By Chris Fitzsimon
The stage is being set behind the scenes for a special legislative session on transportation. Gov. Mike Easley and legislative leaders have been meeting to figure out how to build a consensus on how to raise new revenue for road improvements.
And unless something changes dramatically in the near future, roads are all that will be considered. There has been little talk of any other transportation solutions, like mass transit or addressing the sprawling development in urban areas that increases the demand for highways and other services.
State leaders seem unwilling to have a real debate about a comprehensive transportation strategy and the roads-only approach will demand billions more in state revenue in higher taxes or fees.
Earlier this year, the Department of Transportation announced that the state faces a $65 million highway funding shortfall in the next 25 years, a figure that Gov. Easley called absurd. But a shortfall even half that size seems impossible to address.
The market fundamentalists are already peddling their anti-government alternative, advocating slashing the state’s General Fund budget by hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for new highways. They not only want to end the $170 million transfer from the Highway Trust Fund to the General Fund, they want to take far more out of the operating budget of schools, human services and other state programs to pay for road construction.
Let’s hope that approach is quickly dismissed by a commission Easley is likely to create to work on possible funding solutions. Easley and whomever he appoints ought to start their deliberations by looking at the work of the last group that was supposed to come up with solutions to our transportation woes. But looking at that work would require them to find it.
The group was called N.C. Thinking Ahead, an 11-member commission appointed in 2005 after Easley heard from urban mayors complaining about transportation problems. The group was created to develop a plan to address the transportation funding shortfall, complete with looking at revenue sources. It was important enough to be cited in a 2005 publication from Easley’s office touting his accomplishments as governor.
That report said that N.C. Thinking Ahead hosted eight forums across the state and conducted an online survey, and that “Data from the regional forums and the poll will be incorporated into the group’s final report.†Reportedly, two outside consultants were hired to work with the project.
Minutes of a DOT committee meeting in November of 2005 show that a staff member predicted that all information from the regional meetings “will be summarized and reported to the task force by December 1, 2005.â€
Easley’s DOT Secretary Lyndo Tippett hailed N.C. Thinking Ahead in speeches around the state that year, in March telling an audience in Charlotte that the group was working “to develop new ways to fund transportation improvements.†A PowerPoint presentation by another DOT official at N.C. State said N.C. Thinking Ahead would study solutions to the revenue gap in the state’s 25-year transportation plan.
Seems like all that would be valuable information now, as state officials are still trying to solve the same problem.
The regional meetings generated news coverage and press releases but the final report of N.C. Thinking Ahead is nowhere to be found. There’s a reason for that.
DOT public affairs director Ernie Seneca says that while “the agency has moved forward with some of the information that was presented,†no report was produced.
Seneca didn’t respond directly to questions about how the public was supposed to read a report that doesn’t exist or why Easley listed N.C. Thinking Ahead as a major accomplishment of his administration if there was nothing actually produced by the commission.
The Southern Pines Pilot included a quote from Easley in a July 2005 story about N.C. Thinking Ahead. “Meeting transportation demands is a never-ending task,†Easley said. “And we must continue to be creative and aggressive in our efforts to meet those demands.â€
Might also help to be aggressive in demanding that reports paid for by taxpayers are released to the public and don’t just disappear into political thin air. There’s a shortfall of more than just highway money in this administration’s transportation policy. There’s some accountability missing too.