Rep. Foster wants to make transportation funding more fair for Illinois

U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, wants states such as Illinois to receive their fair share of federal transportation funds.

Last week, the congressman introduced the Fair Allocation of Highway Funds Act, according to a news release. The bipartisan bill would ensure a fair allocation of money to states from the Highway Trust Fund.

“Illinois and many other states don’t receive fair shares of federal funding for transportation projects because of a flawed budgetary method that hurts more populous states,” Foster said in a statement.

Some states receive as much as six times more funding than they contribute to the fund while others receive less than what they paid. This occurs because the allocation system doesn’t consider how much each state contributes to the U.S. Treasury to make up the shortfall from the gas tax.

Foster’s bill would require that states receive credit for their contribution to the general fund transfer.

“Illinois residents are rightly concerned about the safety of the roads and bridges they rely on every day,” Foster said. “They deserve to know the federal government is fairly allocating transportation funding so we can make the necessary infrastructure investments that our state needs.”