USDOT’s TIFIA loan program is operating in crisis mode. Its dysfunction under the Obama Administration has made it vulnerable to claims of political influence in lending decisions. Its survival in the MAP-21 reauthorization next fall is not assured. And even its strongest supporters now say it may be time for a transition to some form of infrastructure bank with more resources and a stronger institutional structure.

What happens next is critical to the U.S. P3 transportation market. . .