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In the News: Transportation officials discuss private transit funding

Sunday March 27, 2011

By KEITH PHUCAS
Times Herald Staff

Pennsylvania Congressman Patrick Meehan, R-7th Dist., a new committee member, was joined at the “listening session” by Republican Congressman John L. Mica, the committee’s chairman who represents Florida’s Seventh District, and Pennsylvania Congressman Bill Shuster, R-9th Dist., to hear suggestions from transportation officials and private contractors on how to craft the legislation.

During opening remarks, Mica nixed an e-mail he received proposing to raise the tax on gasoline to help states pay for sorely needed infrastructure improvements.

“There will not be a gas tax increase in this bill,” he said.

The Congressional committee establishes and oversees federal policy for aviation, highways, transit, rail transportation, pipelines, the Coast Guard, maritime transportation, water infrastructure and resources, economic development, public buildings, and emergency management issues.
NORRISTOWN — Public-private partnerships, or “P3”s, are being touted as Pennsylvania’s solution for funding transportation projects given the shrinking pool of federal and state dollars.

Preparing to hammer out a transportation bill in April, members of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee met Friday at the Radisson Valley Forge Hotel in King of Prussia to discuss transit funding.

Meehan laid out the current transportation dilemma: How to do “more with less” money and leverage private funding for projects.
 

State Sen. John Rafferty, R-44th Dist., chairman of the Pennsylvania Senate Transportation Committee, proposed Senate Bill 344 that calls for establishing P3s to allow the private sector to invest in the state’s infrastructure projects.

In February, the Senate Transportation Committee unanimously passed the legislation.

On Friday, Rafferty asked the congressmen for flexibility to toll major interstate highways, such as I-95, to pay to maintain and improve “all” forms of transit in the Southeastern part of the state.

“We’re looking at not just refurbishing but expansion without having to rely on raising the gas tax,” he said.

Tolling Route 422 has been floated to pay for maintaining that highway and funding a passenger railway through the corridor.

With the state facing a $3.5 billion shortfall in transportation funding annually, Greg Bentley, president of Bentley Systems, whose firm provides architects, engineers, builders software solutions for infrastructure projects, told the committee, “Private investment is the only option.”

Frank Rapoport, a partner at McKenna, Long & Aldridge law firm, suggested created a Best Practices center that would advise key public officials on partnerships. He is the firm’s chair of the Global Infrastructure and Public-Private Partnerships practice.

“I’d loved to propose that you stand up an independent group of consultants to advise mayors and governors,” he said.

Others at the forum said leveraging the private sector and high technology could get transit projects built quicker and more efficiently.

Another recurring theme was reducing government regulation that drives up costs and delays project completion.

Steve Moore, an engineer in the audience, complained that federal government requirements can delay projects by many months.

“We’re problem solvers,” Moore said. “But we get bogged down having to count frogs and preserve historic structures.”

Besides Rafferty, Bentley and Rapoport, the panel also included Greg Lebo, vice president of Traffic Planning and Design; Rob Henry, executive director of Greater Valley Forge Transportation Management Association (TMA); Cecile Charlton, executive director of Delaware County TMA; Bob Latham, Keystone Transportation Funding Coalition; Barry Seymour, executive director of Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission; and Nelson Shaffer, of Pennoni and Associates.