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AAA Tells Governors Highway Crisis Is Here

23 February 1998

AAA Tells Governors Highway Crisis Is Here

    WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 23 -- AAA, which warned two years ago
of a crisis ahead for the nation's highway infrastructure, says it may already
be here.
    Speaking to a meeting yesterday of the National Governors Association,
AAA President Robert L. Darbelnet said, "We've got more vehicles being driven
more miles over roads maintained with less money."
    "More than a third of major U.S. roads are in poor to mediocre condition
and the number of people killed on our highways is rising.  To understand why
things are deteriorating," he said, "consider this gap: since 1960, vehicle
miles traveled have jumped 234 percent, fuel taxes collected from motorists
have leaped 155 percent, but investment in our highway system has plummeted
50 percent."
    AAA and the nation's governors are members of a coalition to invest all
fuel taxes, paid by motorists, in the nation's transportation infrastructure.
    "AAA's 40 million motorists depend on their cars to get them to and from
work, the Little League game, the grocery store.  Safe and efficient roads and
bridges are high priorities to them.  And they have been paying $30 billion a
year in federal gas taxes to keep them in good repair.
    "The problem is that the government has been siphoning  off $10 billion a
year to create the illusion of a smaller deficit," Darbelnet said.
    Last year AAA supported the successful effort redirecting 4.3 cents of the
federal gas tax -- which had been going to deficit reduction -- to the Highway
Trust Fund, but there is still no authority to invest the money in
transportation.
    "AAA urges passage of the Byrd-Gramm-Warner-Baucus Amendment to the ISTEA
highway bill," Darbelnet said.  "We want that 4.3 cents per gallon invested in
properly maintained roads and bridges that improve traffic safety and reduce
congestion."
    Allowing federal gas taxes to accumulate in the Highway Trust Fund merely
shifts expenses to other areas of the economy, according to AAA:
    -- It pushes up the cost of insurance and of health care.
    -- It pushes up the cost of doing business.
    -- It delays the inevitable, when road and bridge work will have to be
done, at which point it will be much more costly.
    AAA called for immediate action on the ISTEA highway bill which has been
delayed in the Senate, and for "investment of every penny in the Highway Trust
Fund the way American motorists intended when they passed the gasoline tax,"
Darbelnet said.
    "In addition to improving roads and saving lives, spending the trust fund
as it was intended will produce two beneficial side effects," he said.
"American motorists will get what they are paying for -- that's all they want.
And Congress and the Administration will protect one of their greatest assets
-- the trust of the American people.
    "Fuel taxes have been collected for transportation.  They shouldn't be
hijacked," Darbelnet said.
    AAA is a not-for profit federation of 97 clubs with more than
1,000 offices providing more than 40 million members in the U.S. and Canada
with travel, insurance, financial and auto-related services.
    AAA news releases can be downloaded from the following sites:  AOL --
Keyword:  AAA; Click on "News and Events," "News Releases."  INTERNET --
http://www.aaa.com/news/news.html

SOURCE  American Automobile Association