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2007 Forum
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2007 Oberstar Forum — Summary
Oberstar Forum ponders leadership and funding needed to avert crisis in aging U.S. transportation infrastructure
Transportation policymakers, professionals, and research leaders from Minnesota and across the country joined U.S. Rep. James L. Oberstar on October 7 and 8, 2007, to examine the challenges posed by the nation’s aging transportation infrastructure. The event, held on the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus, addressed many of the infrastructure issues raised by the collapse of the nearby I-35W bridge just two months earlier.
This was the sixth meeting of the transportation policy and technology forum named in honor of Oberstar and the first since Oberstar became chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The forum was again hosted by the Center for Transportation Studies (CTS) at the University of Minnesota.
Transportation infrastructure a key to global competiveness
“The U.S. transportation network remains the envy of the world, but we are losing ground,” Oberstar said during his keynote speech, emphasizing the key role the transportation system plays in the nation’s global competitiveness. “If we don’t develop a new intermodal and international competitiveness vision in this country—a renewed commitment to invest in the construction of the needs of all modes of transportation—we will be left behind.”
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar
Oberstar and many other forum participants also talked in depth about the need for greater transportation infrastructure funding and ways to garner public interest in the often-dry and complex issue. In particular, discussion focused on the proposal of a federal gas-tax increase to fund badly needed transportation system maintenance and improvements.
Speakers at the public portion of the forum included U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta, former chair of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Bud Shuster, as well as a panel of current and former state DOT leaders. “Unfortunately, it has taken a disaster to put the issue of infrastructure and investment squarely on the national agenda,” Klobuchar said, “and it is long over due.”
Mineta and Shuster, joining Oberstar in a panel discussion, also shared some of their previous attempts to fund infrastructure improvements, primarily through a federal gas-tax increase. “What do we have to do to establish a sense of urgency about transportation?” Mineta asked. “The United States will not remain competitive in a global economy with the level of investments we’re currently making across all transportation modes.”
University of Minnesota president Robert Bruininks, who opened the public portion of the forum, noted that the I-35W bridge collapse had dramatically affected students and staff because of the disaster’s close proximity to campus. He also thanked Rep. Oberstar for his congressional leadership in securing federal support following the collapse.
Infrastructure plagued by ‘underinvestment’
Rep. James L. Oberstar, Bud Shuster, and Norman Y. Mineta
The public portion of the forum followed a series of presentations and discussions for invited leaders, which began with an introductory report on the U.S. transportation infrastructure from Steve Lockwood of PB Consult. According to Lockwood, maintaining existing highways and bridges requires a minimum investment of $79 billion a year. By contrast, improving all highways and bridges and achieve maximum cost-effective conditions would require an annual investment of $132 billion a year. “We’re currently spending only $70 billion annually,” Lockwood pointed out. “In the past, transportation efficiency has been [our country’s] ‘ace in the hole’ in competing in the global marketplace, but this advantage is eroding as our infrastructure declines in part from underinvestment.”
In addition, a panel of University of Minnesota faculty members presented compelling research about the I-35W bridge collapse and deficiencies in the nation’s transportation infrastructure. “At a time we should be building up the nation’s stocks, we are drawing many of them down,” said moderator John Adams, geography professor and associate dean for academics at the University’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. “Roads and bridges are one class of assets on our national balance sheet; maintaining and improving them costs money. But not maintaining them also costs in wear and tear that should be recognized each year as a depreciation expense on annual government budgets; not to do so is to engage in fictitious budgeting.”
Roberto Ballarini, University of Minnesota civil engineering professor and department head, provided a primer in lay terms on the structural fatigue plaguing the nation’s transportation systems, complete with detailed color photos. “We were able to develop a national interstate system when we decided it was important,” he noted. “It was a tremendous achievement, and it took money. But we weren’t richer back then than we are today. [The United States is] arguably the richest we’ve ever been, but some how we don’t see fit to put money into our infrastructure.”
University of Minnesota civil engineering associate professor David Levinson discussed the effects of frugality when funding the transportation infrastructure. “We have been using the profits the interstate system generates to profit the rest of society,” he asserted. “We should have been investing that money in new transportation infrastructure. We can exploit the [interstate] system—it’s important to the economy and was meant to be used, not admired—but not to the point that it is failing prematurely.”
Levinson estimated between 9,000 and 12,000 hours of travel time have been lost each day since the I-35W bridge collapse, costing the area economy about $170,000 a day. “These numbers help us understand how important bridges are to the economy,” Levinson said.
‘Vision and leadership’ needed to address transportation needs
At the public portion of the forum, which attracted more than 300 and drew interest from area media as well as video team from C-SPAN, attendees also heard a panel of current and former state DOT leaders discuss infrastructure challenges in their states. “The public doesn’t understand that the interstate system needs to be rebuilt,” said Frank Busalacchi, Wisconsin Department of Transportation secretary. “Unfortunately, rebuilding this system is not small potatoes. In downtown Milwaukee, for example, we have [an interchange] that was built it in the ’60s for $38 million. We’re replacing it today for $810 million. That’s just the tip of the iceberg; we have to rebuild almost the entire freeway system in southeastern Wisconsin.”
Rep. Oberstar, Tim Martin, Will Kempton, Frank Busalacchi, and CTS director Robert Johns
Will Kempton, director of the California Department of Transportation, noted that the federal gas tax was last increased in 1993, and California’s state gas tax was last increased in 1995. “Here we are with all of these responsibilities, growing system demand, an aging infrastructure, and having to pay for that on the same ‘salary’ we made back in the mid ’90s,” he said. “California voters recently approved an infrastructure bond package that includes $20 billion for transportation.... but this is just a down payment on the [transportation] needs we face.”
Tim Martin, former secretary of the Illinois Department of Transportation, also made a case for raising the gas tax. “No one is paying their fair share if the last time the federal gas tax was raised was in 1993 and inflation has doubled prices since then,” he said. “We have to do something about that.”
In his closing remarks, Congressman Oberstar called for a renewed commitment to providing the vision and leadership to rebuild and expand the nation’s transportation systems despite the current political and legislative environment. “We've downsized the understanding of the need to move people and goods, to link communities, to advance the frontier, to push America forward. We need to rebuild the public confidence in our transportation system,” he concluded. “We will not wait for the crisis to come upon us.”
More information about the sixth James L. Oberstar Forum for Transportation Policy and Technology may be found at www.cts.umn.edu/oberstarforum. A detailed report summarizing the forum will be available on this Web site in December.