Marta Mossburg on why state roads should not be left to the feds
By: Marta Mossburg
Examiner Columnist
July 3, 2009
Transportation. It's a boring and ugly word. Maybe that is why state legislators constantly neglect it. Some studies show that parents pay more attention to beautiful children, so maybe the same logic applies.
But Maryland's elected and appointed officials ignore it at residents' great peril in years to come.
Thanks to federal stimulus dollars, roads are being paved and bridges repaired throughout Maryland this year. In fact, a consortium of groups favoring mass transit praised Gov. Martin O'Malley earlier this week for focusing the first phase of federal stimulus dollars earmarked for road projects in the state, about $223 million, on maintaining existing highways and roads instead of building new capacity.
For those interested, statestat.maryland.gov/recovery.asp shows where the money is being spent around the state.
Like-minded mass transit supporters around the country say this approach will guide people to cities, which are better equipped to handle growth than suburban areas. That may be true, but the real issue is not whether the money supports "smart growth." It's why the state must spend extra federal dollars on core obligations like repaving roads and ensuring bridge safety.
Aside from buying $65.6 million of new buses for the Baltimore region, it's hard to find a stimulus project that is not "restoration" or "renewal" in the initial funds earmarked for transit projects in Maryland.
That means that when the money runs out, the state must pick up the tab for cleaning and painting bridges, installing guardrails and upgrading train platforms, among other projects. Erin Henson, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Transportation, said the state is focused on "working with the federal government to make the most of these (current) dollars," and that future funding is highly dependent on the next federal transportation bill.
What's clear is that before the federal dollars arrived, state policy was to delay projects. In September 2008 the Maryland Department of Transportation said the downturn in the economy was causing it to defer $1.1 billion in capital projects over six years.
And the 2009 Consolidated Transportation Program, which projects capital spending and revenue on all state transportation projects for the next six years, does not paint a positive outlook for the state's Transportation Trust Fund (TTF). "Specifically the loss is $220 million a year in titling tax revenue, $45 million a year in gas tax revenue (the two largest sources of funding for the Trust Fund) and about $85 million a year in losses from other revenue sources."
While much of the decline is caused by the current recession, the trend toward buying less expensive, more fuel efficient cars seems permanent and will have lasting negative effects on the TTF.
A bigger problem is the fact that Maryland does not have a truly dedicated source of funding for maintenance since the Trust Fund can and has been raided to pay for other projects. While Gov. Robert Ehrlich is not the first to do this, he moved about $315 million from the TTF to the general fund over 2003 and 2004 to balance the budget.
Some of the money has been repaid and all is scheduled to be. But according to a 2007 fact sheet from the Greater Baltimore Committee, a business group that supports increasing transportation spending, the MDOT estimated there was about $27 billion in unmet transportation needs in 2000. In 2007, that figure was about $40 billion.
As the report said, "At some point, we have to make the decision to reverse the trend."
Part of the solution is ensuring that money collected for maintaining roads goes to roads and that money in the TTF is spent only on transportation. Carroll County Republican Del. Susan Krebs sponsored legislation to make that happen on multiple occasions -- this year it was HB139 and HB140. Neither made it to a vote. She promised to reintroduce legislation next year because the TTF is "called a trust fund - it should have some trust."
The legislation makes sense. So does considering alternative revenue sources like peak pricing. It would bring in new revenue and have the added benefit of easing congestion.
While the proposed $500 billion, six-year House transportation bill could reap millions for Maryland, the state should not wait on the federal government's largesse to put its house in order.
With Maryland's increasingly bad congestion, residents need a dedicated, secure source of funding to ensure that basic road repair - not to mention increasing road capacity - does not become a question of federal dictate.
Examiner columnist Marta H. Mossburg is a senior fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute.
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