RALEIGH – Daily Journal devotees know that of late I’ve been on a quasi-quest to count all the national rankings of state economic and public-policy performance in which North Carolina is made to look bad. It’s not that I like it when people run down my home state. Nor do I deny that, despite the state’s failings, many folks still want to live here. Hey, I do, too. There’s a lot to love.
The reason I find the data intriguing and useful is that the political class in Raleigh seems to live in a bubble of nearly impenetrable plasticity. North Carolina politicians have many shortcomings, but public-relations acumen is not one of them. They are capable fantasists. They’d give Professor Harold Hill a run for his money (in more ways than one).
So, today I add another clipping to the folder that might well be marked, with apologies to the late Erma Bombeck, “If Life In NC Is A Bowl Of Cherries, What Are We Doing In The Pits?” My longtime friend Dave Hartgen, an emeritus professor of transportation policy at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, has written an annual report on the comparative performance of state highway systems for 16 years. During some of that time, the report – which included a spate of national rankings – was published by JLF itself. Now, the California-based Reason Foundation is the publisher.
The most-recent study, released by Reason last month, has a section on bridges. There is a large variation among the states in the number of bridges rated as “deficient” by a uniform standard (it’s used to allocate federal repair dollars). The fast-growing states of Nevada (4 percent) and Arizona (5.5 percent) have the best record when it comes to keeping up with bridge maintenance. Rhode Island (53 percent deficient) has by far the worse performance. (My suggestion? If you need to traverse New England by automobile, but have no specific reason to visit the lovely Ocean State, you might want to go around – given the risk that you could find yourself personally introduced to said ocean.)
By now, it should not shock you in the least to discover that North Carolina’s bridge conditions are closer to Rhode Island’s than to Nevada’s. Nearly a third of our state’s bridges rate as deficient, ranking us 39th-best in the nation. This is inexcusable. It is unacceptable. The state’s control of surface highways dates back a century. Except in the case of a few limited-access highways that can efficiently be priced, highways are likely to remain state assets, and their operation a core state responsibility.
The General Assembly has no business creating a new single new social program, awarding a single incentive grant, funding a single arts and entertainment project, or giving a single exorbitant raise to a university chancellor until it takes serious action to address North Carolina’s pressing transportation needs. It’s no good blaming population growth for the problem, because other states are, as I observed, growing rapidly while doing a better job keeping up with infrastructure needs. It’s no good blaming a lack of ideas for reforming transportation finance, because there is no shortage of them. It’s no good blaming the public for not caring about highway safety and congestion issues, because I believe that is far from true.
It’s no good shifting blame, in other words. What would be good is for politicians to get their priorities straight and start tackling tough issues. In transportation, as in many other areas of public policy, the problem isn’t that North Carolinians aren’t paying enough in taxes and fees to fund the necessary functions of state and local government. The problem is that the dollars they surrender to taxation are not being spent effectively to provide core public services.
It’s not a problem that can be solved with a press release, advertisement, or Andy Griffith-narrated slide show. Thus, you see a lot of flailing around in Raleigh at the moment.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.