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The Portland Bureau of Transportation and the Oregon Department of Transportation each have a list of projects waiting for a push. The question is whether federal money will be available to provide it.

Upon hearing President Obama’s push for a new, six-year transportation bill, local officials jumped at the opportunity to showcase projects that need federal funding. The committee in charge of writing the new transportation bill says it is on board with the president’s plan, which would create local jobs; it just needs to locate $125 billion first.

Portland Mayor Sam Adams and U.S. Reps. Kurt Schrader, David Wu and Peter DeFazio last week met with Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. They discussed the possible reauthorization of the bill and what it would mean to Portland.

Obama said that reauthorization of the Surface Transportation Authorization Act would rebuild 150,000 miles of roads, construct or maintain 4,000 miles of rail, and reconstruct or rebuild 150 miles of runway. The president also stated that he hopes to front-load $50 billion in an effort to create jobs in the bill’s first year. A new, six-year bill would allow agencies to plan further into the future and predict future job growth.

Adams and the congressmen presented Oberstar with requests for $233.6 million from the new bill to help pay for seven projects in the Portland-metro area. None can be financed only with state or city money, said Greg Jones, capital manager for the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

The largest request is for $163 million to build a streetcar system from Portland to Lake Oswego, a project estimated to cost $300 million. Jones estimates that the project would create 3,400 jobs.

Other requests included $24 million for improvements at Union Station and $25 million for construction of 100 miles of bike boulevards throughout Portland.

But without reauthorization of a transportation bill, these projects, which are in the planning stages, will continue to “limp along,” Jones said. The previous transportation bill expired Sept. 30, 2009, but was granted a temporary extension until Dec. 31, 2010. An extension maintains the transportation budget from the previous year.

A replacement bill was ready in June 2009, but financing was a problem, said Jim Berard, director of communications for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

The replacement bill spelled out a plan to invest $500 billion in infrastructure over a six-year period. However, the federal gas tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1993, was initially expected to pay for $450 billion of the new bill, and studies showed the tax would generate only $325 billion – leaving a $125 billion gap.

“Because of the question of where these other funds will come from, we have not been able to move forward on a new transportation bill. And until the funding question is answered, we’re not going to be able to get a new transportation bill anytime soon,” Berard said.

The simple answer would be to increase the 18.4-cent gas tax, but many government legislators are reluctant to increase taxes, especially a consumer tax, during a recession, Berard said.

“Infrastructure isn’t like fine wine. It doesn’t get better with age; it deteriorates,” Berard said. And then it becomes even more expensive to fix, he added.

The absence of a new transportation bill can be felt throughout the industry “like a shockwave,” Berard said. Because cities and states do not know how much money they have coming in for projects, they cannot plan properly. If cities and states cannot release details about new projects, then contractors do not know what to expect and consequently do not retool or hire more workers.

Travis Brouwer, federal affairs adviser for the Oregon Department of Transportation, said agencies like ODOT plan several years ahead because bigger transportation projects require such time before ground can be broken. But Brouwer said that without a transportation budget, planning for costs associated with design, permits and construction of a large project is difficult.

“We don’t know if our budget will go up, go down or stay the same,” he said.

Both PBOT and ODOT said they have jobs that could get rolling by next construction season if the bill were reauthorized.