Projects Urgently Needed by States to Address Capacity Challenges

WASHINGTON, May 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Congestion, growth, and improved safety are three reasons state departments of transportation say they need to increase highway and bridge capacity in their communities. Transportation Reboot:  Unlocking Gridlock offers a state-by-state rundown of the most urgent transportation projects needed in urban areas to meet these challenges as well as to address projected increases in population and freight.  

Unlocking Gridlock is the first in a series of reports issued by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), offering new research and data on why states need the ability to increase capacity in their transportation system. Some advocacy groups in Washington are hoping to persuade Congress to adopt a "fix-it first" approach that would steer transportation funds into system preservation alone.      

"If most or all of our capital investments were made in system rehabilitation and little to none in adding needed capacity, the condition of the nation's roads and bridges would improve, but traffic would grind to a halt," said John Horsley, AASHTO's executive director. "To meet future needs, we recommend instead a balanced approach: preserve today's system, improve its performance, and add the highway, transit, and rail capacity needed."

An example of how one state's transportation network can affect an entire region is the I-95 Newark Toll Facility in Delaware, a major north-south corridor along the East Coast. According to Carolann Wicks, secretary, Delaware Department of Transportation and president, Northeastern Association of State Transportation Officials (NASTO), "The current I-95 Newark Toll Facility experiences substantial backups during many of the holiday and weekend time periods. Most of the delays can be attributed to volumes of travelers, high percentages of slower moving trucks, as well as limited processing by the booths. The Plaza Reconstruction will eliminate many of these issues with the addition of dedicated highway-speed EZ-Pass lanes."  

The I-95 project is included in the state examples available on the report's website, http://expandingcapacity.transportation.org. Other urgent capacity expansion projects cited in the report include HOT lanes in Atlanta's I-75 corridor north of I-285 to relieve congestion; replacement of a 45-year-old viaduct along I-70 in Denver; and a new border crossing between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, to improve international freight traffic. According to AASHTO, the next surface transportation authorization bill must address these and other urgent capacity needs.

"In the high growth states such as North Carolina, we need additional resources to address our problems and we need a strong partner at the federal level," said the state's transportation secretary, Eugene Conti, in support of a six-year bill. "When you're going month to month and year to year, that's not the way to do transportation investment."

The full report and descriptions of urgent capacity projects are available at http://ExpandingCapacity.transportation.org.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is the "Voice of Transportation" representing State Departments of Transportation in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. AASHTO is a nonprofit, nonpartisan association serving as a catalyst for excellence in transportation.  Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/aashtospeaks.

SOURCE American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials