Senators Urge New Transit Funding Plan : Congress: Their bipartisan bill breaks ranks with both the Administration and House Democrats and gives states more spending freedom.

Breaking ranks with both the Bush Administration and House Democrats, five key senators unveiled a national transportation initiative Thursday that would give states unprecedented freedom to decide how to spend billions of dollars in federal aid for highways and mass transit.

The bipartisan Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 calls for spending $105 billion on roads, bridges and bus and rail systems over the next five years--essentially the same amount requested by the Administration when it introduced its own highway and transit bill in February.

Unlike the Administration proposal, however, the Senate bill would give states unlimited authority to spend the bulk of their federal aid on either highways or mass transit, as they choose. And it would grant much more power to metropolitan planning agencies to influence how states should spend the federal aid dollars they receive.

“We have a new set of proposals with a new set of ideas, the most important of which are productivity and efficiency,” said Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), one of the principal sponsors of the measure. “We would leave the states free to spend the money as they see fit.”

The unprecedented degree of flexibility in the Senate legislation is “way beyond any kind that anyone had ever envisioned up until this point,” said Francis B. Francois, executive director of the American Assn. of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

For the first time since 1922, states would be free under the Senate plan to spend highway money on projects that are not part of a specifically designated system of federal highways, Francois said. While that has its benefits, “you are essentially turning this funding over to the states to spend on any of 800,000 miles of road” in the country, he said. “Whether that can produce a safe, coordinated network of highways that can serve the nation remains a key question.”

Some mass transit officials would jump at the chance to compete for funds that in the past were reserved for highway construction, Francois said. But others may worry that state and local planning agencies that favor highway construction over transit projects could shut out transit spending completely.

The Senate proposal was greeted enthusiastically at the California Department of Transportation.

“I think it would be fair to say that the initial reaction to this bill would be very positive,” said Jim Drago, a Caltrans spokesman in Sacramento. “One of the key elements of our suggestion to the federal government (for a new transportation program) was flexibility. This is an encouraging sign.”

California would receive a total of $7.6 billion over five years under the Senate plan, a 9% increase over the $7 billion it would get under the Administration proposal. The difference is due to different formulas each plan would use to apportion federal aid to the states.

Joining Moynihan in introducing the legislation were the Republican and Democratic leaders of the key Senate committees and subcommittees that will decide the fate of the legislation, a sign that the bill is likely to easily win Senate approval. The group included Sens. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Steve Symms (R-Ida.) and Quentin N. Burdick (D-N.D.).

On the other side of the Capitol, the House Committee on Public Works and Transportation, which is drafting its own transportation legislation, has proposed spending a total of $153.5 billion over the next five years. House Democrats have called for a 5-cent a gallon increase in the 14-cent-a-gallon federal gasoline tax to pay for the plan, a move that was explicitly rejected by the senators at a press conference Thursday.

The Senate plan would establish five basic transportation aid programs to replace the more complex system that has existed, with minor changes, since 1956. The current system was devised to finance construction of the 42,000-mile network of interstate highways, which is now all but complete.

The largest aid program under the Senate bill, which would account for 50% of all federal transportation aid to the states, would be for surface transportation. States would be free to spend money granted under this program for any transportation purpose, including highways, roads, and bus and rail systems.

Another 15% of federal aid would be earmarked for a bridge program, 16% for maintenance of the interstate system and 9% to finish construction of the interstate network. Five percent of federal aid would pay for a new program to relieve congestion in metropolitan areas that are not in compliance with provisions of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act.

The remaining 5% would be spent by the Department of Transportation on special programs to promote such things as high-speed, magnetically levitated trains.

The Administration plan, on the other hand, would continue the tradition of separate programs for highways and mass transit. It would create a two-tiered highway system: One program would designate 150,000 miles of roads, including the interstates, as a National Highway System, with two-thirds of all federal highway aid going into this construction and maintenance program. A second, more flexible program, would be available for about 700,000 remaining miles of urban and rural roads.