Trend in Federal-Aid Highway Financing

Vice President-Public Affairs Am erican R oad & T ransportation Builders Association W ith the enactm ent of the Surface T ransportation Assistance Act of 1982 (Public Law 97-424), Congress provided significant increases in funding for highways.The immediate impact was to increase the level of the federal-aid highway program , as m easured by the obligation ceil ing, from $8.0 billion in Fiscal Y ear 1982 to $12.1 billion (later increas ed to $12,375 billion in Fiscal Year 1983.In terms of percentages, the increases was a bit more than 50% .However, this increase was not distributed equally am ong the states.In Indiana, an extrem e exam ple, the availability of federal-aid highway funding more than doubled.Furtherm ore, the increase was not distributed equally am ong the various categories favored by the legislation were those deemed to be of greatest national significance, i.e., the Interstate completion and In terstate reconstruction program s, and the bridge replacem ent and rehabilitation program .This paper briefly discusses seven categorical programs, each of which is authorized at a level of more than a half-billion dollars in Fiscal Y ear 1983.O ne other categorical program , Interstate Transfers, is not discussed.Depending on decisions to be made by the appropriations com mittees, that program may or may not reach the $500 million m ark in Fiscal Y ear 1983.