Who owns highways

With a land area of 3. For example, according to the U. Transportation and transportation-related spending accounts for 9 percent of GDP, while road transportation accounts for 60 percent of all U.

In , trucks handled slightly more than 42 percent of all U. Obviously, a very significant portion of the cost of U. To improve U. After housing 33 percent , transportation almost 17 percent accounts for the largest single household expenditure. A study by the Texas Transportation Institute found traffic congestion due to inadequate capacity contributes to almost 7 billion of hours of delay on the Interstate Highway System and other principal arterials, compared to uncongested conditions, adding billions in costs to interstate commerce.

The U. DOT is required by law to prepare a report for Congress every two years that details the condition and capital investment requirements of the U. The Conditions and Performance Report, issued in early , found:. According to the most recent data on the condition of U. Federal policymakers should recognize that America will need additional highway capacity to meet transportation demand driven by changing demographics and public and business needs. Federal surface transportation law should not be used as a tool to advance anti-highway and anti-growth social policies.

Provisions of existing law that support these agendas should be eliminated. ARTBA believes the cost of building and maintaining highway infrastructure should be borne primarily by highway users through the imposition of dedicated fees, excises, and tolls.

Americans realize that greater investments in highways and bridges are needed to keep them safe and efficient. And opinion research shows that a solid majority support dedicated increases in highway user fees for these purposes. In light of documented, unmet surface transportation needs, highway user fee revenue should only be used to finance highway, bridge and mass transit infrastructure capital improvements.

Such an entity would promote further diversion of highway user revenues to non-highway purposes. ARTBA supports increasing the federal motor fuels tax, dedicated to the Highway Trust Fund, to finance highway and bridge capital improvements necessary to, at minimum, raise the amount of revenue the U.

State and local governments should at least increase their motor fuel taxes to the level necessary to fully participate in the federal-aid program. ARTBA urges all levels of government to index highway user fees-including motor fuels excises to the Consumer Price Index to assure that these fees rise commensurate with increases in inflation. This action would help preserve the purchasing power of the highway and bridge improvement program.

Congress has supplemented existing trust fund user fee revenue with a series of general fund transfers since If and when the integrity of the Highway Trust Fund is restored by returning to an exclusive user fee revenue stream to support surface transportation investments, those budgetary protections should be reinstated to assure all trust fund user fee revenue is invested expeditiously to support surface transportation improvements and avoid accumulation of a trust balance in excess of the amount needed to meet cash flow requirements.

To ensure that all federal transportation user fees are collected as intended, federal and state activities aimed at combating tax evasion in this area should be continued and expanded. Experience at both the state and federal levels suggest that even modest resources expended in this effort yield very significant financial returns. This activity has the potential to add substantial revenues to the trust funds for capital investments and should continue to receive federal support.

These excises should be equivalent to the energy content value of the tax currently levied on gasoline. We caution, however, that there is a direct relationship between fuel efficiency and highway user fee collections. ARTBA opposes the concept of linking the availability of federal highway funding to state and local government compliance with federal mandates of any sort. ARTBA believes the federal government should guarantee that each state will receive back in the form of federal highway funding at least 95 percent of the highway user fee revenue that it sends to the federal government, in accordance with current law.

ARTBA urges the federal government to adopt a capital budget that differentiates between federal capital investments in public infrastructure and the general day-to-day operating expenses of government. This accounting procedure is used by most state governments and many other nations.

ISTEA of allows the use of federal funds in the development of privately-owned toll facilities. TEA established a pilot program under which tolls may be collected on three separate interstate highways in different states for reconstructing or rehabilitating a highway that could not otherwise be improved.

ARTBA believes state transportation agencies should also be permitted to use federal funds to develop new toll highways and have maximum flexibility to design and implement toll-financing solutions.

ARTBA believes the imposition of motor fuel excises at the federal, state and local levels should continue to serve as the primary funding mechanism for highway and bridge improvement programs.

These could include, although are not limited to, expanded use of toll highways and bridges, public-private ventures, creation of other financing mechanisms like infrastructure banks and revolving loan funds, and bond financing for capacity enhancing surface transportation infrastructure projects.

These mechanisms should not be advanced for the purpose of reducing existing levels of highway user taxes, avoiding necessary increases in highway user fees, or diverting highway user generated revenue to non-highway uses.

ARTBA believes the public interest can be served well through public-private partnerships in transportation development. ARTBA further believes that public-private partnerships should be structured so that each sector provides what it can most effectively contribute.

Such recognition of expertise should maximize project success and protect all applicable public interests. State participation in such programs should be optional.

To assure equity in taxation and maximize receipts to transportation trust funds so that highway capital needs can be met, ARTBA urges all levels of government to eliminate exemptions from the motor fuel excise and other highway user fees.

Along these lines, non-transportation policy objectives should be pursued through federal General Funds. Limited Highway Trust Fund revenues should be preserved for and fully invested in transportation improvements. ARTBA believes the federal government has a major role to play in the development and maintenance of an efficient national highway and bridge network for the following reasons:.

For these reasons, ARTBA believes the federal role should include adequate provision of financial, technical and research assistance to the states for highways and bridges. Working in full cooperation with the states, the federal government should also assume the lead role in developing and promoting uniform standards and guidelines for highway and bridge design, maintenance and operations. Consistent and predictable federal funding is essential to operating orderly and cost-effective state highway improvement programs.

ARTBA believes:. In pursuit of these goals, states should make every effort to incorporate state-of-the-art design standards and products in their highway and bridge plans. All levels of government must diligently monitor transportation improvement needs and continue to dedicate motor fuel excise revenue to highway improvements.

