RALEIGH – State transportation officials are doing the right thing and the wrong thing – at the same time.
The North Carolina Board of Transportation has approved what some reports are calling a “drastic shift of priorities” in how the gas and car taxes we pay are to be expended over the next quarter-century. Recognizing that the state’s estimated transportation needs will exceed expected revenues by some $29 billion over 25 years, the board decided to shift dollars from highway construction to maintenance and other purposes. Building new roads has recently consumed nearly half of DOT dollars; now the share will be capped at 26 percent.
The reason this action is the right one is that it makes little sense to keeping building new highways in North Carolina if we are not going to maintain them adequately. As David Hartgen has demonstrated in recent reports for the John Locke Foundation, the quality and cost-effectiveness of North Carolina’s highway system has declined over time – from 5th best in the country in 1989 to 36th in 2002 – in part because of a failure to maintain the physical capital that motorists had already paid for. The state ranks 42nd in the condition of urban interstates, 44th in rural interstate condition, and 45th in the condition of rural primary roads.
However, the board’s action is also horribly wrong. Yes, we should be putting much more money into highway repairs and maintenance each year. But it should not come at the expense of building the new highway capacity the state needs to keep up with demand and thus avoid worsening traffic congestion.
A new report from the Texas Transportation Institute last week helped to put some numbers on the problem. Hartgen’s work also points to the fact that North Carolina’s urban interstates are among the most-crowded in the United States – only those in California (82 percent considered highly congested), Maryland (82 percent), and Minnesota (77 percent) are more congested than than North Carolina’s (75 percent).
Part of the board’s mistake can be found in its decision to raise the percentage of DOT funds spent on rail transit and other alternatives to cars. This percentage should actually be dropping, towards zero if I had my way, as such investments make no sense in a 21st century society and would be paid for by highway users, hardly an equitable arrangement. More importantly, however, the board and other state political leaders need to be dealing directly with the real problem – how to put more dollars to work in expanding and improving North Carolina’s infrastructure.
Admittedly, some politicians and activists are quietly working on the issue. But I’m not wild about their work product. They’re planning a legislative effort to jack up taxes and fees again. Before we begin to entertain such discussions, there should be end to the diversion of highway funds to other state functions (that’s worth more than $200 million a year) and a more aggressive push to invite private investment in highway capacity, using dedicated toll lanes and tollways. Robert Poole at the Reason Public Policy Institute reports that new projects in states stretching from Virginia and Georgia to Texas and California will bring some $50 billion in new private investment in highways over the coming years. North Carolina is in the process of authorizing a few toll projects, but the process is too limited and taking too long.
It’s not a choice between building highways and fixing highways. It’s between doing enough of both – or suffering the consequences.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.