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State
faces $44
million highway maintenance shortfall.
Highway
spending
bad investment for congestion relief, report says.
|
Highway
projects costs jump by $384.6 million in six months, WisDOT
says
Aug.
3, 2006 -- The projected costs
of 27 major state highway projects jumped a total of $384.6
million in six months, the Wisconsin Department reported
Thursday.
The projects
now are expected to cost a total of $3.7 billion.
In the previous
six-month report, issued in February, the depa
rtment said
costs of those projects had risen just $3 million.
Highway construction
costs have risen significantly over the past few years
as the price of steel, cement and asphalt has skyrocketed.
WisDOT, in
its report, did not explain why cost increases in the
last six months were 128.2 times as great as the were
in the six months before that.
WisDOT attributed
much of the 11% overall cost increase to inflation. The
degree of projected cost increases varied greatly, from
0% to 44%.
State departments
are scheduled to submit their budget requests to Gov.
Doyle next month.
To see a table
of the cost projections, click here.
State
faces $44 million highway maintenancefunding
shortfall
July
24, 2006 -- A $44.3 million budget hike is needed
for the State Department of Transportation to fully fund
highway maintenance work, according to the Legislative
Fiscal Bureau.
Maintenance
efforts are in such dire conditions that most preventive
maintenance has been abandoned "in order to concentrate
effort on reacting to critical failures," the new
report said.
Adding
additional lane miles to existing highways, as Secretary
of Transportation Frank Busalacchi wants to do, would
increase the maintenance funding gap.
The
needed increase includes $21.5 million to restore traffic
operations funding that was slashed in the 2001-03 state
budget; $20.8 million to fully fund the state's highway
maintenance formula, $1 million to control noxious weeds;
and $1 million to restore roadside facility maintenance
funding.
Additional,
unknown amounts would be needed to catch up with the backlog
of maintenance needs and to reduce highway lifecycle costs
to their minimums.
During
public hearings held by the Legislature's pro-highway
building "Road to the Future Committee," officials
from various counties testified that highway maintenance
funding had fallen.
The
state contracts with counties to take care of freeways
and state highways.
WisDOT
identified several areas of highway maintenance that counties
have either reduced or eliminated, the LFB report said.
"These
include crack sealing of asphalt pavement and repair of
concrete distresses; inspections and maintenance of culverts,
ditches, under drains, inlets, and other drainage structures;
mowing, including control of woody vegetation that may
create hazards in clear zones; replacing damaged or missing
delineators, removing trees or brush in clear zones; repair
of erosion problems; establishing vegetation to serve
as snow fences or other measures to prevent drifting;
removal of trash and debris from roadsides; maintenance
of security fences; and maintenance of bridge drains and
other bridge-related maintenance," the report said.
WisDOT's
maintenance report for last year indicates problems most
in need of correction include "cracking and rutting
on asphalt pavements, joint deterioration, and faulting
on concrete pavements, and shoulder cracking and drop-offs.
In addition, the regular replacement schedule for signs,
roadside delineators, and raised pavement markers has
been deferred."
The
2001-03 state budget prohibited WisDOT from paying for
traffic operation items -- things like highway signs,
pavement markings, traffic signals and lighting -- from
state highway rehabilitation money or funds reserved for
southeastern Wisconsin freeway improvements. The budget
also prohibited funding Intelligent Transportation Systems
from those sources. ITS is the application of advanced
technologies to improve the efficiency and safety of transportation
systems.
The
department estimated at the time that it spent $27 million
on traffic operations and ITS, the report said.
The
state budget included $27 million for those items for
2001-02, "but that amount was reduced to $7.4 million
in 2002-03," the report said. Funding was eliminated
in the 2003-05 budget, the report said. The department
reallocated $9.6 milllion from other areas of its maintenance
budget to continue traffic operations duties "most
critical for safety," the report said.
They
include certain pavement markings, replacement highway
lighting on southeastern Wisconsin freeways, and replacing
the most seriously deteriorated bridge signs, the report
said.
"However,
this meant that other areas of the maintenance program
were affected, including maintenance services provided
by counties," the report said.
Highway
spending a bad investment for congestion relief, study
says
July
2, 2006 -- Government spending on highways to
ease traffic congestion is a poor investment, returning
just 11 cents in congestion cost savings for every dollar
spent on the roads, according to a new study
"Given
that motorists, trucking operations, and firms incur $37.5
billion in annual congestion costs, states would have
to spend nearly $350 billion annually to eliminate these
costs," the report by the Brookings Institution said.
The
study, "The Effect of Government Highway Spending
on Road Users’ Congestion Costs," by Clifford
Winston and Ashley Langer, considered congestion savings
in the year the highway money was spent.
The
most important contributor to the ineffectiveness of government
spending on roads, the report said, is that virtual completeness
of the country's intracity road system.
"The
nation’s urbanized areas have little available land
to expand their infrastructure," according to the
report. "As noted, cities that are experiencing sprawl
can improve their road system, but these infrastructure
investments yield a modest reduction in current congestion
costs. In most congested cities, it is extremely difficult
or prohibitively expensive to widen major freeways and
arterials to reduce congestion or for such construction
to keep up with traffic growth."
Highway
spending can play a supplemental role in relieving congestion,
if it is based on based on "careful cost-benefit
considerations," but should not be the primary tool
in improving traffic flow..
The
report
advocates congestion pricing -- the practice of charging
drivers to use the roads, particularly during peak traffic
periods like rush hours. Pricing can be adjusted to account
for drivers' incomes, the report said.
"If
road pricing were tied to modest reductions in highway
spending, then states could improve their budgets (or
use these funds for more socially desirable purposes)
without fear that these spending cuts would significantly
increase congestion," the report said.
Reluctance
to adopt congestion pricing likely has more to do with
politics than policy the report said.
"Highway
spending supports projects so politically popular with
federal, state, and local
policymakers and constituents that Senator Rick Santorum
recently warned lawmakers 'not to get between a congressman
and asphalt, because you will always get run over,'”
Winston and Langer wrote.
"Instituting
congestion pricing for road users would not only be a
far more effective solution to clogged roads than current
state highway spending but would also justify a reduction
in public expenditures," they said. "Road pricing’s
fatal flaw may be that it threatens one of the most visible
ways that elected officials reward their supporters."
