The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Repairing Ravaged Roads

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. This winter has so ravaged the nation`s roads that Congress will be asked tomorrow for special funds for emergency repairs. But the winter`s potholes and cracks are only the most visible symptom of a graver situation. The national highway system is in a steady decline; even parts of the new interstate system are already badly in need of repair. Some say it will cost almost as much to maintain the system as it did to build it, which raises the question of who will pay. And if billions of fresh federal dollars go into the highways, what happens to the growing interest in mass transit? Tonight, the pressures and the politics of highway maintenance. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, in shorthand, they`re saying the nation is in the grips of a pothole emergency. All of the country`s 3.8 million miles of roads and highways are deteriorating faster than they can be repaired and maintained. And it is particularly acute for the 830,000 miles of major highways in which the federal government is involved: the 40,000 mile interstate system, of which the government picked up ninety percent of the cost; and the rest, where the federal share was seventy percent. The problem is simply that the states and localities are supposed to bear the full cost of maintaining them, but they don`t have the money to do it so it isn`t being done. And now there`s a move to get the federal government to come to the rescue.

The bad winters, as you said -- last year`s plus the current one have brought it all to a head. A bill is being introduced in Congress tomorrow that would set up an emergency fund to deal with the immediate problem, and one of the sponsors of that legislation is Congressman James Howard, Democrat of New Jersey, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Surface Transportation. Congressman, your plan would make $250 million available for highway repairs. How would that be divided up?

Rep. JAMES HOWARD: Well, we want to make it as simple as possible and get the money out just as quickly as we can. What we would do would be to make this $250 million available; it would be available to the states only, we wouldn`t subdivide it down to counties or cities. It would be one hundred percent federal money; there`d be no state match required. And we`re working on suggestions for the administration as to how it would be allocated to the states. We would have a minimum of one-half of one percent for every state -- perhaps Puerto Rico and Hawaii would even get a half of one percent -- and it would be based on the number of vehicle miles in the state, the number and amount of surface miles in the state, and also on a climate situation. The real problem in creating potholes is not so much just how cold it is, but how many freezes and thaws you have. Now, last year, you know, we had a tremendous freeze, but it was just one steady, long freeze, and then we had one major thaw. So we had one set of potholes. This year in many parts of the country we`re having freezes and thaws, and each time we get that thaw that`s what loosens up the roadway and potholes can come about. All last winter we only had about 98 million potholes. I don`t know how we get these figures, I don`t know where they count them.

LEHRER: Yeah, I wonder who counts them.

HOWARD: But as of right now this year we have 116 million potholes. It takes something like 6.4 million tons of asphalt to fill it up, at a cost of $320 million. So even though we`re not in the basic maintenance area in our federal highway system -- that`s up to the states, as the modernization and upkeep should be -- we do want to help meet this situation and so we want to get some money out just to help the states with what is a tremendously expensive problem.

LEHRER: Of course, as you just said, $320 million -- this bill only accounts for $250 million. This is not going to solve the whole problem.

HOWARD: Oh, not at all. That $320 million is only for the cost of the asphalt; that has nothing to do with the labor and the other costs of actually doing the work of filling the potholes. But this will be a needed help; we`ll take the $250 million right out of the Highway Trust Fund. We hope to have the bill passed within two weeks.

LEHRER: Two weeks. You mean from the time it`s introduced tomorrow to the time there`s a bill you think it`s going to be two weeks?

HOWARD: I think that by the time it`s introduced and the time it could have passed the House -- in fact, we`re being optimistic now -- we are hoping that we can have it up under suspension of the rules next week in the House of Representatives.

LEHRER: All right, Congressman, beyond this emergency situation, what do you think should be done to prevent the further decay of the nation`s highway system?

HOWARD: You know, when we started this in the 1950`s and we went into major highway programs and established the Highway Trust Fund, we were going to be partners with the states; we were going to pay them fifty percent on non-interstate roads and ninety percent of the cost of building this great system across the country. The agreement with the states was that at that time they, would take over the roads, they`d keep them up to date, keep them repaired, keep them modern. Well, down through the years we`ve seen that the states either couldn`t or wouldn`t do that, so we`ve gotten into the Three R program -- rehabilitation, renovation, repair and such -- and so we look now and we find that our non interstate roads are deteriorating fifty percent faster than we can modernize them. And so in our major transportation bill this year I have a provision that would add one billion dollars to the primary and the secondary system, three quarters of a billion to the primary and a quarter of a billion to the secondary, to be used only for upgrading, modernization, dualizing, adding safety features - - in other words, trying to protect the great investment we have in this tremendous system. So we`re going to be getting into it in a big, big way. But of course, that`s aside from the immediate problem of the potholes.

