DOT chief to unveil 30-year plan

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is planning to unveil an analysis of the nation’s infrastructure needs for the next 30 years on Monday, according to Transportation Department officials. 

Foxx’s analysis “anticipates the trends and choices facing our transportation system over the next three decades,” according to the department. 

“Thirty years from now, America will be home to 70 million more people, many in cities in the South and West, transforming the way we move people and goods,” the agency said of the study, which has been dubbed “Beyond Traffic.”  

{mosads}“Twenty-nine billion more tons of freight will need to cross the country as we simultaneously imagine and adapt to the promise of new technologies and innovation,” the department continued. 

Foxx is scheduled to unveil the infrastructure in California with Google Chairman Eric Schmidt. 

The department said its chief was hoping the long-term analysis would spur Congress to pass a new piece of legislation for funding infrastructure projects this year. 

“America is changing, and our transportation system must get ahead of that change or be overwhelmed by it,” the agency said. ” ’Beyond Traffic’ is offered to the public as a draft to ignite a national conversation about our shared future. A final report will be released later in 2015.” 

The current transportation funding bill, which includes only $11 billion worth of projects, is scheduled to expire on May 31.

Lawmakers are searching for ways to pay for a long-term extension of the measure, but thus far there is no consensus on a funding source beyond the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gas tax. 

The tax has been left without increase since 1993, and it has struggled to keep pace with infrastructure expenses in recent years as cars have become more fuel efficient.

The tax at the pump brings in about $34 billion per year. The federal government typically spends about $50 billion per year on road and transit projects, and transportation advocates have maintained that the larger figure is only enough to maintain the current state of U.S. infrastructure, not to advance to make improvements.

Transportation advocates have argued that raising the tax, which predates the highway system by about 20 years, would be the easiest way to close the shortfall. Most lawmakers have been reluctant to ask drivers to pay more at the pump to improve the country’s infrastructure, however.