Gov. Gary Locke released a plan for financing highway and mass transportation improvements with a gas-tax increase of 7 cents per gallon, a new 2percentt excise tax on car sales and increases of up to 50percentt in some commercial vehicle fees.
Trillions of dollars in bonds also have been issued to finance highways, hospitals, and schools.
Some say too much of China's breakneck growth in recent years has been based on debt issued to finance highways and other projects beyond the nation's current needs.
On June 15, the National Corridors Initiative and its allies will rally on Capitol Hill to demand that America start financing rail infrastructure in the same way it finances highways and airlines: with tax dollars.
Jennifer Jaroski, New Jersey coordinator for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a mass transit advocacy group, agreed that a fare increase was needed, but as part of a balanced plan that also raises the gasoline tax, which finances highways.
Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York has sharply criticized the way the federal government finances highways, saying the government favors spending on new construction at the expense of maintaining older bridges in places like the metropolitan area.
The gasoline taxes that finance highways have been yielding less and less revenue because they are not indexed to inflation and because today's cars use less gasoline per mile.
The state argued that Federal guidelines allowed the use of the funds to preserve and enhance scenic areas adjacent to federally financed highways and contended that the park would provide scenic views of the Hudson for drivers on the road being planned as a successor to the Westway.
In October, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and the state's Department of Transportation applied to the federal agency for the last of three slots in a program that allows states to charge tolls on federally financed highways as long as the money is used to make repairs that could not be made otherwise.
Other federal grants financed highways linking the state capitals, and paid for standard-gauge rail lines between the states.