LEHRER: Thank you, Congressman. Robin?

MacNEIL: The problem of the states in maintaining roads is well illustrated by Pennsylvania. The state`s Transportation Department said recently that forty-one percent of Pennsylvania`s roads are deficient and that hazardous roads are the second major cause of accidents there. But this year the same state had to pass up $96 million in federal road money because it hasn`t got the cash to match it with. With us, in the studios of Public Television Station WITF in Hershey, is Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp. Governor, traditionally the states have paid for highway repairs; why can`t Pennsylvania keep up with the costs?

Gov. MILTON SHAPP: There are several reasons. First of all, the interstate is a major problem. Though the Congressman just said that they`re going to put up $250 million, hopefully, for the states, actually if you take Pennsylvania`s share of that that would be about sixteen, eighteen million dollars and we will need sixty just to take care of our share of the interstate for next year. You see, the problem is this: that although we put up ten percent of the funding for the inter states and the federal government put up ninety percent, we don`t get a dime back now to maintain the interstate highway system. And this is costing us about $200 million a year in Pennsylvania. We have a total budget of $908 million for all of. our highway operation, but we have to maintain about 45,000 to 46,000 miles of road in our state.

MacNEIL: Governor, the original deal with the federal government on the interstate, this ninety-to-ten ratio, left it to the states to maintain the roads. Is it that the states really haven`t bothered about that until now they`re nearly a generation old and now it becomes apparent something had better be done?

SHAPP: No, that`s not-the case at all. We have been maintaining and using a large share of our budget to maintain the inter states because that carries the heaviest traffic, but most of that of course is through traffic in Pennsylvania and we just don`t have that kind of money to do it. In other words, we`ve got a gift horse. We need the highways, and the federal government put up ninety percent of the construction but nothing for maintenance. Another problem that we have is that we had to borrow money for that ten percent, and about twenty-five percent of our total highway budget now goes to pay amortization on the money we borrowed plus the interest. And this is rising every year. So it`s been a gift horse and now we are suffering the consequences of not being able to maintain the other roads in our state, as we put the money into the interstate for maintenance.

MacNEIL: I see. What`s going to happen to those roads if the federal government doesn`t come up with massive amounts of money for maintenance?

SHAPP: They`re going to deteriorate rapidly.

MacNEIL: Governor, a lot of people believe that the increasing passage of very heavy trucks over these roads is part of the reason for their deterioration. Last week the Federal Department of Transport said that it was considering withholding federal road monies from fourteen states which have not enforced weight standards on trucks, and Pennsylvania, I believe, was one of those states. Is it in fact true that Pennsylvania has not enforced weight standards?

SHAPP: Actually, I think you`ll find our record is better than most of the states because we have a lower limit than the vast majority of the states. But that isn`t really the problem, because if you take your weight on the axles of these trucks that are going through, you`ll find that that is not above the tolerance -- at least, as I`ve been informed. And the problem is that the federal government collects four cents gas tax on each gallon of gas that`s sold, but they don`t give anything back to us of that four cents that goes to help the federal government pay for the interstate. For example, they laid out about $75, $80 billion, but they`ve already gotten back over $90 billion in the gas tax, so they`ve made a profit on this. If they would give us one or two pennies of that gas tax back to the states, because the intestate`s been paid for...

MacNEIL: Because it`s easier for them to raise money through the gas tax than it is for you to raise the state tax, which you`ve recently tried to do and failed, I believe.

SHAPP: It`s not only easier, but you see, the average person doesn`t know where the money comes from; all he knows -- if he lives in Harrisburg or in Pennsylvania, they`re citizens of Harrisburg and Pennsylvania and citizens of the United States -- all he knows is that the problem exists. And the federal government has the most progressive type of taxes anyway, but here they`re collecting this four cents a gallon and we`d be all a lot better if they`d give us some of that money.

MacNEIL: Yes. Coming back to the trucks just for a second, Governor, in other words, you do not believe that the trucks are the big menace.

SHAPP: The trucks are part of the menace, but the major problem is we don`t have the funds to keep those roads in proper maintenance, even without the trucks.

MacNEIL: Thank you, we`ll come back. Jim?

