Congress should consider initiating a vehicle miles traveled fee to replace the gasoline tax currently funding federal highway and transit programs, an infrastructure report issued by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young recommends. The report also calls for boosting transportation investment through other sources. This report is the fourth in an annual series. It focuses on the pressing need for long-term and integrated investments in transportation and other infrastructure.

DC Streetsblog reports that Nevada’s state DOT is in the early stages of a years-long study aimed at mapping a possible transition from the gas tax to a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) fee, a shift urged last year by a congressionally chartered panel on infrastructure financing and encouraged by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR).

But after the first of the state’s two public hearings on the study, the very idea of evaluating an eventual VMT tax is proving to be polarizing and politically risky.

The Journal of Commerce reports that U.S. Department of Transportaion stimulus spending reached $10.4 billion as of March 31.

The spending goes mainly to road, bridge work that bolsters trucking infrastructure. The latest figure, posted on the Recovery.gov site, is up from $10.264 billion as of March 26. DOT has made nearly $38 billion available to states for infrastructure projects under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and issues payments once it confirms work has been done.

A total of $25.3 million in state highway projects funded by the FASTER program is in CDOT’s pipeline, including replacement of four wooden bridges along a state highway where volunteer firefighters died in 2008 crossing where a fifth wooden bridge had been destroyed in a wildfire.

The Regional Transportation District Board of Directors decided at a Special Board Meeting tonight, April 13, not to pursue a 2010 sales tax election for the FasTracks transit expansion program. For months, the agency has been evaluating cost, schedule and polling data, and considering public feedback on whether to seek an increase in the RTD sales tax of an additional four-tenths of a percent (four pennies on a $10 purchase) to complete the FasTracks program by 2017.

The Denver Post reports that RTD directors will decide Tuesday night whether to endorse a ballot measure in November that would double the FasTracks sales tax in metro Denver. Directors have signaled they are leaning toward postponing the vote, mostly likely until 2012, because polling indicates it will be very difficult to win an election for a tax increase this year.

By a vote of 38 to 27, the Colorado House of Representatives voted on April 2 to approve HB 10-1387, which seeks to annually divert approximately $20 million ̶ $200 million over the coming decade ̶ away from the Highway User Tax Fund (HUTF), which pays for bridge and highway repairs, to the Department of Revenue for administering/issuing driver’s licenses and associated examinations, renewals, permits, and State identification cards.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that voters in that city and county approved by a wide margin a half-cent increase to the transit sales tax to restore lost bus and Call-A-Ride service and, eventually, expand the reach of mass transit farther into the St. Louis suburbs.

Metro transit officials had warned that the agency would have to dramatically scale back bus and Call-A-Ride service. MetroLink trains would likely have run less often, too, putting jobs and classrooms out of reach to thousands who depend on public transportation.

Instead, Baer said, the agency’s work begins today on restoring bus routes, possibly as soon as June. Bus drivers will have to be hired and certified. Metro will take its restoration plan to its governing board later this month and will then hold public hearings.

The Broomfield Enterprise reports that officials from Broomfield and the Colorado Department of Transportation will meet Wednesday with the U.S. Department of Transportation to discuss getting more money for the $1.2 billion expansion of the highway.

The project will widen U.S. 36 between Denver and Boulder, rebuild the Wadsworth interchange, add carpool and toll lanes and bus stops and build a bike trail near the highway. The massive price tag means it will have to be built in phases.

Federal officials will be in the Denver area this week to review plans for the highway corridor and discuss ways of “leveraging” the $10 million federal stimulus grant the project received in February, Broomfield transportation manager Debra Baskett said.

The meeting is a follow-up on CDOT`s request for $300 million from the federal government`s Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER, grant program.

The Denver Business Journal reports that the Colorado Legislature’s one attempt to roll back late fees established by the “FASTER” transportation-funding bill is on the brink of dying in a dispute over exactly how many trailer owners should get those breaks.

House members voted Friday to reject the Senate’s attempt to limit the fines paid by owners of trailers of any size who turn in their vehicle-registration fees late. The Senate is now in the position of acceding to the House’s more limited fee-break proposal or killing the bill altogether, likely finishing the session without any substantial changes to one of the biggest bills of 2009.