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March 5, 2014 • Vol. XXVI • No. 5 • 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215-885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • Fax 215-885-2910
Inside
ARTBA Says HTF Fix Will Be Painful
Crews set up a Bauer 28 drill to begin drilling for wall piles.
Work continues on a section of highway near Chattanooga, Tenn. This part of U.S. Highway 27 was constructed years ago, but times have changed, populations grown and the demands on area highways exploded. The section of U.S. 27 currently under construction goes from the P.R. Olgiati Bridge over the Tennessee River to SR 8/U.S. 127 (Signal Mountain Boulevard). The Tennessee Department of Transportation first began construction on this portion of U.S. 27 in the 1920s and completed it on April 27, 1928. In the Chattanooga area, the route is referred to as Corridor J, a designation of the
Fixing the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) without generating any new revenue would require the equivalent of Congress passing and the president signing a 2013-level Murray-Ryan budget deal every year just to maintain current highway and transit program investment levels, American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) President Pete Ruane told a Senate panel Feb. 12. According to a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, the HTF will be unable to support any investments in new projects come September, and will require, on average, $16.3 billion annually just to preserve the current transportation program. By comparison, over a two-year period, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 — the Sen. Patty Murray (DWash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) budget deal — reallocates resources to increase the non-defense discretionary spending cap by an average (ironically) of $16 billion per year. Calling that process a “painful scenario,” Ruane warned the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee that if the HTF shortfall is not addressed, more than 12,000 highway, bridge and safety capital projects across the nation — on the routes most important to the U.S. economy — could be lost. Ruane noted that trucks carry freight worth more than $11 trillion over the nation’s roads and bridges every year, and nearly 75 percent of that travel takes place on the federal-aid system. “Without that federal investment in these roads, trucking mobility and economic productivity are at risk,” he said. Ruane explained ARTBA’s economics team set about to research how the public’s federal gas tax dollars were put to use in 2012. Unfortunately, it took a Freedom of Information Act request and sophisticated computer analysis of literally millions of data points to get answers. Among the highlights he said the public deserves to hear: the federal program helped fund 12,546 capital improvement proj-
see HIGHWAY page 24
see HTF page 32
VISIT CEG IN CENTRAL HALL, BOOTH #50001
Flagler CE Presents New Facility…8
Work on U.S. 27 to Ease Demand on Area Roads By Pete Hildebrandt
CEG CORRESPONDENT
Blythe Development Upgrades Fleet…12
Table of Contents ................4 Truck & Trailer Section ........ ......................................44-47 Recycling Section ........51-62
Review Process Reform Receives Bipartisan Support By Pete Sigmund
Attachment & Parts Section ......................................63-67 Business Calendar ............74 Auction Section ............77-95 Advertisers Index ..............94
CEG EDITORIAL CONSULTANT
Why do highway construction projects often take a good part of a generation — an average of 13 years — to complete? Many believe the answer lies in two words: excessive review. Everyone in construction seems to favor streamlining the review process. Both parties (and President Obama, in his State of the Union address) have urged a speedup.
Lots of proposals are out there, some even in the MAP-21 transportation bill, which passed in 2012. Some would radically reform the present system, giving a single “one stop shop” strong authority to set deadlines. Yet progress is painfully slow. “A highway or bridge project often takes 13 years from concept to conclusion; most of that time is taken in review, not in construction,” said Brian Turmail, a spokesperson of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) in
Arlington, Va. “Thirteen years is absolutely too long,” said Nick Goldstein, vice president of environmental and regulatory affairs of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) in Washington, D.C. “I’ve seen other estimates where a project can take even longer — from nine to 19 years.” President Obama recognized the problem in his Jan. 28 address, pledging to “slash bureaucracy and streamline the permitting process for