LEHRER: Let`s pursue the truck question for a moment. One person with an opinion on the extent to which states have enforced weight limits on trucks is Susan Ginsburg, Safety and Health Director of PROD, an organization representing rank-and-file truck drivers. Ms. Ginsburg lobbies on Capitol Hill for improvement in truck safety, and she also has some thoughts about the relationship between trucks and highway deterioration. Ms. Ginsburg, what are your thoughts on that? How responsible are heavy trucks for what`s happening to the highway system?

SUSAN GINSBURG: Well, the figures given to us by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials tell us that one 80,000-pound semitrailer causes as much damage to the road surface as 7,700 automobiles weighing 4,000 pounds apiece.

LEHRER: Now, why is that?

GINSBURG: Simply because the trucks are heavier. There is in fact a geometric increase in the rate of road deterioration...

LEHRER:I know the trucks are heavier, but if you were to add all that up you`d come up with an awful lot. Is there something special about the way a truck goes over a road?

GINSBURG: Part of it is the axle weight distribution, and according AASHTO the per-axle increase for allowable truck weights enacted in 1974 from 18,000 pounds to 20,000 pounds was estimated to increase the rate of deterioration by sixty percent.

LEHRER: Getting back to the question that Robin was just asking Governor Shapp about Pennsylvania and the federal government`s action in telling fourteen states that if they did not enforce weight standards they might lose their federal highway funds, first of all, how negligent had these states been generally in enforcing these?

GINSBURG: According to the head of the Federal Highway Administration, Mr. William Cox, there was prima-facie evidence that the states weren`t enforcing these size and weight laws. In other words, there were some states which didn`t own weigh scales, which weighed only a negligible amount of trucks per year. So it was clear that the situations in which he took action were really rather extreme ones. We think that it was a very constructive effort on his part and are waiting anxiously to the end of the forty-five day period to see in fact what constructive action is taken by these states.

LEHRER: The states being given forty-five days to come in line on this or they could lose their funds.

GINSBURG: That`s right.

LEHRER: All right. One of the ideas that Transportation Secretary Adams has come up with is to set up separate lanes on these major highways for trucks, call then "freight lanes" or something like that. Is that a valid idea, or do you have another way to solve the problem as you see it between trucks and highways?

GINSBURG: I think that the truck lane idea is a new idea. More important at the moment is to enforce the laws that we already have, and that could simply be done by spending a little more on state enforcement plans and perhaps having the federal government step in, as they have recently, and to seeing that it actually all takes place.

LEHRER: But of course the example you gave there at the beginning, the 80,000-pound figure, that is allowed under the federal law, right? That is the limit now.

GINSBURG: That is correct.

LEHRER: But you think if that limit is regulated throughout the fifty states then that will at least help the problem in terms of deterioration of highways?

GINSBURG: There are some states which have limits below that. Pennsylvania is one of them. These states remained at that level because of two considerations: one, the cost of repair; and secondly, safety. We feel that if there were to be a uniform national regulation or national law that whatever it was it would have to take into consideration safety and the costs.

LEHRER: All right, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Let`s get the trucking industry`s view of this. It was given to Congress earlier this month by Edward Kiley, assistant to the president of the American Trucking Associations, Incorporated, a federation with affiliates in every state. Mr. Kiley, what is your comment on the figures that we just heard quoted by Ms. Ginsburg?

EDWARD KILEY: Well, there`s no merit in those figures whatsoever. I`d like to straighten a few things out in connection with the weight. First of all let`s take the 80,000 pounds; 80,000 pounds is a gross weight, it`s in the federal law as a maximum. It can be arrived at only by applying a gross weight formula. Now, the gross weight formula has been developed by the highway engineers. It is there to protect the structures of bridges; it has no bearing on the pavement or the surface because that is controlled by the axle weight of the vehicle.

MacNEIL: So you say that the figures she just gave, that an 80,000 pound truck is the equivalent of 7,700 4,000-pound cars, is not correct?

KILEY: Not valid at all, not valid at all. It comes from the Illinois road test, a multimillion dollar road test that was conducted in Illinois under the auspices of the American Association of State Highway Officials, the Federal Highway Administration, then the Bureau of Public Roads and the Highway Transportation Board. This road test is the one out of which came the recommendations on weight limits which are now in the federal law: 20,000 on a single axle, 34,000 on a tandem, and 80,000 pounds on the gross weight. As a matter of fact, it recommended higher than 80,000 pounds. Now, this road test did develop some relative impacts on certain pavements whereby you could arrive at a formula which would show you that on certain pavements a truck was equivalent to so much; now what pavement was this the equivalent of? The ratio she gave of several thousand to one was the ratio on the thinnest pavement on the road test. Now, this kind of a pavement nobody builds; no highway engineer would ever build such a pavement. As a matter of fact, you can`t build a sidewalk that thin. On the roads, however, in the road test that were built according to the standards the states use today in building their roads, their primary roads, the interstate system and other primary roads, those roads are built to carry at least -- now I say at least -- the 20,000 and the 34,000 and the 80,000 in the federal law. That`s the minimum. Many of these roads can carry much more. And I`d like to point this out: that the 20,000 and the 34,000 and the 80,000 pounds which has been implicated in this highway damage charge was the recommendation of the Federal Highway Administration, the Department of Transportation, and these limits are the policy of the American Association of State Highway Officials. So there`s no relationship between these weights and any deterioration of the highway system at all.

