GRIDLOCK: Fix needed for Highway Trust Fund and U.S. Highway 78.

Washington politicians for decades have refused to put more cash in the fund used to maintain federal roads nationwide.

Their refusal has eroded the Memphis tax base.

Look at the old Holiday Inn head office on Lamar that went up for auction last week.

Lamar, also known as U. S. Highway 78, is the city’s southeast gateway. It is obsolete. Assessed value on the former Holiday Inn headquarters has plunged in a decade to $240,000 from $4.6 million, Shelby County records show.

Just the other day, Memphis real estate agent Dede Malmo talked about the difficulty of trying to sell the big building at 3760 Lamar.

Built for Holiday Inn in its Fortune 500 era, the structure appears pristine, but has been empty a decade.

“The downside is Lamar,” Malmo said.

Relocating companies

now often favor the Mississippi suburbs over Lamar, a congested industrial road where frequent stop lights idle lines of heavy trucks.

“Everyone understands this is probably the premier freight corridor in the state of Tennessee, but the question is where do we find the resources to improve it?” said Martin Lipinski, emeritus director of the University of Memphis’ Intermodal Freight Transportation Institute.

Typically, the Federal Highway Trust Fund covers big road projects. Federal fuel taxes — 18.4 cents-per-gallon on gasoline, 24.4 cents on diesel — flow into the fund. But the money is insufficient.

The tax rate hasn’t changed since Reagan was president. What costs $2.25 today cost $1 30 years ago.

Since then, the number of heavy trucks on U. S. roads has increased about 70 percent. Nearly 2.5 million Class 8 trucks travel ever more miles in large part because Washington deregulated trucking.

After that happened, big manufacturers put much of their inventory inside trucks — a technique called just-in-time delivery. And Americans’ rising use of imported goods led to the container revolution, which ushered in the intermodal railroad yards like the massive terminal BNSF began building on Lamar in 2005.

For more than a decade it’s been apparent the Highway Trust Fund was

insufficient. Washington lawmakers never responded. They feared voter rebellion if fuel taxes were raised.

“I can’t see anyone putting their neck on the line to propose substantial new taxes,” Lipinski said.

Meanwhile, Memphis’

tax base suffers.

Near the Holiday Inn building, retail chain Catherines Stores Corp.’s old headquarters remains empty. Motels are abandoned.

Frontier Western, a boot and apparel retailer located on Lamar for a generation, moved in 2006 to Goodman Road in nearby Olive Branch.

“Lamar just wasn’t a retail hot spot,” Frontier manager Jay Gay said. “Goodman Road is where you go to shop. Lamar is where you go to work.”

Lamar traffic crawls in Memphis from Interstate 240 to the Mississippi line, where U.S. 78 immediately becomes an unimpeded freeway crossing Mississippi and Alabama.

That open road attracts business to northwest Mississippi, where I-269 is being built across DeSoto and Marshall counties. Under construction now is the I-269 interchange at U. S. 78 near Byhalia. Nearby, executives from Danish manufacturer Rockwool International recently dedicated their $130 million Roxul insulation plant.

Memphis officials began

talking about a streamlined Lamar Avenue corridor as far back as 1992. There’s been some success, realigning Lamar in one place, widening lanes, adding a cloverleaf at Perkins. But turning U. S. 78 in the city into seven fast lanes just hasn’t happened.

“That project has been delayed for years,” said Dexter Muller, senior vice president at the Greater Memphis Chamber.

Lamar remains among the chamber’s top road recommendation projects, along with I-69 and a third Mississippi River highway bridge.

The peculiar nature of road projects is they take years to complete. But federal money ebbs and flows.

“Lamar’s a big, expensive project,” Muller said. “It’s a multiyear project. But if the funding is not going to be there to finish it, it makes you unwilling to start it.”

a slew of Democrats on Nov. 4, brought in a new crew of Republicans.

Frustrated voters were said to be upset over gridlock in Washington.

What the new bunch can do immediately to show they are serious about governing is fix the Highway Trust Fund and, while they are at it, fix the gridlock on U.S. 78.

Americans cast out