In recent years, states have faced challenges in providing a safe, reliable, effective and efficient transportation network. These challenges are characterized by an aging system and growing transportation needs, coupled with declining abilities to pay for needed maintenance and capacity expansion. How each state meets these challenges is necessarily shaped by its distinctive approach to governing and paying for its transportation system, within a unique balance of power among its branches of government. Yet, until now, little nationwide, comparative information has been available about how state government entities work together in practice to address transportation governance and finance.
From 2010 to 2011, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) partnered to produce an unprecedented, 50-state review of transportation governance and finance, based largely on in-depth, original survey research. The project focused on transportation finance and on the roles of, and relationships between, those state government entities that are most active in transportation issues: state legislatures and, under the authority of governors, state departments of transportation (DOTs). The resulting groundbreaking report is intended to benefit DOTs and legislatures by offering a rich diversity of approaches to consider as they seek to address their states' transportation challenges and effectively serve the public good within what often are complex intergovernmental arrangements. The report provides an overview of state transportation governance and finance as well as detailed profiles and other information for each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.