By Devon Turchan, The News-Herald, April 05, 2014

Transportation makes the economy go ’round but funding for the infrastructure on which it relies is increasingly insecure.

Each gallon of gas purchased is taxed 18.4 cents, which goes into the Highway Trust Fund that supports repairs to roads and bridges. Those roads and bridges, for 2013, have a grading of D+, according to the National Council on Public Works Improvement report entitled “Fragile Foundations: A Report on America’s Public Works.”

That tax has not been raised since 1993 said Arthur Guzzetti, vice president of policy for the American Public Transit Association.
“That’s an equation for an eventual disaster and it’s lost purchasing power,” Guzzetti said.

Part of that money goes toward public transportation, which itself has a D grade for 2013.And at a time when infrastructure is “fragile,” funding has been drastically cut, according to information from James Gee, general manager of the Toledo Area Regional Transportation Authority and president of the Ohio Public Transit Association.

State funding for public transportation dropped from $44 million a year in 2000 to $7.3 million in 2013, while national trends show an increase in ridership, Gee said. Congress has been passing temporary legislation extensions that last for half a year.
Jurkowski said that makes it difficult to plan. “In the transit industry, our big problem is predictable funding to be able to operate the transit system,” Laketran General Manager Ray Jurkowski said. 

Congress has until September to pass a bill and Guzzetti, Gee and Jurkowski, on behalf of their transit agencies, say they hope for a long-term budget and innovation in the way its funded.

“The number of vehicle miles being traveled is decreasing because baby boomers who had a husband and wife working are now retiring, so it’s actually dropping because you’re not only losing one person (driving to work) but two.”
Meanwhile, he said, members of the millennial generation are choosing to live in neighborhoods where it is possible to bike or walk to work.

For Kellie Ridenour, riding the bus has been a means to get to her job and school at Lakeland Community College since 2004.
“I’ve always had a fear of driving,” she said. “I don’t drive.”  She pays $1.75 per ride on the bus and gets rides when she can.
“I know a lot of the bus drivers,” she said referencing how frequently she’s taken the bus. “I would rather it come every half hour.”
Now the bus comes every hour and stops service at 8 p.m. There is no weekend service and holiday service is limited if at all available.

Jurkowski said Laketran has tried to restore funding, but with an uncertain financial future, he said it’s is hard to plan.
“We have the jobs, but not the public transportation right now,” he said. “We’ve got the educational institutions where you can get the certification in manufacturing, you can get the four-year degree, the wonderful assets in the community for health care but you have to link it together with a better public transportation system that you can rely on (and) more predictable funding.”

At 9,363 vehicle miles traveled per capita nationally in 2012, the numbers are down every year since 2004 and are at the lowest level since 1996, according to research conducted by the State Smart Transportation Initiative.  That decrease means less money is being raked in at the 18.4 cents tax per gallon.

In addition, Jurkowski points to “rising automobile efficiency.”  

“That’s part of the reason that Highway Trust Fund isn’t getting the money it used to get,” he said.
Laketran transports about 3,500 riders per day but even people who have never used public transportation are affected by its service, Jurkowski said.

The economy is supported daily by workers who take public transportation to a restaurant job or for people who take the bus to the mall to shop.  And certainly, if people do not take a bus to work, they drive on roads that rely on the Highway Trust Fund for repair funding.  Jurkowski said it is a synergy of local, state and national funding mechanisms that are necessary to pull off a successful funding structure.

Guzzetti at the national level agrees, as does Gee at the state level.  Gee said he would like to see the $2 per capita spending on transit rise somewhere closer to Michigan’s $23 or Pennsylvania’s $50.  Guzzetti said, “It worked well until 1993 until we stopped growing it and we got by for a few years, but the last 10 or so we’ve been avoiding the inevitable question of how to keep the fund solvent. This summer there’s the point where there’s not enough money in the account to continue. It’s that clear of a crisis in our immediate future.”