All state and local governments, including rural and urban localities, face substantial funding burdens to accommodate national interests. The Commission's recommendations therefore aim to address the full range of needs.
Federal portions of the system in urban areas are relatively small in terms of lane miles, but they have an outsized impact on the system as a whole because congestion and bottlenecks in large metropolitan areas can cause delays that ripple through the entire system and have significant impacts on both the economy and quality of life. Although urban congestion requires considerable attention, the ultimate solutions also must address both rural needs and freight-related investment demands. Rural highway miles represent 69 percent of federal-aid highway miles and 33 percent of vehicle miles traveled (or total miles traveled by all vehicles).1 In addition to serving rural population centers, the preservation, maintenance, and improvement of rural surface transportation infrastructure helps people and goods travel efficiently between large metropolitan areas and across the country. Providing and maintaining transportation infrastructure—both for through traffic from large metropolitan areas and, in particular, for improved safety on rural roads—can place a significant burden on rural state and local governments.
Freight, which is moved through both rural and urban areas and through intermodal connections, requires a fully functional and integrated transportation network. The cost of facilitating that movement frequently falls to a single local jurisdiction and exceeds local funding capacity. Although local or regional governments may bear the responsibility for maintaining or improving specific portions of the system under the current funding system, they cannot and should not bear the entire cost, which ultimately benefits the nationwide movement of freight so critical to our national economy.