MacNEIL: All right. What about so-called "illegal" -- trucks that violate the existing laws in states which may have lower standards than the permissible federal standard?

KILEY: Whatever a state weight law is, or any size and weight law in a state, should be enforced and enforced vigorously.

MacNEIL: Is it?

KILEY: Well, apparently the Secretary of Transportation doesn`t believe it is, because he`s indicated he will withhold funds from some of the states that cannot certify to his satisfaction that they are enforcing their weight law. So what is adequate enforcement? Since the announcement of this show-cause order to the states, the Secretary of Transportation has also instituted a rule-making proceeding to arrive at criteria or standards by which it could be determined whether or not the states were enforcing their weight limits. But weight limits should be enforced, there`s no question about it, and enforced vigorously.

MacNEIL: I see. Just one further point, Mr. Kiley. The truck usage of our roads is perhaps greater now than was envisaged when a lot of the roads were built in the first place. The proportion of the cost of those roads that the trucking industry actually bears -- we have a kind of pie graph here which divides up the Highway Trust Fund into the 72 percent that is on the four-cent federal tax on gas, and then there is twelve percent which is shared by special taxes on trucks and other heavy vehicles, and then ten percent which is for tax on tires, and then only six percent is the four- cent-a-gallon tax on diesel fuel. That would seem, since the trucking industry shares only a part of that twelve percent, that it bears a relatively low cost of the road usage, and I would just like to know your comment on that.

KILEY: Well, your figures there approach it from an entirely different way. You`re talking about the total collection and the type of tax that produces it.

MacNEIL: Right.

KILEY: That isn`t the answer. The key to this is who pays what. Now let`s look at the total tax collections in the trust fund, which I think are approximately six billion dollars. Now, all trucks are about nineteen percent of all registered motor vehicles paying taxes into the Highway Trust Fund. All trucks -- nineteen percent of all vehicles -- pay forty percent of the total trust fund taxes; that`s the key figure, but beyond that and more important is the so-called heavy truck, and here I use this term because the Congress in 1956 put a special tax on trucks over 26,000 pounds. Let`s use that as the heavy truck. They are 1.4 percent of all vehicles, and they pay nineteen percent of the trust fund taxes. That`s the ratio you have to look at, what percentage of the vehicles pay what percentage of the total taxes, and we think...

MacNEIL: Excuse me, those percentages that you`re giving are the percentages of the twelve percent...

KILEY: No, no. They`re a percentage of the hundred percent. You add that up, the 72, 12, 10, and 6 of that total one hundred percent. The heavy truck, which is 1.4 percent of all registered vehicles, pays nineteen percent of that total pie. In other words, that`s the ratio: 1.4 to nineteen percent. And this is the key ratio to indicate the heavy payment that trucks make to the Highway Trust Fund.

MacNEIL: Okay, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Ms. Ginsburg, do you feel that the trucking industry, or trucks, are paying their fair share of the cost of highways and to keep them up?

GINSBURG: Well, the FHWA, the Federal Highway Administration, in `74 when the weight increase was discussed, although they did recommend the weight increase also said that to pay the price for road maintenance it would cost another $50 to $100 million. In 1969 the latest figures that we have, according to the FHWA the trucking industry short-changed the Highway Trust Fund by some $200 million. In our view...

LEHRER: Short-changed in what way?

GINSBURG: That the costs incurred because of trucks were not met by the users, by the trucking industry.

LEHRER: Yes, Congressman?

HOWARD: It really doesn`t make an awful lot of difference how much you charge the trucks. I`m no great friend of the trucking industry, but if we do charge the truckers more money and we add to their tax, or we add even to their tax per gallon, they`re not going to pay it, it`s going to go on to the product that the consumer eventually buys. So whatever you add on to the truckers` tax I`m going pay mine and I`m going to pay the truckers`; my wife is going to pay hers and the truckers, and so is everyone else.

