Obama wants $50B for roads, $40B for rail, MAP-21 extension in 2014 budget

{mosads}The plan also reiterates Obama’s call for spending $50 billion on fixing existing roads, and spending $40 billion on a new Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act (PRIIA).

The White House’s explanation of the budget says that Obama’s plan would fully fund the transportation bill passed last year, which included $50.1 billion for road and transit projects in 2014.

Obama is also calling for an expansion of the transportation bill, dubbed Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21), in 2015.

“While MAP-21 provided much needed certainty to transportation funding and enacted a number of important reforms, the administration strongly believes that more needs to be done to maintain, improve, and expand the Nation’s transportation systems,” the budget document said.

“Much of the country’s transportation infrastructure was built decades ago and is in urgent need of repair to meet current and future economic demands,” the document continued. “Given this, the budget includes an allowance beginning in 2015 to support additional investments in surface transportation under the next reauthorization. The administration looks forward to working with the Congress to secure these critical investments.”

The budget does not make clear how Obama would pay for a new surface transportation bill.

Transportation advocates have said that the funding that was included in MAP-21 was barely enough to stretch the surface of the nation’s road and transit needs, but the measure was funded in large part with a series of one-time trust fund sweeps and fee increases.

The traditional funding mechanism for transportation projects, the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal gas tax, only brings in approximately $35 billion per year.

The gas tax collection is expected to get even smaller as cars become more fuel efficient.

The current MAP-21 bill is scheduled to expire in September 2014.

You can read the full budget document here.