A commitment to appropriate transportation investment among all parties is critical. The practice of awarding highway construction contracts to the lowest responsible bidder in open competition with other interested and eligible firms has helped ensure integrity in the bidding process. It has also saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. ARTBA staunchly supports the free enterprise system of open competitive bidding for highway projects. A provision should be added to federal law that prohibits the use of union-only project agreements on federal-aid highway projects.

Such agreements are counter to the free enterprise system of open competitive bidding. To assure state-of-the-art, high quality projects, contracts for professional services such as transportation planning, design and construction management, should be procured by Qualifications Based Selection procedures. Contracts for these services should be based on salaries and overhead in accordance with Title 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations , Sec. To assure equitable compensation and fair competition, federal surface transportation law should require:.

Further, compensation for these contracts should be determined on the basis of FAR cost principles without modification or limitation. ARTBA believes that building safety into the highway system should be a top priority of transportation policy makers, planners and appropriators at all levels of government. More than 35, people were killed in motor vehicle accidents on U. Clearly, highway safety should be a paramount public health interest. The good news is that experience has proved that emphasizing safety features in the design, construction, reconstruction and operation of highway facilities does save lives.

The rate, however, rose slightly to 1. Highway reconstruction is increasingly being done under traffic conditions. The safety of industry employees and motorists in these construction work zones is of special concern to ARTBA.

In any highway construction site, effective traffic control plans should be implemented, traffic control devices and other appurtenances should be properly maintained.

ARTBA supports federal encouragement of training, education and voluntary certification programs for personnel responsible for traffic control at highway construction sites. Experience has shown that public awareness programs aimed at motorists can help to reduce the number of accidents in these work sites. To help avoid contractual misunderstandings, to the extent possible, bid proposals for Federal-aid surface transportation contracts should be required to use unit pricing.

This would give the contractor a much better understanding of the actual work and project-related activities i. It would also serve to enhance work zone safety activities. The American highway and bridge network stands as testament to the high quality construction and design work of ARTBA members. Most U. We recognize, however, that the pursuit of quality and an improved highway product is never ending.

Policy makers and the public must recognize that highway durability and the quality of highway construction, while certainly linked, are not necessarily synonymous. Highway durability is directly related to public owner agency decisions regarding pavement design life, materials specifications, allowable vehicle weights and routine maintenance. Vesting of highways and ownership of the land Share. Remove content? Are you sure you want to remove this item from you pinned content?

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Sign up. Information Anti-racism statement Accessibility Client charter Complaints procedure Client interest Pay gap report Modern slavery statement Site map Stay safe online Terms of business Your information Join our mailing lists. Fixed assets accumulate over time from investments in structures, equipment, and intellectual property. Those investments less depreciation form the net stock of fixed assets. The latter includes a vast array of infrastructure, such as pipelines, power stations, railways, factories, satellites, and telecommunications networks.

State and local infrastructure includes assets such as highways, roads, bridges, schools, and prisons. Federal nondefense infrastructure includes assets such as dams, postal buildings, and the air traffic control system.

While the federal government owns relatively little infrastructure, its policies have a large effect on the infrastructure owned by the state, local, and private sectors. Federal laws and regulations raise the costs and slow the construction of infrastructure such as highways and pipelines.

Federal subsidies for infrastructure distort the capital investment choices made by state, local, and private owners. And federal taxes reduce the return to investment in private infrastructure across every industry.

Although some federal interventions may be beneficial, the accumulated mass of regulations, subsidies, and taxes has created a growing hurdle to efficient investment. For example, the average time for states to complete reviews for highway projects under the National Environmental Policy Act increased from 2.

The number of environmental laws and executive orders affecting transportation projects has increased from 26 in to about 70 today. The upshot is that rather than increasing federal spending, the Trump administration and Congress could spur added infrastructure investment by reducing barriers to state, local, and private projects.

Consider taxation. That increase to the capital stock would be productive because the investment would be allocated in a decentralized manner by market supply and demand. But policymakers would exercise more leverage by reducing federal barriers to nonfederal infrastructure investments because those investments are so large.

State and local governments dominate ownership in almost every area in the table. They own 98 percent of highways and streets, including the entire interstate highway system. The federal government dominates infrastructure ownership in just two main areas, intellectual property and conservation.

The former mainly includes research and development assets, whereas the latter includes items such as dams and park infrastructure. Figure 1 and Table 1 indicate that decentralized ownership is a central feature of infrastructure in the United States. Just 3 percent of U. Decentralization makes sense in a large country because dispersed decisionmakers can balance the costs and benefits of local capital investments better than faraway officials in Washington can.

However, federal management of its own infrastructure is widely regarded as inefficient: the air traffic control system is falling behind on technology; the national park system has a huge repair backlog; and federal dams have a long history of pork barrel politics and inefficient operation. Increased federal intervention offers little more than the imposition of federal politics and bad federal management on state and local governments.

In addition, increased federal intervention blurs accountability for infrastructure across multiple levels of government. When the New Orleans levees failed during Hurricane Katrina in , each level of government blamed the other levels.

In each case, responsibility has become confused over time because ownership, funding, and regulatory control are shared between federal, state, and local governments.

For example, we often see states delaying projects when slow federal bureaucracies or the uncertain federal budget process hold up part of the funding. The states are entirely capable of owning and funding infrastructure without federal aid and direction. States can tax, borrow, collect user charges, and attract private investment to fund their highways, bridges, airports, seaports, and other infrastructure. Last updated: July 1, Author - Ben Wheeler.

A recent query from one of my developer clients has prompted me to write on the law about the ownership of highway land. Highways are areas of land over which the public at large has rights of way. Highways may be maintained by local highway authorities at public expense. However, where land is highway, it is not necessarily owned by the relevant highway authority.

My client is developing a site, which is in a town and fronts onto a highway maintained by the local authority.