State Senate President Jeff Kessler (D-Marshall) says he gets more calls from constituents about potholes and bad roads than any other issue.
It’s no wonder. West Virginia’s roads and bridges are crumbling beneath us.
The trade publication West Virginia Construction News earlier this year quoted a 2011 report by TRIP, a national transportation research group, which said that 36 percent of our major roads are in poor or mediocre condition. One third of our bridges are “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.”
Building and maintaining the highway system in West Virginia is a Herculean task. We have 36,000 miles of state-maintained roads and 6,850 bridges that take us over, around and through the Mountain State. Amazingly, it’s the sixth largest road system in the country.
State Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox is quoted in Construction News as saying that without any change in funding, West Virginia will have about $15 billion in state and federal money over the next 25 years for road work. But that’s just enough to tread water.
Mattox believes West Virginia needs more than twice that amount—nearly $40 billion—to pay for all the upkeep and maintenance and build new roads.
That’s real money in a state with an annual budget of $4.5 billion. Where will it come from?
No doubt there are some efficiencies in the operation of the state Transportation Department that could save some money. However, Mattox has been stretching dollars for years as the demands have increased while the funding has flat lined, so that’s not going to be a sizable or ongoing source.
It’s time to face a reality that no one wants to hear: those who use the roads are going to have to pay more for them.
This week, Governor Tomblin appointed a Blue Ribbon Commission on Highways to come up with ways to fund additional road work. All the panel really has to do is dust off existing research.
Dr. Tom Witt, professor of economics emeritus and former director of the WVU Bureau of Business and Economic Research, has studied the highway funding issue and come up with a number of suggestions. Among them:
–Increase the gasoline tax. (Currently, West Virginians pay about 32 cents a gallon in state gas taxes.)
–Raise the sales tax on vehicle purchases (the old privilege tax) by one percent to six percent.
–Set aside a portion of the increase in natural gas severance taxes to fund roads.
–Redirect the consumer sales tax revenue from sales of tires, batteries and vehicle repairs from the General Revenue Fund to the State Road Fund.
The best approach might be a combination of these and other proposals so the state raises enough money to make significant highway improvements while spreading the pain.
But coming up with the ideas and submitting a glossy report to the Governor is the easy part. The road gets rougher when the Governor and lawmakers have to decide whether they are willing to ask motorists to pay more.