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.).