Forget big projects like the Interstate 5 Bridge for a minute. Drive any mile of the approximately 30 miles of interstate freeways in Clark County and you’ll quickly get a local angle on a national problem.
A report commissioned by Congress and released earlier this month says as much as $70 billion annually will be needed for the next two decades to upgrade the interstate highway system. As you drive up Interstate 5 or down Interstate 205, you’ll see the problems including deferred maintenance and an overwhelming growth in traffic.
We haven’t kept pace. America’s interstates are growing old. Funded with $25 billion — the equivalent of $235 billion today — by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, the system is named for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who championed their cause. Washington’s 276 miles of Interstate 5 were completed nearly 50 years ago, in 1969. Oregon opened its stretch of I-5 in 1966 with a ceremony at the Cow Creek Rest Area.
Additions and improvements have been made over the years. Locally, Interstate 205 opened in segments in the 1980s. In 2001, I-5 was widened to three through lanes from Main Street through Hazel Dell.
But much more needs to be done. We need that new bridge, and improved culverts for salmon passage, and to widen I-205 near Vancouver Mall. And please, fix the paving!
It’s the same nationwide. About $25 billion per year is spent on freeway construction and maintenance; twice as much (or more) spending is needed.
“Essentially, we need a re-invigoration of the federal and state partnership that produced the Interstate Highway System in the first place,” said Norman Augustine, the chair of the blue-ribbon report committee, former chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp., and an actual rocket scientist.
The report recommends several ways to get there, but all seem as likely to stall as a rush hour trip to Beaverton. Congress could raise fuel taxes, currently 18.4 cents for unleaded and 24.4 cents for diesel, and index them to rise with inflation. As a side benefit, it would encourage consumers to drive more fuel-efficient vehicles. But it’s also a diminishing source of revenue as more motorists buy and drive those hybrids and alternative-fuel vehicles.
The federal government also could lift the restrictions on tolling existing general-purpose freeway lanes. Oregon recently asked to test this program by adding tolls on Interstate 5 through the Rose Quarter south across the Marquam Bridge, and on Interstate 205 in the vicinity of Oregon City. An advantage of the plan is that it would be a user fee, assuming that toll revenue is spent on improvements in the localized area of tolling. If you don’t drive to Oregon City often, for example, you wouldn’t pay much toward widening the Abernethy Bridge. But critics, including Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, are skeptical.
Modern technology also presents new options for paying for interstate freeways. GPS devices, for example, could allow the government to tax you based on freeway miles you drive. But, could a lawyer subpoena your driving record? Could your employer see if you were driving the best route?
Repairing and upgrading America’s freeways is an urgent problem, one that is underscored by the report. Finding solutions may be as tedious and nettling as a Los Angeles rush hour, but Congress and the Trump administration need to shift a plan into drive.
