pays into the trust fund for bus services and other forms of mass transit. The mass transit account, which receives 2.86 cents of the federal gas tax, is separate from the highway account.
"Nevada is doing very well when you look at the entire picture," Snow said.
The trust fund is the primary financing source for the current federal highway legislation, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Act: A Legacy for Users, which President Bush signed into law in August 2005. The legislation, retroactive to late 2003, runs through fiscal 2009 and covers mass transit as well as highway construction and maintenance programs.
It was initially estimated that Nevada would receive nearly $1.3 billion total in highway funds for the six-year period, which ranked the state 42nd in that category. At first blush, that would suggest Nevada got shortchanged because the state is 35th in population and has the 38th highest number of miles in the National Highway System, which includes interstates, other highways and major arterials.
But Skancke said Nevada was fortunate to receive as much money as it did through the act, a fact he attributes largely to the clout the state enjoys in the transportation field because of Reid's ascension to the Senate majority leader's post.
Plus, Sen. John Ensign and Reps. Shelley Berkley and Jon Porter sat on committees that influenced transportation spending at the time the legislation was approved.
Reid spokesman Jon Summers and Ensign spokesman Tory Mazzola noted in a joint statement that the state received a 30 percent increase - the national average - in highway funding and 152 percent increase in mass transit funding through the act in comparison with the prior highway bill.
"With Sen. Reid as the Senate majority leader and Sen. Ensign's position on the Finance Committee, Nevada is in a good spot when it comes to ensuring our state gets its fair share," Summers and Mazzola said. "Together we've been successful in securing a significant amount of funding to widen, improve or expand highways such as the Las Vegas Beltway, Blue Diamond Highway and (U.S.) 95."
Highway funds are divided into 14 major categories and many smaller ones, each with their own funding formulas that account for population growth, road miles and various other factors.
Kent Cooper, assistant director of planning and research for the Nevada Transportation Department, said that if a state transportation agency has a worthy project but cannot qualify in a narrow category, it may not receive any money for that request.
"It gets far too complicated," Cooper said. "For instance, the Las Vegas Beltway is not part of the National Highway System, so you can't get any federal money for that."
In addition to getting the $1.3 billion appropriation through 2009, Nevada was told it would receive $315 million in discretionary funding over the six-year period.
But those estimates proved to be overblown. After receiving more than $285 million in federal funds for highway programs in fiscal 2006, Cooper said , the state will get only $250 million this year and likely the same amount in each of the next two years because of the looming deficit in the Highway Trust Fund.
By comparison, the state initially expected $261 million this year, $270.2million in fiscal 2008 and $272.9 million in fiscal 2009, plus tens of millions of dollars more annually in discretionary funds.
"What scares us is what Congress will do in the next six-year transportation bill," Cooper said. "The reality is that the federal government is becoming less of a funding source."
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