Highway Spending Shortchanges Cities And Suburbs

In the last reauthorization of the federal transportation bill, numerous states and constituencies called for a revised system of allocating states' shares of the Highway Trust Fund-- more than 60 percent of which are generated by the federal gas tax. Some states argued that their shares of federal transportation dollars should be proportional to the amount of gas tax revenue they paid into the trust fund. Others wanted their shares determined by need. To a large extent both groups of states prevailed in obtaining greater equity. In Ohio, and some other states, state transportation dollars flow to localities on the basis of neither of these standards for revenue distribution. The result in Ohio is a spatially skewed pattern of state transportation spending that is essentially anti-city and even anti-suburb. In effect, funds are diverted away from the very places that struggle with the greatest transportation needs and pay the most in gas taxes. This paper examines the geographic pattern of state transportation spending in Ohio between 1980 and 1998. In particular, it examines the spatial patterns the location of state transportation finance and spending--including current highway contracts, gas tax collections, and vehicle registration tax revenues--and compares them to indicators of transportation demand and need.