Washington — Mayor Shirley Franklin told a Senate committee Thursday that Atlanta taxpayers and utility customers are reaching their limits in paying to fix the city's "severely neglected infrastructure."

Franklin said Atlanta needs help from the state and federal governments for roads, bridges, mass transit, water treatment and other such projects, because citizens are already complaining about utility bills.

Susan Walsh/AP

Mayor Michael Bloomberg listens as Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, right, testifies on Capitol Hill Thursday.

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She said the question she is asked most often is, "Why are water and sewer rates so high?", and right after that comes, "Why didn't the federal government help us more?"

Along with New York City's Michael Bloomberg and other big-city mayors, Franklin testified in support of a proposal to create a National Infrastructure Bank that would base federal funding on merit, rather than the legislative clout that enables senior members of Congress to secure pork-barrel projects.

"The bank would mark the first federal effort to prioritize infrastructure projects across different modes of transportation and of water treatment," said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who co-authored the bipartisan bill with Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.

As chairman of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Dodd called the hearing to question mayors about their needs on infrastructure. Dodd said he hopes to mark up the bill in July in his committee and have it on the Senate floor for a vote shortly afterward.

The new bank would raise capital by issuing up to $60 billion in tax credit bonds.

"The bank would give loans, grants or loan guarantees to states and local governments for major infrastructure improvements," Hagel said.

The mayors agreed that such help would be welcomed by their cities.

Franklin said when she took office in 2002, "it did not take me very long to realize that the city's severely neglected infrastructure would require my immediate attention, particularly the rebuilding of our water and sewer infrastructure."

She said transportation is another infrastructure priority for Atlanta. "Congestion is getting worse," she said, while the Census Bureau projects a 75 percent population increase to 850,000 residents in the city by 2030.

"Growth outside the urban core is reaching the limits of expansion by means of sprawl, and growth inside the urban core is threatened by insufficient investment in transit infrastructure," she said.

She told the committee that Georgia should raise its gas tax to pay for transportation and other infrastructure needs.

Noting that the state's 18.5 cents a gallon gas tax is among the lowest in the nation, Franklin said she disagreed with Gov. Sonny Perdue's recent executive order halting a planned 2.9 percent gallon increase.

Kansas City, Mo., Mayor Mark Funkhouser agreed with Franklin that gas taxes should be raised. Jacksonville, Fla., Mayor John Peyton said that it isn't politically feasible with gas selling at $4 a gallon. Bloomberg left the hearing before the gas tax was discussed.

Because the $4 billion Clean Water Atlanta Initiative has so marked her administration, Franklin said she has become known as the "Sewer Mayor."

Introducing Franklin to the committee, Georgia's Republican senators were lavish in their praise of the Democratic mayor.

Franklin moved decisively to fix the city's water and sewer system that had suffered "from benign neglect for a long time," said Sen. Johnny Isakson.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss called her "one of the most outstanding mayors in America" and said with the water and sewer fix, "frankly, Mayor Franklin's leadership ... is what caused it to happen."

Franklin was asked by Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the committee, how Atlanta pays for its major infrastructure projects.

Atlanta's Jackson Hartsfield International Airport receives some federal funds, but is largely supported by parking fees and charges to concessionaires, she said. The water and sewer system is funded 95 percent by local money -- rate payers and sales tax, she said. Bridges get federal and state money and relatively little from the city.

On the need for improving the infrastructure, she said, "the bottom line is that the cost is greater than our city can bear long-term."

She said the court-ordered water and sewer project has built more than 120 miles of new water mains, reduced sewer overflows, separated sewers except in downtown, inspected more than 1,000 miles of sewers and rehabbed about 250 miles of sewers.

As a result, she said, "one of our primary waterways -- the Chattahoochee River -- is cleaner than it was 10 years ago."

The cost has been borne "largely on the backs of the city's residents, some 25 percent of whom live at or below the poverty line," she told the committee.

Outside of metro Atlanta, Georgia is largely a rural state, and Franklin was asked how spending state and federal funds to improve the city's infrastructure could be justified to residents of these areas.

"Agriculture is a big industry in Georgia," and farmers and agribusiness benefit from efficient movement of goods through the transportation hub of Atlanta, she said. If Atlanta's roads are clogged, the rest of the state suffers from car emissions, she said, and Atlanta's water needs and treatment have a statewide impact.

Five years ago, Franklin warned Atlanta that sewer rates would triple if state and federal governments refused to become equal partners in paying for the city's sewer overhaul. Atlanta has won less than $5 million in federal grants. State officials have offered only low-interest loans.

And, with no help on the horizon, Franklin is on the verge of making her prediction about rates come true.

Utility officials have proposed a series of five rate hikes for water and sewer service beginning with 27.5 percent later this year and followed by four increases of 10 to 15 percent.

Franklin had already bumped up sewer rates 70 percent in five years. So if all the rate hikes are adopted by the Atlanta City Council this month, the average household's water bill will have jumped from $50 to $135 over 10 years --- a 170 percent increase. At the same time, the Department of Watershed Management will propose cutting about 140 positions to save money.

Council members --- who have supported a 1 percent sales tax for sewers, as well as the previous rate hikes --- are beginning to buckle under the pressure of having to force Atlantans to pay the full cost of a program that will saddle generations with billions of dollars in debt.

"The number of people opposed to this is astronomical, " said Councilman Lamar Willis. "The problem I've seen with the program from the beginning is it's always been more expensive than we can afford. When we began, no one could have accounted for an economy that is very unforgiving."

The Clean Water Atlanta plan includes about $3 billion in sewer work plus another $1 billion to overhaul the city's long-neglected water pipes and distribution system. Since the city's network extends outside Atlanta's limits, the rate change affects residents from Sandy Springs through south Fulton County.

And, since Atlanta plans to finance nearly every penny over 30 years, the final cost will be several times the initial price tag, and skyrocketing sewer rates will continue decades after the work is finished.

"It's tough, a tough thing, " said Atlanta Councilwoman Carla Smith, who chairs the city's utilities committee. "We've had to end up paying every dime. Other cities have gotten help. We haven't."

Atlanta utility officials stress that beyond the huge price tag they've had to shoulder alone, the city also has been forced to fix its sewers in a short time span. Atlanta has been given only about a dozen years to complete the overhaul when other cities facing similar orders have been given more than twice as long.

D.L. Bennett of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution contributed to this article.