Maureen Groppe on Transportation Infrastructure Spending

A good article from a couple of days ago by Maureen Groppe on Indiana’s transportation infrastructure spending which is definitely worth a read if you haven’t seen it yet. (h/t Sen. Charbonneau).

Indiana spends less per capita on roads than most states and, the U.S. as a whole spends less than other countries and less than it used to:

Indiana, which already spends less per capita than most states on highways and transit, is not collecting enough gas taxes to adequately maintain its roads and bridges, much less pay for the new projects the state deems a priority.
. . .
Indiana is one of 21 states that have not raised the gas tax in more than a decade, even as revenues have declined in recent years.
. . .
Indiana ranked sixth from the bottom in per capita state and local dollars spent on highways and transit from 2008 through 2012, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. That made Indiana more reliant on federal funding than most states, getting 37 percent of its transportation spending from Washington, compared with the national average of 25 percent.

Nationwide, the country is spending half as much on infrastructure as a share of the economy as it did in the 1960s, when much of the interstate system was built. The United States spends about 2.4 percent of its GDP on transportation and other infrastructure, compared with about 5 percent in Europe and 9 percent in China.

As Gov. Pence said, “If you’re going to be the Crossroads of America, you better have the roads to back it up.”

Partisan gridlock and an anti-tax fetish is not doing our infrastructure any favors.