Officials question highway funding
By Steve Herring
Published in News on January 2, 2015 1:46 PM
MOUNT OLIVE -- North Carolina's new transportation plan might be getting high marks from Gov. Pat McCrory and other state officials, but in Wayne County it is being panned for shortchanging the state's rural areas.
State leaders contend that the new highway funding evaluation formula is more efficient and will fund 300 additional projects in the 10-year road building plan released in December.
"Both of those (efficiency and more projects) are admirable goals," said Marc Finlayson, chairman of NC Go!, the statewide transportation advocacy coalition. "The projects, however, tend to be less about grand highway projects and more about intersections and widenings. So you can do a lot more of those with the same amount of money."
But even people in Charlotte are "squawking" about how much money Raleigh is getting, Finlayson said during the Wayne County Development Alliance's recent planning retreat at the Sleep Inn.
The state Board of Transportation will adopt a plan in June. It will serve as the blueprint for roadwork over the next decade.
Wayne County has enjoyed a reputation as a leader in transportation for years, Finlayson said. He urged local leaders and residents to comment between now and June and to make their opinions known to legislators, DOT board member Gus Tulloss, the board in general and any others "who may have some influence" on what the final plan will look like.
Of the 73 funded statewide projects, the Piedmont Crescent (Raleigh to Charlotte) gets 43 ($2.2 billion) compared to 15 projects each for the east ($786 million) and west ($761 million), said Finlayson of New Bern, who is also a consultant for the Highway 17 Association.
DOT Highway Division 4, which includes Wayne County, would get one state project at Clayton.
That project, nominated by the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization is for improvements at I-40 and N.C. 42 at Clayton to help relieve some congestion for Raleigh commuters, Finlayson said.
"So that was the Division 4 statewide project," he said. "Might as well have been a Raleigh project."
There were only two projects out of 73 that were nominated and scored high enough from a Rural Planning Organization, he said.
"Seventy-one of those were recommended by MPOs and the vast majority of those by CAMPO (Capital Area MPO) and the Charlotte area," Finlayson said. "The only two rural projects were projects in Boone. Watauga County.
"Let me assure you, graduating two of my children from Appalachian State, and I have one there now, Boone is not rural. Boone might as well be a tiny little metropolis to itself, and you cannot get around for the congestion. That is why the two Boone projects scored, but they were the only two RPO projects."
The plan calls for $12.6 billion to be spent on highway projects over the next decade.
Projects are broken down on three levels, statewide ($5 billion), regional ($3.8 billion) and divisional ($3.8 billion).
Evaluation for statewide projects was based totally on DOT data and weighted toward projects that address traffic congestion. Regional projects were evaluated on DOT data (70 percent), and division staff, MPO and RPO recommendations (30 percent). Divisional projects were based on DOT data and division staff, MPO and RPO recommendations.
"Because the regional tier is allocated by population, metropolitan regions receive more money," Finlayson said. "So that is the way it worked out approximately. The Triangle gets the most. Charlotte is next. Triad gets the next and then it cascades down to the bottom -- Divisions 1 and 4.
"This shouldn't surprise you either, but because of the evaluation criteria, projects score better if they are more urban. So in every case, there are seven funding regions, in every case the more urban of the two divisions (that make up a region) gets the money. Again, the regional tier is still influenced by urban factors."
Wayne County Commissioner Joe Daughtery, chairman of the county Transportation Committee, said he and many others are frustrated by the results because of all the time and effort spent in assigning points for projects, and forging divisional and regional alliance trying to get project to score well.
The formula is designed all of the way through to actually give those dollars where the population and congestion are, he said.
"You don't have a lot of congestion out here in the rural areas," he said.
Despite assurances that the formula would take politics out of the process, a lot of it is still subject to legislative whim, Finlayson said.
"I think there is going to be a legislative move afoot to change the criteria and reassess projects by downgrading the impact of congestion and maybe upgrading the impact of economic development, which by the way, was not in the original set of criteria at all," Finlayson said. "We had to fight like crazy to get it in there even at a 10 percent level.
"I think that could very well move forward. I almost believe that the urban legislators feel guilty enough about the way things have turned out that they might support it. I don't know how dramatic it would be in the long run. It might not change that much in the STIP (State Transportation Improvement Plan), but it would be a step in the right direction."
Finlayson said that in his role as NC Go! chairman that he is working with the state Chamber of Commerce for what is hoped will be "concrete recommendations" to take to the General Assembly and the administration.
It is an issue people ought to get serious about, he said.
"It should not be us against them -- Goldsboro versus Charlotte -- because we can cut a small pie anyway we want to," he said. "We tend to get less pie, but what we need is more revenue for a bigger pie.
"Urban transportation needs are legitimate, too. I hope the legislature will get serious about long-term sustainable transportation revenues."