Can we avoid gridlock on transportation funding?

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner has postponed a vote on federal transportation spending after it became apparent this week that the measure he and other Republican leaders — including 6th District Congressman Peter Roskam of Wheaton — were pushing would not pass.

Good.

And good for Republican U.S. Reps. Bob Dold of Kenilworth and Judy Biggert of Hinsdale for standing up to point out the numerous and serious flaws of the House’s $260 billion legislation to fund highway and transportation projects.

It’s not that transportation projects don’t need to be funded. As Roskam correctly points out, current highway funding is due to cease in two years if Congress doesn’t act soon. Something needs to be done. Just not this.

Cynical observers can see in H.R. 7, as the bill is known, all the makings of a classic congressional standoff. The legislation is packed with items — such as elimination of the gas-tax subsidy for public transportation and wide-open authority for offshore oil drilling — that its designers know Democrats could never support, so even the cloudiest crystal ball can forecast where the legislation ultimately would lead. To gridlock, no pun intended, and more pointless philosophical bickering in Washington.

By putting off the House vote, Boehner appears to hope to shore up support within his party. He also has broken the complex bill into separate pieces to allow members to reject portions that give them concern and yet, somehow that only Washington can conceive, approve an overall bill that would be “stitched back together” later. Let’s hope that he and his party also take the time to build more common sense and less sarcasm into the final product.

Which is not to suggest that Republican leaders are the only ones in Washington legislating through sarcasm these days. President Obama himself showed no disdain for that tactic when he presented a budget last week chock full of new and unsustainable spending proposals that no responsible budgeter today, and certainly no Republican, could endorse.

But the issue of the moment is transportation spending — and it’s one with particularly suburban implications. Boehner’s proposal to transfer the entire public transit subsidy — a commitment to public transportation that has existed for three decades — to highway spending would savage the budgets of agencies like Metra, whose riders already are dealing with historic fare increases. Dold, Biggert and others are correct to bristle at such prospects.

“There’s no question we’ve got to tighten our belts. But I still think there’s opportunities to tighten our belts and fund our priorities, of which transportation has to be one,” Dold said at a news conference this week. This is not to suggest that public transit should have a free pass — but it should be in the mix.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate appears headed toward a transportation approach of its own, a $109 billion proposal that, considering the 85-11 test vote it received earlier this week, has to be closer to representing bipartisan appeal. It is not without disadvantages — if only from the perspective that as a two-year plan, it promises to bring us back to this point again much too soon compared to the House’s five-year program.

But it is something that reasonable parties on both sides can work with. That’s an observation House framers should keep in mind as they move toward a bill their members can pass.