FHWA awards funding for six states to explore new highway financing methods
Oct. 12, 2017
A total of $15 million in funding will go toward seven projects testing alternative ways to pay for highways
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) last week announced $15.5 million in Surface Transportation System Funding Alternatives (STSFA) grants to six states that are exploring new ways to fund highway and bridge projects.
Alternatives to conventional financing are seen as imperative, FHWA officials said, due to the Highway Trust Fund’s gradual inability to keep pace with increasing construction and repair costs nationwide.
The STSFA grants fund projects to test the design, implementation and acceptance of user-based alternative revenue tools. FHWA officials selected seven proposals from six states—California, Colorado, Delaware, Missouri, Washington and Oregon.
The seven projects will investigate and evaluate various user-based approaches to raising revenue, including on-board vehicle technologies to charge drivers based on miles traveled and multi-state or regional approaches to road user charges. They will address common challenges involved with implementing user-based fees such as public acceptance, privacy protection, equity and geographic diversity. The projects will also evaluate the reliability and security of the technologies available to implement mileage-based fees.
