| Issue 109 | December 20, 1996 |
Whose Road Lobby?
Ross J. Pepe, President of the Construction Industry Council of Westchester and the Hudson Valley, contacted the Campaign to disagree with what he saw as our conflation in MTR #106 of the "road lobby" and the STEP-21 ISTEA coalition. STEP-21 is primarily a group of states that would like to base division of federal transportation funding on the gas taxes collected in each state in the next federal transportation authorizing law (ISTEA). This would reduce transportation assistance to more transit-intensive states like New York and others in the northeast, and reward gas-guzzling states. While in our view, the AASHTO members pushing STEP-21 in their states are an element of a broad "road lobby," we take Mr. Pepe's point that not everyone in the highway business has the same interest in the outcome of next year's debate over ISTEA successor legislation.Pepe wrote: "New York and northeastern states' highway construction industry groups support relatively few changes in ISTEA reauthorization fund and program distribution. Realizing that drastic federal cuts from STEP-21 will impact both mass transit and highway transportation programs, our position is solidly behind New York State DOT's." NY State DOT and its chief, Commissioner John Daly, are actively opposing radical change to ISTEA's formula for apportioning federal transportation funds among the states.
On the other hand, a number of national highway lobby groups like the American Highway Users Alliance do support the repeal of many ISTEA programs and planning provisions that tend to promote public transit and other alternatives to car travel.
