Ms. Andersen described the current state of infrastructure maintenance by focusing on US
transportation in states and local municipalities:“Funding is a fundamental element of infrastructure maintenance and repair. The federalrole for transportation system is primarily management of the highway trust fund which wasstarted in 1956. States have state highway fund collected and managed by state
departments of transportation, also receive the allocation of federal highway trust fund anduse that for their own road system responsibilities and transfer a portion to the local publicagencies and governments receive the portion from the federal and state highway funds.”“… the expenditures have risen and the proportioned its share has extended to grow more in
the state and local area compared to the federal government share. The sources ofrevenue for transportation programs is 32% local, 46% state and 22% federal. The ownership
responsibilities for delivering services is 51% local and 47% state with federal representing
approximately 2%. The dramatic difference exists between the responsibilities for thefunding sources and where the maintenance responsibility duties reside.”“Federal government has very small percentage of road and highway miles. Roughly 20% ofthem are in a national system while local represents the vast majority of over 75% miles.
Looking at bridges, it shifts between local and state ownership responsibilities almost 50/50,
there are very a few bridges under federal system. ….. there has been more and more ofshift both of the responsibility and funding obligation to the state and local agencies.”“For local counties in California, there is the authority to adopt 1 cent sales tax fortransportation purposes that is subject to 2/3 of the vote of the public and counties are
actually having implemented this authorization. Self Help Counties are generally given a little
bit of advantages in terms of being favorably looked at for matching funds and access tostate highway fund. ….. that’s another strong reason for public outreach, communication
being able to be clear with the public about what’s happing with road maintenance andinfrastructure needs in order to gain support for revenue measure.”“Santa Barbara is one of the counties that have passed 1/2 cent sales tax and the first one
was 20 year measure passed in 1989 and it began correcting revenues in 1990, due to expire
in 2010 to have once been extended for another 30 year period but it was just the ability tocontinue the level of funding that have been established back in the 90’s. We’ve got
funding shortfall of 82 billion over the next 10 years and have evaluated 5 different types ofscenario with regards to some of the sustainability issues.”“The definitions are meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability for
future generation to meet the only critical look forward. We can’t set something out so that
future generations are left with such a disaster situation that they can’t find a way out of it.”“Research and development is not something that local agencies can take on their own.
We are not structured in a way that allows us to be financially prudent. We need to be able
to use our resources with methods that have been tested and that are known to work
because we don’t have the level of resources to go out and try things.”“We rely on the federal and state transportation agencies and universities for research.
Transportation research for TRB is primarily focal point. I would say transportation research in
US pulls together all those entities including private consulting firms and organizations likeASCE.”