[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 14 (Tuesday, February 24, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S865-S867]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE HIGHWAY BILL

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, other Senators and I have spoken numerous 
times over the past several weeks about the significant problems that 
will arise in States across the country if the Senate further delays 
action on the highway bill. Each day we delay adds to the burden of 
commuters sitting in traffic that is often moving at a crawl or brought 
to a complete stop because many of our highways are simply overcrowded. 
Each day we delay brings us closer to the May 1 deadline--just 39 
session days away from today. That includes today--39 days. The time 
bomb is ticking. Senate session days remaining before May 1 deadline: 
39. That includes May 1 as it includes today.
  Since 1969, the number of trips per person taken over our roadways 
increased by more than 72 percent and the number of miles traveled 
increased by more than 65 percent.
  The combination of traffic growth and deteriorating road conditions 
has led to an unprecedented level of congestion, not just in our urban 
centers but in our suburbs and rural areas as well. Congestion is 
literally choking our roadways as our constituents seek to travel to 
work, travel to the shopping center, to the child care center, and to 
the churches. According to the Department of Transportation, more 
travelers, in more areas, during more hours are facing high levels of 
congestion and delay than at any time in our

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history. And these congested conditions make us more susceptible to 
massive traffic jams as the result of even the most minor of accidents. 
The DOT tells us that, during peak travel hours, almost 70 percent or 
the urban interstates and just under 60 percent of other freeways and 
expressways are either moderately or extremely congested. That is lost 
man hours, reduced productivity, wasted fuel, and wasted time.
  The worsening congestion is taking a horrible toll on our economic 
prosperity. I direct the attention of my colleagues to a study 
conducted by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M 
University. According to the Institute's study, the annual cost of 
highway congestion in our nation's 50 most congested cities has grown 
from $26.6 billion in 1982 to almost $53 billion in 1994. In other 
words, it has doubled. Delay accounted for 85 percent of this cost, 
while fuel consumption accounted for 15 percent. While more recent data 
are still being collected, the Institute's researchers state that, in 
the last four years, the cost of congestion in these cities has only 
continued to grow. This multi-billion dollar hemorrhage is found not 
only in our largest cities where eight of the top ten cities had total 
annual congestion costs exceeding $1 billion; we find congestion taxing 
severely the economies of several small- and medium-sized cities as 
well. According to the Institute, the economy of Albuquerque, New 
Mexico endures an estimated annual cost of congestion approaching $150 
million per year; Memphis, Tennessee-- almost $150 million per year; 
Nashville, Tennessee--almost $200 million per year; Norfolk, Virginia-- 
more than $350 million per year; Columbus, Ohio-- more than a quarter 
of a billion dollars per year; Jacksonville, Florida--more than $350 
million per year; and San Bernadino-Riverside, California--over $1 
billion per year.
  There are a lot of explanations for traffic congestion's growing 
impact on our cities, but a principal cause of congestion, clearly, is 
the fact that road mileage has not kept pace with a growing population, 
a growing work force, and an American lifestyle in which the personal 
mobility afforded by automobiles is as essential to daily life as are 
eating and sleeping. Many people say that Americans have a love affair 
with their cars. More than a love affair, however, Americans simply 
depend on their cars to squeeze their myriad chores and activities into 
a busy work day.
  A vehicle is one tool that many American workers cannot do without. 
They do not just drive to and from work anymore. Americans stop at the 
day care, the grocery store, the dry cleaners, the PTA meeting, the 
gymnasium, and at volunteer programs, all in the course of driving to 
and from work. Transportation researchers call this phenomenon ``trip-
chaining,'' and it is a trend that continues to grow and shows no sign 
of slowing.
  While the size of our highway network has remained relatively static 
for years, the condition and performance of those roads has 
deteriorated. Poor road and bridge conditions must share part of the 
blame for our nation's congestion problem. According to a 1995 U.S. 
Department of Transportation's report to Congress, 28 percent of the 
most heavily traveled U.S. roads are in poor or mediocre condition. 
That means that those roads need work now--work now--to remain open and 
protect the safety of the traveling public. And more than 181,000 
bridges, or 32 percent of our nations' 575,000 bridges, are in need of 
repair or replacement, including 70,000 bridges built in the 1960's and 
designed to last 30 years under 1960's travel conditions. These roads 
