The four candidates for governor of Louisiana are being goaded toward making transportation infrastructure a major issue of their respective 2015 campaigns. The Louisiana Good Roads and Transportation Association (LGRTA), which is comprised of former state transportation leaders, has issued a white paper on the state’s roads situation and funding status.
While an increase in the gas tax has not been a traditional area of debate in prior gubernatorial forums, it is becoming increasingly clear, according to the white paper, that the state’s roads are at the tipping point of a state of emergency and that discussion of a tax increase cannot be pushed off any longer.
According to the LGRTA’s report, Louisiana has the ninth-lowest gas tax in the nation at 20 cents per gallon, a tax last raised in 1990. Four cents of the tax has gone directly into the unsuccessful TIMED highway widening program, while the remaining 16 cents goes to the Transportation Trust Fund for other road improvements. It is estimated this generates between $400 and $450 million per year, not nearly enough to combat ever-present degradation.
The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that the average Louisiana driver pays $407 in “extra vehicle repairs and operating costs” due to decrepit road conditions, while the LGRTA citing studies released by TRIP, estimates that waiting in traffic jams costs Louisiana drivers an additional $200 per year, and in the New Orleans area, the number could be as high as $700.
Directly at issue is how much a tax increase could potentially raise. The LGRTA estimates that a 10-cent increase on gas taxes would raise between $250 million and $280 million per year. A bill that would have added a penny to the state sales tax estimated that would raise as much as $883 billion a year for roads, but unfortunately neither tax increase proposal made it out of the House of Representatives and were both under veto threat by Gov. Bobby Jindal.