LEHRER: Let me ask Governor Shapp, what`s been the experience in your state? Do you feel that the truckers that run through the state of Pennsylvania are paying their fair share in terms of what they do or don`t do to your highways?

SHAPP: I have no way of really knowing that, but I would expect that they do pay their fair share. The problem we have, again, is that on these inter states the federal government is collecting four cents per gallon of gas tax and keeping it all, and we have the maintenance costs. So if they would give us one cent, that`s about $60 million a year; two cents, or half of it, would be $120 million -- that would be thirty five percent of all we`re paying for maintenance throughout the state -we`d be able to maintain those roads in much better shape.

HOWARD: I don`t see why Pennsylvania can`t maintain its roads or do something. The Governor spoke and made several points; he made the point that we collect four cents a gallon in tax in the Federal Highway Trust Fund; we pay on the interstate ninety percent of the cost of the construction; on all other roads we pay seventy percent. We get four cents a gallon. Governor Shapp in his state of Pennsylvania collects nine cents a gallon for every gallon of gasoline, and that goes in the state and that should be used for some portion. So here we argue...

SHAPP: It is being used.

HOWARD:...collecting less than half of the amount, we`re paying you the nine-tenths, or 2.4 to one on the non-interstate, and we have right now over three-quarters of a billion dollars of money for Pennsylvania in the Highway Trust Fund. $427 million of those dollars are in interstate funds, which means that Pennsylvania can get nine to one; for $42 million they can get $427 million of work and jobs and improvement.

SHAPP: We can`t afford your generosity.

HOWARD: And you take the nine cents...

SHAPP: Your argument is specious; you can`t afford it.

HOWARD: And one point where the Governor mentioned that we`ve collected $90 billion, only spent $80 billion -- we`ve kept ten billion of it -- well, I`m sure that the Governor knows that as of last month there is $10 billion in the Highway Trust Fund at the present time. There are approved projects under way to the tune of $23 billion, so this just means that this money is on its way out as the states can use it. If we did not have on additional highway project in the nation today, we would still have to collect into the Highway Trust Fund for well over two years just to pay off what is under way today, so there is no great surplus in the Highway Trust Fund. I think that we`re doing the best we can...

SHAPP: I`ll say this..

HOWARD: We`ve had four cents a gallon since 1959, and with all the inflation and the doubling of the cost of gasoline in early 1974 we`ve still got that same four cents. We`re going to need an additional two cents in the Highway Trust Fund just to take care of the bridges, many of the important needs in the state of Pennsylvania, and to go into up grading the primary and secondary...

SHAPP: The problem that you mention, though, and your analysis of it, is specious. You collect the four cents; that four cents is already paid for all of the total amount that you`ve put in at the Highway Trust Fund to build the interstate highways. Now, we have to...

HOWARD: No, this is there for primary and secondary...

SHAPP:...maintain it and you don`t pay any of that maintenance cost, and that`s what`s breaking the states; we cannot do it. And...

HOWARD: We`ve had maintenance money in the interstate system since the bill two years ago. I grant you that it`s new, but it`s in there now. I think it`s in there at ninety percent again; for every dime you put up, we`ll put up ninety cents toward the interstate.

MacNEIL: Gentlemen, could I just interrupt you for a moment? We only have a minute left; I just want to know each of your opinion: should the Highway Trust Fund be increased, or should more of the money be diverted to maintenance? Congressman?

HOWARD:I believe that we should go more into the heavy maintenance. In other words, upgrading, maintaining, dualizing and widening. I don`t think that we ought to be in an ongoing program to fill every pothole in the country as a regular federal program or a national program. In emergencies such as we have right now, yes, and that bill is being introduced tomorrow; but I don`t think we should get into the pothole-filling business from a national level.

MacNEIL: Is the fund sufficiently large to do all the maintenance that`s necessary? I`ve seen estimates of $329 billion needed just to get the roads back to where they were three years ago.

HOWARD: No. This is the change in the thrust. We`re going to, as we go along down the road, see much less of a proportion of the federal money and all the highway money going into new roads and a higher pro portion of that money going into the maintenance and upgrading of the system we have now.

MacNEIL: Governor, that`s what you`re asking for, isn`t it? And I`m afraid we have to leave it there; I`m awfully sorry, but that seems to answer what you were just saying.

SHAPP: No, it`s not enough, but they`re moving in the right direction.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you for joining us this evening, Governor. Thank you all in Washington. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That`s all for tonight. We`ll be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.