R&D Caps May Jeopardize Effectiveness of Transportation Spending

Given the proportionately small amount of money invested in transportation research and development (R&D), significant gaps exist in ensuring that the more than $120 billion in annual transportation funding is being spent wisely, witnesses have told a House Science Subcommittee. The testimony came at a hearing in April exploring the needs of transportation R&D as Congress considers the renewal of a massive transportation bill.

"Considering that we won't have the ability to simply build more roads to keep pace with our growth due especially to urban population density, we must look at new ways to improve the overall system, to make it safer and more efficient," Environment, Technology, and Standards Subcommittee Chairman Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) said.

Congress is currently working on reauthorizing the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), and the Science Committee shares jurisdiction with the Transportation Committee on the research provisions of the bill. Many parts of Surface Transportation Research and Development Act of 1997 passed by the Science Committee were included in the original TEA-21 legislation in 1998.

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) said, "After more than ten years of investment through ISTEA and TEA-21, we do not know whether our transportation system and our R&D investments are meeting the goals of ISTEA and TEA-21." ISTEA refers to the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Act.

To ensure that national goals are being met and that federal investments are fully realized, Dr. Michael Walton, Chair of the University of Texas at Austin Department of Civil Engineering, recommended that Congress create a National Strategic Plan for Transportation Research and Development. Such a plan, he said, would help maximize coordination and collaboration of independent research efforts among the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and its entities, state departments of tranportation, universities and private industry.

Joining Walton on the panel were: Dr. Michael Meyer, Associate Professor, Georgia Tech; Mr. Emil Frankel, DOT's Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy; Mr. Eric Harm, Deputy Director, Division of Highways, Illinois Department of Transportation; Ms. Kate Siggerud, Acting Director, Physical Infrastructure Team, U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO); and Ms. Anne Canby, President, Surface Transportation Policy Project.

The witnesses criticized a lack of stakeholder involvement in the research conducted by the government. Siggerud presented a GAO report that found the "Federal Highway Administration's processes for developing its research agendas do not always consistently include stakeholder involvement. External involvement is important for FHWA because its research is to be used by others that manage and construct transportation systems." FHWA has accepted GAO's recommendations, but has yet to fully implement them.

Harm called for an increased long-term research effort, stating, "The Federal Highway Administration program should be one of broad, fundamental, high risk/high payoff research that will address the transportation issues that we will face five to ten to 20 years in the future." Frankel acknowledged the DOT's priority on a short-term research agenda, but added, "We are mindful that our future ability to make short-term improvements depends on our willingness to commit some of today's scarce resources to the search for  long-term solutions."

All testimony on the transportation R&D priorities for FY 2004 is available at: http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/ets03/index.htm

The GAO report cited by Siggerud, DOT's Actions to Implement Best Management Practices for Setting Research Agendas and Evaluating Outcomes, is available at: http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-640T

For Good Measure

GAO has released two additional reports since the House Science Subcommittee hearing. In the first, Actions Needed to Improve Coordination and Evaluation of Research, GAO recommends that DOT and its Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA) develop strategies to identify potential areas of research duplication. The report also suggests that RSPA develop performance measures to more effectively assess its research coordination efforts. It is available at: http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-500

The second report is entitled Coordination Needed in Selecting and Implementing Infrastructure Vulnerability Assessments. In it, GAO addresses RSPA's Transportation Infrastructure Assessment program, which is set to end in December following the last of four transportation vulnerability assessments. Prior to March 2003, GAO finds, RSPA did not fully coordinate its activities with the Office of Intelligence and Security in either selecting the vulnerabilities or implementing the assessments. RSPA now intends "to disseminate reports, conduct workshops, and post information on the Internet to inform decision-makers in the transportation community about the results." This report is available at: http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-502

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