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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE

September/October 2005

President Signs New Transportation Bill: Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act

Inflation has been eroding — and will continue to diminish — the buying power of federal transportation dollars over the course of the 12-year span covered by TEA 21, extensions to TEA 21 and SAFETEA.

Earmark Highlights

  • $ 58,800,000
    Golden Gate Bridge Seismic Retrofit
  • $ 56,204,000
    New Transbay Terminal, San Francisco
  • $ 36,000,000
    State Route 4 East upgrade, Contra Costa County
  • $ 32,600,000
    Highway 101 widening (including the Novato Narrows), Marin and Sonoma Counties
  • $ 23,880,000
    State Route 12 widening and reconstruction of interchange with Interstate 80/Interstate 680, Napa and Solano Counties
  • $ 15,600,000
    Interstate 580 — construction of high-occupancy-vehicle lanes and related improvements, Alameda County
  • $ 6,400,000
    Silicon Valley Transportation Incident Management Center construction, Santa Clara County
  • $ 3,971,000
    Construction of ferry terminal at Oyster Point, San Mateo County
  • $ 2,000,000
    Interstate 680 — construction of high-occupancy/toll lanes, Alameda County

For a nation on the move, the nearly two-year wait for a new federal transportation program finally paid off this August when President Bush signed the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users. More familiarly known as SAFETEA, the new law establishes several new programs and makes clear Congress’ commitment to transportation safety.

But the five-year, $256 billion package is notable not so much for its innovation as for its preservation — maintaining the emphasis on flexible financing and local planning ushered in by the landmark Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991 and reaffirmed by the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA 21), which was signed in 1998 (and which, through a series of extensions, provided the template for federal spending long past its September 2003 expiration date).

SAFETEA provides a measure of funding predictability for public works departments, public transit agencies and state departments of transportation across the nation. Much of the money will flow to states and regions via formulas for broad spending categories. But the new law also includes more than 6,000 earmarks for specific high-priority highway, transit, bicycle and pedestrian investments, including 116 projects totaling $734 million for the San Francisco Bay Area.

While on its surface SAFETEA raises annual transportation spending by an average of some 40 percent when compared to TEA 21, when viewed in constant dollars, spending levels outpace inflation by only a modest amount each year. And they don’t begin to keep up with the nation’s and the Bay Area’s inexorable growth in population and travel.

Still, in light of the current budget climate in Washington, “the amount was about as good as can be expected,” in the words of an Engineering News Record editorial. “It is now time to start thinking in serious terms about the future of transportation spending. …The industry must help find a better way to pay for America’s infrastructure needs,” the editorial goes on to say.
— John Goodwin & Brenda Kahn

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