8 THE PATH FORWARD Policy Recommendations

The recommendations of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission are based on a set of guiding principles that together can help achieve a national surface transportation system that is safe, effective, efficient, fair, and sustainable.

Six guiding principles have underpinned the Commission's evaluation of funding and finance alternatives and the resulting policy recommendations (see Box 8-1 and Chapter 1 for more detail). As noted throughout this report, applying these broad principles to achieve an effective and comprehensive funding approach requires careful consideration of a wide range of factors and some balancing among competing demands. The Commission has strived to achieve such balance in its final recommendations.

The Commission's recommendations focus primarily on funding strategies for federal investment in surface transportation, but they also address potential federal policy drivers to stimulate and facilitate state, local, and private investment. The Commission recognizes that because of the diversity of state and local funding needs, fiscal situations, and tax structures, among other factors, there is no one "silver bullet" solution. Rather, states and localities will have to continue to develop funding and finance packages that fit their individual situations. The federal government should work to enable the broadest set of options and to avoid impeding or preempting any available options at the state and local level. This basic tenet should guide federal action other than for a narrow set of circumstances, such as any policy that would impede the flow of interstate commerce.

As noted throughout this report, some issues are outside the stated scope of the Commission's charge, as articulated by Congress in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), relating to how the money is spent rather than how it is raised. Because spending policy will have a direct bearing on the likely effectiveness of its revenue-raising recommendations, the Commission has offered some commentary on expenditure strategy in a few areas.

The Commission has focused on the need for additional investment in surface transportation and transforming the way we, as a nation, fund our transportation investments and, in so doing, recognizing the urgent need for fundamental reform. Of course, if accomplishing such a major change were easy, it would have already happened. Given the long-term nature of transportation infrastructure and the complex intergovernmental partnerships involved in the current funding framework, change of the magnitude the Commission envisions requires a deliberate and carefully constructed transition plan. That plan must embody a new vision for transportation funding centered on a robust direct user charge system to the greatest extent possible. The Commission recommends that the transition plan be a key component in the upcoming federal reauthorization cycle and recognizes that it will require significant work over at least the next two reauthorizations to aggressively yet systematically transition to a new funding model that is sustainable in the longer term. And while that transition plan is being put in place, in the short term we must take steps to address the immediate funding crisis through more conventional means. The transportation system and the nation cannot afford to wait.