Mayors push for ‘mobility fund’ (Durham Herald Sun)
DURHAM — A group chaired by Mayor Bill Bell has joined Gov. Beverly Perdue and the N.C. Department of Transportation in pushing for the creation of a new “mobility fund” local officials could draw on to pay for major road and transit projects.
But the idea has so far generated little enthusiasm among legislators, including key members of Durham’s General Assembly delegation.
N.C. Senate budget writers ignored the governor’s request for $94.6 million in seed money for the fund. Members of the N.C. House also appear reluctant to get behind the idea.
“Members are concerned across the board about fees, and the mobility fund is primarily funded by new fees on vehicle registration,” said state Rep. Paul Luebke, senior chairman of the House Finance Committee.
Luebke’s committee would have to review any fee proposal, assuming it first got an endorsement from the appropriations subcommittee that handles transportation.
Perdue floated the mobility fund in part as a way of paying for the replacement of the bridge that carries Interstate 85 over the Yadkin River at the border of Rowan and Davidson counties.
The bridge is a key link for the entire I-85 corridor and will cost hundreds of millions to replace. State officials hoped to land a federal economic-stimulus grant to help pay for it, but the Obama administration said no.
Bell and the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition have gotten behind the proposal because Perdue has proposed opening the fund to other projects once it’s helped pay for the Yadkin bridge.
And the key selling point, for the mayors, is that Perdue has proposed exempting the new fund from the so-called “equity formula” that governs most DOT spending.
The formula requires DOT to spread money around to all parts of the state. Bell and other mayors from the state’s urban areas argue that thanks to the way the formula’s set up, it shortchanges congestion-plagued regions in favor of spending on rural projects.
Its workings can also force regions to commit almost all their money to big projects like the Yadkin bridge, squeezing out projects targeting secondary roads. That’s a problem Durham went through in recent years as the widenings here of Interstates 40 and 85 unfolded.
The mobility fund, by contrast, “brings a new source of funding to transportation, especially when we’re talking about congested areas,” Bell said.
“I know the downside is that it has a motor-vehicle tax to fund it,” Bell added. “But the alternative is we’re just going to get further congested in some of our critical areas in this state. The equity formula doesn’t do enough for what we’re doing.”
Luebke, however, said he’d prefer to see Perdue take the lead in pushing a compromise rewrite of the equity formula. That “really needs to be addressed as a priority,” he said.
State Sen. Floyd McKissick said budget writers in his chamber opted to focus mostly on what they felt needed to be done for education and jobs.
While there’s a chance the Senate might return to the issue later this spring, particularly if the House added the mobility fund to its draft of the budget, “I’m not sure there’s going to be sufficient momentum or funds available to do much in this session,” McKissick said.
The governor, DOT officials and the mayors, however, are not giving up. Perdue is scheduled to hold a news conference Monday afternoon to push the idea.
DOT’s chief operating officer, Jim Trogdon, made a point Thursday of asking members of the state Board of Transportation to lobby legislators. He labeled the effort “critical” and made it clear that the governor and her people see the mobility fund as the way forward.
“We have heard a lot of discussion about ‘next year’ and what we can do if we wait,” Trogdon told state board members. “I have been with N.C. DOT almost 19 years and three years with the N.C. General Assembly. ‘Next year’ will never come. If we do not as a state have the backbone to support what is obviously a win-win scenario for all who use transportation, and start phasing in the funds, this year, to support this effort, then we will never have the backbone to accomplish these clear and obvious objectives.”
By Ray Gronberg
