Fighting for Arizona’s Fair Share of Highway Funding | Honoring a Fallen Hero: the Tillman-O’Callaghan Bridge | Transportation Funding in the Economic Stimulus Bill
The original highway program, which President Eisenhower signed into law in 1956, was designed to achieve an important national objective: the creation of an interstate highway system capable of facilitating interstate commerce and supporting cross-country travel. This necessarily involved subsidizing infrastructure development in some states at the expense of others to complete a comprehensive, national transportation network.
The interstate highway system was completed some time ago, yet these cross-subsidies continue, placing some states, including Arizona, at a continuing disadvantage. Arizona is no longer the sparsely populated, slow-growing state it was at the outset of the interstate highway program. Today, it is the second-fastest growing state in the nation. Yet the formula for allocating federal gas tax revenues fails to recognize that growth and continues to provide Arizona with less than its fair share of funding for transportation infrastructure.
Fighting for Arizona’s Fair Share of Highway Funding
When I was first elected to the Senate, just 86 cents of every dollar in gas tax revenue Arizonans sent to Washington, D.C., was returned to the state for highway improvements. Today, as a result of efforts I’ve undertaken with Senator McCain, Arizona receives about seven percent more – 92 cents on the dollar. That’s a big improvement, but Arizona remains a “donor” state.
I am continuing to look for ways to ensure a more equitable distribution of highway funding. I helped win the approval of a provision in a 2008 highway bill that requires the federal government to pay a greater share of the costs of certain transportation projects in states, like Arizona, which have large amounts of public lands. Under this provision, which is now law, Arizona would pay only 5.7 percent of project costs compared to 20 percent under prior law. That results in significant savings for local governments in Arizona – and a fairer share of federal highway funds for the benefit of Arizona’s motorists.
I have also sought and won funding distributed outside the highway formula for priority highway, airport, and transit projects in the state. Some of the projects I’ve helped win funding for in recent years include:
In Fiscal Year 2008:
- $1.25 million for taxiway improvements at Sky Harbor Airport;
- $1.75 million for taxiway construction at Williams Gateway Airport;
- $2 million for construction of the Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge;
- $1 million for bus programs in Tucson;
- $500,000 for bus programs in Mesa;
- $1.375 million for I-10 Widening in Maricopa County; and
- $750,000 for the Houghton Road Corridor Bridge Replacement.
For Fiscal Year 2006:
- $6 million for construction of the Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge;
- $3.25 million for Taxiway Reconstruction at Sky Harbor;
- $3 million for improvements at Deer Valley Airport;
- $1.5 million for Tucson Sun Tran alternative fuel bus replacement; and
- $100,000 for Tucson Wash Crossings Improvement.
For Fiscal Year 2005:
- $10 million for construction of the Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge;
- $3.5 million for taxiway improvements at Sky Harbor Airport;
- $1.3 million to relocate a heliport at Chandler Municipal Airport, as recommended in an FAA noise study;
- $12.3 million for four ValleyMetro bus projects:
- $6.950 million for the Tempe/Scottsdale East operating facility;
- $3.5 million for the Phoenix/Glendale West operating facility;
- $340,800 for a Phoenix Dial-a-Ride facility;
- $1.5 million for 34 new clean-fuel buses for Phoenix; and
- $1 million for Tucson Alternative Fuel Bus Replacement.
Honoring a Fallen Hero: the Tillman-O’Callaghan Bridge
The 2005 transportation funding bill included a provision that I coauthored with Senators McCain and Harry Reid of Nevada to name the new Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge in honor of Pat Tillman, the former star of the Arizona Cardinals who valiantly gave his life in defense of freedom in Afghanistan. (The bridge will also bear the name of former Nevada Governor O’Callaghan.)
Transportation Funding in the Economic Stimulus Bill
The economic stimulus bill, which Congress approved and the President signed into law in February 2009, makes an additional $27.5 billion available to the states for highway and bridge improvements. However, it relies on the highway-funding distribution formula that continues to shortchange Arizona. As a result, our state receives less than two percent of the bill’s funding for transportation improvements. That was one of many reasons I voted against the stimulus bill. For more information about that measure, click here or visit the Economy page of my website.
