Perdue, Legislature Tangle Over Funds For Bridge Repair

RALEIGH — Nearly 30 percent of North Carolina’s bridges show significant deterioration or don’t meet current design standards, reports a recent study by a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.

A March study by The Road Information Program (TRIP), a nonprofit that researches transportation issues, says the state’s bridges are likely to worsen at current funding levels. The state Department of Transportation estimates it needs to replace 400 bridges a year to reduce the number of structurally deficient bridges. NCDOT can replace only about 100 bridges a year with its current funding.

Brad Wilson, chairman of the N.C. 21st Century Transportation Committee, created by the General Assembly in 2007 to study transportation matters, said the amount of money funding road and bridge improvements is decreasing even as more motorists are on the road and people drive more. Roughly 80 percent of bridge and road improvements are funded by fuel taxes and vehicle registration and title fees. As vehicles become more fuel-efficient, that source of funding is dropping.

“Until we as a state recognize that the revenue model we have is insufficient, we are just going to fall further and further behind,” said Wilson, who is the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina.

Gov. Bev Perdue has asked the General Assembly to create a N.C. Mobility Fund to help pay for some of the road and bridge improvements. Funding would come from a $7.00 increase in car registration fees and a 25 percent increase in the fees insurance companies pay for copies of driver license records.

But David Hartgen, an emeritus professor of transportation studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said the numbers in the TRIP report about the number of bridges the state needs to replace each year are wrong and that there isn’t a need for the Mobility Fund.

“She’s wrong,” Hartgen said of Perdue. “[State Transportation Secretary] Gene Conti knows this. Gene Conti knows the numbers are wrong.”

Hartgen, who analyzed a slightly different database than one used by TRIP, said the percentage of deficient bridges in North Carolina has improved — from almost 42 percent in 1990 to about 30 percent in 2008.

“It’s simply a myth to say that the infrastructure is falling apart,” Hartgen said. “These are basically what I would call screamers. The whole purpose of the report is to push money into the highway system.”

The state Senate apparently is dubious of Perdue’s proposed Mobility Fund. The 2010-11 budget passed by the Senate does not include provisions for the Mobility Fund. The House could restore the fund when it approves the budget, which may happen later this week.

Frank Moretti, the director of policy and research at TRIP, said he got the estimates for how many bridges North Carolina needs to replace each year from NCDOT officials.
“We sent them a survey, and they provided the information,” Moretti said. “Our reports reflect the best data we can find.”

Lacy Love, the director of asset management for the department, said the percentage of deficient bridges may have fallen because the state has built new ones, increasing the total number of bridges statewide.

“We are going to have a lot more bridges due to be replaced than we are doing now,” Love said.

The TRIP report listed 22 bridge projects totaling $889 million that need an increase in state or federal funding.

They included the four-lane Interstate 85 bridge over the Yadkin River which was built in 1955 and is used by 60,000 vehicles a day, and the Bonner Bridge which provides the only highway access to Hatteras Island and is rated a 4 on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being safest.

Perdue told U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood in February that she was disappointed that North Carolina received only $10 million in federal dollars for the $330 million Yadkin River project. That project is scheduled for completion in 2013.

“I have heard that she let her opinions be known,” said Greer Beaty, an NCDOT spokeswoman. “It was our No. 1 project.”

Olivia Alair, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Transportation, said the agency had more than 1,400 applications for the 51 projects, including the Yadkin River bridge, that received funding. “Anyone who got funding was among the best projects we saw,” Alair said.

NCDOT had to break the Yadkin River bridge project into two pieces because of the arcane formula the state uses to fund road improvements. It received $10 million in federal funding and $31 million in state funds, with the remainder being borrowed against future federal funds. The agency doesn’t know when it will do the second half of the project, widening I-85.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided about $735 million in stimulus funds for road and bridge improvements in North Carolina. About $52.8 million of that will go toward 46 bridge projects.

Beaty said stimulus money went to projects considered shovel-ready or ready to be started soon.

“They had to be ready to go, and they had to be finished in a certain amount of time,” Beaty said. “It takes a lot to design a bridge.”

Sarah Okeson is a contributor to Carolina Journal.