and bridges that have outlived their useful life or that are falling 
apart from under-investment often are traffic choke-points that can be 
corrected with the proper repairs.
  And Senators don't have to travel very far away to see the traffic 
choke-points, as they attempt to cross the bridges, get on the bridges 
and cross the Potomac every morning and every evening. It took me an 
hour and 15 minutes to get from my home in McLean, 10 miles away, this 
morning, to get to my office because of traffic congestion feeding into 
the streets, and feeding on and feeding off the bridges. We have to get 
across that Potomac. As I say to my colleagues, we don't have to travel 
far to see these choke-points working against us, against the traveling 
public.
  If Senators would like examples of a choke points, they need look no 
further than the bridges that cross the Potomac River. Most of these 
bridges were not designed to carry the traffic that accompanies the 
morning and evening rush hours. As a result, traffic jams back up for 
miles every work day, in both directions. That is the gridlock that 
poor roads and bridges can cause. I am sure that if Senators contact 
their own state transportation departments, they will find numerous 
examples of traffic choke-points in their own states where a new 
bridge, smoother pavements, where an additional lane would alleviate 
the problem and get people and freight moving again.
  And congestion means more than just economic costs. Obviously, 
congestion costs Americans time that could otherwise be spent with the 
family, with those children who are coming in from school and times 
that otherwise could be spent at work, time that could be otherwise 
spent in school or elsewhere. According to a study by the Texas 
Transportation Institute, commuters in the country's 50 largest urban 
areas lose an average of 34 hours each year idling in traffic. Now that 
is not only time wasted, it is not only gasoline wasted, it is 
pollution in the air.
  Another, and equally important, cost of congestion is, as I say, its 
impact on air quality. As cars and trucks are slowed by traffic 
congestion, they emit more pollutants, thereby impeding efforts in many 
parts of the country to come into compliance with federal air quality 
standards. Road improvements aimed at smoothing the flow of traffic can 
reduce auto-related pollutant emissions substantially. All such 
improvements, however, cost money. And the Senate should be doing 
everything possible to ensure that our state and metropolitan officials 
do not run out of federal highway funds that can help them relieve 
congestion and improve air quality.
  Today, Mr. President, Americans rely on automobiles for 90 percent or 
more of all trips. In many areas of the country, we need additional 
highway capacity to accommodate that travel. And federal highway funds 
are often a critical source of capital for these projects.
  What can we do about congestion, Mr. President? What can Congress do 
to help eliminate the $53 billion annual burden borne by commuters in 
our large cities? What can we do to give people more time at home with 
their families or on the job instead of stuck in traffic? What can 
Congress do to our cities and counties to help their air quality?
  Probably the single most important action Congress can take to help 
alleviate these problems is the prompt enactment of the 6-year highway 
bill. That bill is on the Senate calendar, ready to go, and the country 
cannot afford to wait any longer. The May 1 deadline after which States 
will have no more Federal money--the Governors are in town and I hope 
that some of them are watching the Senate at this moment--the May 1 
deadline after which States will be unable to obligate any more money, 
and if there is any doubt as to whether or not the States may obligate 
any more money after midnight, May 1, take a look at what the law says, 
public law 105-130, the Surface Transportation Extension Act of 1997, 
which is the short-term highway authorization that Congress passed last 
November before adjourning Sine die.
  Here is what it says. This is the law. ``. . . a State shall not''--
it doesn't say it may not--``. . . a State shall not obligate any funds 
for any Federal-aid highway program project after May 1, 1998 . . . .''
  There it is. That is the law. Unless a new law is passed that will be 
the law on midnight, May 1, all the highway departments throughout the 
country, the Governors and mayors and other officials and the employees 
of the various highway agencies throughout the country, will feel the 
pinch. So the May 1 deadline, after which States cannot obligate new 
Federal money to finance congestion relief projects, as I say and I 
repeat it, is just 39 session days away--including today and including 
May 1. It is drawing nearer with every passing minute.
  Mr. President, we cannot afford to delay. Our constituents stuck in 
traffic

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jams need our help. They want their highway taxes used to get them out 
of gridlock, but we cannot do that while the Senate is stuck in 
legislative gridlock. I urge the majority leader to get the Senate--and 
the country--out of gridlock by calling up the highway bill now.

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