WORLD OPINION: SURVEILLANCE DEBATE Snowden pardon best move for US

Champion PSU wrestler Ruth gets ARD

First Posted: 1/15/2014 There is an old axiom that politics is the art of the doable. Bipartisan leadership in the Pennsylvania General Assembly and from Gov. Tom Corbett in approving a new five-year transportation investment law is the latest example of what can be done when elected leaders come together in the spirit of compromise to work in the best interests of the public.
It&#8217;s a message that shouldn&#8217;t be lost on politicians in the nation&#8217;s capital.
Notwithstanding the usual rhetoric circulating in some media outlets from ideological groups opposed to any new transportation funding, it&#8217;s important for residents of Pennsylvania to understand what the new law really is: a road to a better future.
Before the act was signed, Pennsylvania was collecting less tax revenue for mile driven that at any time in history, according to the administration&#8217;s Transportation Funding Advisory Commission report released in 2011. When adjusted for inflation, the report also pointed out the gas tax paid by the average driver has decreased by more than half over the past 40 years and was scheduled to drop again in half by 2020. Add it all up and funding for roads and bridges was slated to fall by an average of 25 percent over the next five years.
The act changes all of that by providing a sustainable funding source to make urgently need improvements to crumbling roads, bridges and transit systems. Its targeted investments will also help save lives, reduce traffic congestion and wasted fuel, and improve personal mobility and the efficiency of goods movement.
Recently, an American Road & Transportation Builders Association&#8217;s Foundation report calculated the impacts of a sustained $2.5 billion increase in transportation funding &#8211; quite similar to the approximately $2.3 billion, five-year total in the new law. We estimate such an investment will increase the commonwealth&#8217;s economic output by $6.5 billion annually, and create an additional 50,000 good-paying jobs in the construction and retail industries.
For Luzerne County, the ARTBA Foundation reported noted 36 percent of the county&#8217;s bridges are either &#8220;structurally deficient&#8221; or &#8220;functionally obsolete,&#8221; according to the Federal Highway Administration. The county&#8217;s key industries of tourism, agriculture, retail and manufacturing all depend on a safe and reliable system of roads and bridges. This act will go a long way toward helping the county to maintain such a system.
It is also worth noting the act was key to helping get the state on better fiscal ground, so much so that the credit rating service Moody&#8217;s marked the move as a &#8220;credit positive&#8221; &#8211; giving the state more security that bonds floated for various projects would get better rates and thereby save taxpayer money.
Meanwhile, at the federal level, progress has been slow in providing a similar solution for the Highway Trust Fund&#8212; the source of about 50 percent of all U.S. highway, transit and bridge capital investments. Through the federal highway program, Pennsylvania receives about $1.6 billion annually. If Congress and the president fail to take action by Oct. 1, there will no money available for new projects in fiscal year 2015.
To prevent this scenario, Congress needs to fix the Highway Trust Fund in early 2014. For if done right and in a similar bipartisan manner as the governor and Pennsylvania General Assembly achieved, a significant boost in transportation investment can help strengthen the economy and competitiveness, create thousands of U.S. jobs, improve safety and get the motoring public moving again.

COMMENTARY: ALISON PREMO BLACK Road spending will get Pa. moving