Massachusetts, Texas and Wisconsin are among a list of states this year looking at how borrowing and tax increases fit into their futures as they try to meet transportation needs. I also have updates this week on transportation revenue measures under consideration in Arkansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Vermont and Virginia, plus a roundup of recent news and resources from the world of transportation public-private partnerships.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley this week offered his latest, long-awaited plan for shoring up the state’s transportation trust fund and averting a project funding cliff expected to hit in 2017. Like a plan recently approved by lawmakers in Virginia and a number of others under consideration around the country, it involves raising some taxes and lowering others to bring in additional revenues for transportation.

Lawmakers in Virginia wrapped up their legislative session Saturday by passing a sweeping, nearly $900 million transportation plan that required compromise from both Republicans and Democrats and that some hope will now encourage other states to follow suit in finding new revenues to support transportation needs. Here are some resources on the particulars of the Virginia plan as well as a look at what’s happening in more than a dozen other states.

State leaders are casting a wide net to find ways to bring in more money to fund badly needed transportation projects, but increasing the gas tax doesn’t seem to be high on many people’s list.  “I think it’s politically unpopular now because the gas price is already high,” said Dan Vock, staff writer for Stateline. Vock was one of the featured speakers on a recent CSG webinar, “States to Watch in 2013: Transportation Funding.”

There has been plenty of action in state capitals on transportation funding initiatives since last I blogged on the subject, much of it detailed in our CSG “States to Watch” webinar earlier this week. Here’s a guide to some additional reading on what’s going on in some of those states.

This webinar, recorded on Feb.5, provided updates on 25 states in the process of considering how to meet their transportation needs in the years ahead. From proposals to raise the gas tax to one in Virginia to eliminate it all together, from dedicated sales taxes to license and registration fees, and from tolling to mileage-based user fees, states are looking at a variety of options. 

MAP-21, the long-awaited, two-year federal surface transportation authorization bill passed by Congress last summer, included many key policy changes long sought by state governments that are now being implemented. But for transportation professionals who gathered in Washington, D.C., in mid-January for the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting, the bill’s shortcomings, especially in the fiscal arena, and impending fiscal cliffs in the months and years ahead drove much of the dialogue at the five-day conference.

I have an article appearing in this week’s Capitol Ideas electronic newsletter that looks at some of the issues discussed January 13-17 at the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The gathering brought together more than 10,000 transportation professionals from around the world, including many officials who focus on transportation policy at the federal, state and local levels. As usual there was plenty more that happened during the five-day meeting than I had space to recount in the article. So here’s a roundup of additional comments from a variety of speakers on a variety of topics including MAP-21’s focus on performance measurement, efforts to accelerate project delivery, what MAP-21’s expansion of the TIFIA program will mean for states, how federal restrictions on tolling might need to change to allow states to meet their infrastructure needs, and why many expect federal transportation programs could see cuts well before MAP-21 expires in 2014.