Federal Highway Administrator Mary Peters spoke last week to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and urged lawmakers working on transportation reauthorization to avoid short-term fixes.

President Bush Feb. 29 signed a two-month highway bill extension to avoid furloughs of up to 5,000 Department of Transportation workers.

“We risk losing a construction season in many areas if decisions are not made soon,” said Peters, former director of the Arizona Department of Transportation.

“Some parties are advocating a stopgap measure of a year or so, rather than dealing with a six-year reauthorization now,” she said. “They say it won’t make a difference. As someone who has devoted nearly her entire career to transportation, at the state level and now as administrator of federal highways, I know as well as each of you that this is not true.”

With many state highway and transit projects “on hold awaiting the certainty of reauthorization,” Peters said, “Industry and supplier groups are seeing project bids and orders for materials and equipment drop off already. We risk losing a construction season” if key decisions are not made very soon.

Peters also asked for support of the Bush administration’s reauthorization, which is significantly lower – at $256 billion – than totals in either the House or Senate bills. The president has threatened to veto any bill sent to him that he deems fiscally excessive.

Peters also said new financing sources for transportation infrastructure should be considered, noting that the fuel-tax approach is bringing diminishing returns as alternative-fueled vehicles become more numerous and cars and trucks become more fuel-efficient.

--by Dick Larsen, senior editor

Dick Larsen can be reached at dick_larsen@landlinemag.com.