1.  SETTING COURSE: COMMISSION'S CHARGE AND GUIDING PRINCIPLES

The nation's surface transportation system is in physical and financial crisis.

All levels of government in the United States are failing to keep pace with the demand for transportation investment and increasingly must use existing revenues simply to attempt to keep pace with the preservation and maintenance of an aging system. This leaves few or no resources for vitally needed new capacity and other improvements to the system. As a result, congestion and system reliability have steadily worsened (see Box 1-1). Calls for increased investment, new institutional approaches to funding and to building and maintaining the system, and technological innovation are mounting.

If the federal government fails to act now, and act dramatically, the problems will only compound. We will end up with increasingly deteriorating roadways, bridges, and transit systems. We will suffer more accidents and fatalities on our transportation system. We will endure countless more hours stuck in traffic, which will take a growing toll not only on business productivity and our economic vitality as a nation but also on our basic quality of life. And, finally, we will waste precious taxpayer and system user dollars if costs continue to mount faster than inflation and continue to rise due to system neglect.

In response to these challenges, Congress established the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission (referred to here as the Financing Commission or the Commission) to analyze the funding crisis and make recommendations to address the growing transportation infrastructure investment deficit. In this report, the Commission presents Congress with a variety of options, highlights the advantages and disadvantages of each option, and makes recommendations about the most viable approaches to address the urgent needs of the U.S. transportation system.

This chapter outlines the Commission's mandate, identifies key issues beyond the mandate that influence the recommendations, and outlines the principles on which the Commission believes any new finance framework—consisting of both funding and financing strategies—should be based. The chapter concludes with an overview of the remainder of the report.