Ohio Sen. George Voinovich and other Republicans say the transportation bill will reduce traffic nationwide and provide thousands of jobs in an election year still plagued in many areas by a troubled job market, USA Today reported.

The highway bill, which Congress reauthorizes every six years, extends the government's authority to tap the Highway Trust Fund, financed chiefly by the 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal gasoline tax.

The bill, now stuck in Congress, would authorize at least $280 billion in new federal aid for highways and mass-transit systems nationwide over the next six years.

In Ohio, it would allow at least $7 million toward a possible revamp or replacement of the Brent Spence Bridge and offer more money for other high-priority projects. Local experts say the bridge is one of 15 interstate bridges around the nation deemed structurally obsolete by the Department of Transportation and the focus of local and state plans to revamp Cincinnati's metro highway network.

The bridge was designed 40 years ago to handle 94,000 vehicles a day. An average 155,000 vehicles a day use it now, including interstate commercial traffic that runs from Canada to Miami.

It has no emergency pull-off lanes; they were replaced in the late 1970s with additional traffic lanes. Narrow lanes leave less than a yard of space between commercial trucks.

"Truck drivers will tell you that when they're on it, they grab the steering wheel harder, and try to drive across only very late at night or very early in the morning," says Mark Policinski, executive director of the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments.

Funding level the main issue

Voinovich and other congressional Republicans insist on a highway bill of at least $275 billion to $318 billion. House Republicans initially wanted as much as $375 billion.

Many point to a 2002 Transportation Department report that estimated that state and federal authorities would have to spend at least $90.7 billion a year — $544 billion over six years — simply to maintain traffic conditions. That same report said more than a third of major U.S. roads are in poor or mediocre condition, and 28 percent of bridges are deficient or obsolete.

However, the White House is threatening to veto any highway bill that exceeds $256 billion as part of its pledge to cut the deficit in half in five years.

"This is the first test for the Congress when it comes to spending restraint," White House spokesman Scott McClellan says.

History suggests both sides could emerge as winners under one scenario: Congress passes a big bill, the president vetoes it, Congress overrides the veto and both sides satisfy the constituents they're most worried about, the paper reported. That's what happened in 1987, when Congress dismissed President Reagan's objections to a big highway bill and overrode his veto.