Ok bare with me please, this question will be a bit long.
Today I read an article in the Dallas Morning News about a new federal bill that says the Federal Government is using to ~$800m money to Texas(through returning gasoline taxes), $78m to complete a bridge (and surrounding projects) and lays the ground for Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s (DART) request for $700m. It also budgeted $8.3m for an “Intermodal project” in D/FW and $3.6m for the new I-35/I-635 interchange in Dallas.
So basically, that’s ~$1b of a $236b earmarked towards the D/FW region.
How do they decide where this money is going?
Is it simply who has the more powerful representatives and lobbyists? Or is there some formula they use to decide?
By my math ~1/42 of the nation lives in D/FW, having a population of just over 7 million compared to a National Population of 295m people. It seems odd to me that we’d then recieve 1/236 of the federal highway funding.
I’m not meaning for this to sounds argumentative, just curious. Thank you.
There may be a certain part of the budget that goes out to the states according to a formula, but alot of those improvements are thanks to your congressman or senator. It’s called “pork”. A certain congressman may tack something on to a big bill, such as a bridge, convention center, museum, or other pet project for his district. I think alot of roads get built this way too.
It is a combination of formulized funding and pork. The highway bills are often contentious because states compete to change the formula of funding to what is most adventageous to them. On top of that, representatives add specific projects to the bill, aka pork.
Texas, as a State (it is difficult to look at transportation projects on a city or regional basis) is the fifth largest benefactor of “earmarked” funds under this bill. $754 M. Understand this does not include the “general funds”. The total “earmarked funds” for the bill is $24 B .
Link
The “general funds” also include many things you would not readily think of as “transportation”. All the states are supposed to get back a total of 92% of what they paid in gas tax (federal) but many states will get much more chipped in from the general treasury.