Charlotte drivers plead: Let N.C. road money follow the population (Charlotte Observer)

As congestion mounts, lawmakers say it’s time to look at allocation system

By Mark Johnson and Bruce Siceloff

[email protected]

Posted: Sunday, Mar. 28, 2010

Many Charlotteans stuck in traffic snarls, such as the daily bottleneck on south Charlotte’s still-unwidened stretch of Interstate 485, say they’re getting shortchanged.

They insist that the city sends millions of dollars to the state capital and doesn’t get enough in return for roads.

Mecklenburg, the state’s most populous county, receives more money for road maintenance and construction than any other county.

But when spending is measured on a per-capita basis, according to N.C. Department of Transportation and census data analyzed by the Observer, Mecklenburg ranks 89th out of the state’s 100 counties.

DOT spent an average $3,756 for each North Carolinian during the past 10 years, but $2,967 per person in Mecklenburg. That statewide average would have boosted Mecklenburg’s share of DOT money since 2000 by 27 percent, or $721 million.

On April 6, a legislative transportation committee will hold a public hearing on whether the state should update its 21-year-old formula for apportioning most road construction money.

Mecklenburg and the state’s other major urban areas have sought changes to the system for years. Now, a consensus for an overhaul seems to be building among urban lawmakers from both parties.

Over the past decade, Mecklenburg received 7.7 percent of the road funding. But it was home to 9.7 percent of the population last year.

The shortest distance on a map from John McLean’s house, near Ardrey Kell High School in south Charlotte, to a business meeting in Greensboro is to take I-485 to Interstate 77 up to Interstate 85. McLean, a lawyer, instead goes all the way around the east side of Charlotte’s I-485 loop during rush hour.

The outerbelt near McLean’s home has not been widened beyond its original four lanes, creating a daily knot of automobiles.

“It’s a longer distance, but a shorter time,” McLean said. “(I-485) is too much of a stress, too much of a hassle.”

N.C. Department of Transportation officials emphasize that transportation spending is not about matching dollars with head counts. It’s about building a network that can move people and goods across the state.

Businesses might not be as interested in moving to North Carolina if they can’t efficiently get their products from the Wilmington ports to Charlotte stores, regardless of how much traffic congestion has been reduced on I-485, said Greer Beaty, the department’s communications director.

“The benefits don’t stop at the county line,” Beaty said. “Our role at DOT is to maintain and enhance the system for the entire state…. What’s good for I-85 in Mecklenburg County is good for I-85 in Durham County. Those are major commercial routes.”

The state has spent $1 billion on I-485 since 1989, DOT officials said, and more than $100 million in state funds for the city’s light rail, emphasizing that transportation means more than paving roads.

The city also is counting on state dollars for roughly $75 million of the $300 million for a planned commuter rail line and, eventually, more than $250 million for light rail.

Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx said the city has received a disproportionate share of transit money, and applauded the administration of Gov. Bev Perdue for using a new funding mechanism, essentially installment payments to the contractor, to finish the I-485 loop.

“Things are moving in a much better direction,” Foxx said, though he added that the state’s urban areas historically have not gotten their due in road money.

The sense of inequity is ingrained in the public’s mind. Raleigh-based Public Policy Polling released a survey last week showing 55 percent of respondents statewide believe they don’t get their share of road funding, but in Charlotte the figure was 69 percent.

The gripes of unfairness echo in the state’s other large cities. Wake County, which includes Raleigh, ranked 90th in per capita spending over the past decade and got 7.5 percent of the road funding for 9.6 percent of the population.

“Road projects need to be built for roads that are used a lot,” said Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker. “Building four-lane roads where there are no people doesn’t make sense.”

Mecklenburg and the state’s other major urban areas have argued for several years that the state’s system of paying for roads shortchanges them. The list of critics has expanded to include members of both political parties whose comments, at least on this issue, are hard to tell apart.

“The No. 1 complaint we hear from citizens is congestion,” said Rep. Becky Carney, a Charlotte Democrat and House Transportation Committee chair. “Why aren’t we addressing that?”

Now listen to Rep. Ric Killian, a Charlotte Republican: “We have to focus on the problem, and the problem is congestion.”

Carney and Killian are among those who want to rewrite the state’s road funding formula, called the “equity formula,” to give more weight to traffic volume and congestion.

The formula was created in 1989, under then-Gov. Jim Martin, a Charlotte-area Republican, with goals that included ensuring that nearly everyone in the state lives within 10 miles of a four-lane road, an intrastate system.

The formula cuts the state into seven districts and divides money among those districts. Half of the money is based on each district’s population. A quarter of the funding is determined by the miles of unfinished road in each district needed to complete the four-lane intrastate system. And the last quarter is divided equally among the districts. Mecklenburg’s district includes a dozen surrounding counties.

The equity formula does not affect urban loop funding. That is a competition among the state’s largest cities. The equity formula has generated a competition between urban and rural areas.

Over the past decade, the county with the fewest people, Tyrrell, got the most road money per capita. Tyrrell, in Eastern North Carolina, had a population of 4,078 in 2009 and is best known as the last county that Outer Banks-bound travelers pass through before they get to Dare County’s beaches.

Gaston County ranked 98th. It had 208,958 residents in 2009, including a healthy share of Charlotte commuters. Just ahead of Gaston was Union County, ranking 97th, with a population of 198,645.

Tyrrell County proportionally received so much money over the past decade in large part because of the expansion of U.S. 64, said Van Argabright, a top project manager at DOT. That project, though, mostly benefits other counties, he said.

“The primary reason you do that is to get people from Raleigh to the Outer Banks,” Argabright said. Tyrrell’s funding “is going to look distorted because of that. A lot of what they’re getting is a statewide project…We try not to focus on the boundaries.”

The department’s priorities are mobility, safety and keeping the state’s infrastructure healthy, Beaty said.

The legislature and past governors from both parties, though, also have used road building as a lure for economic development, hoping that better roads will make less populated areas of the state appealing to new businesses. The idea is to aid the economic health of parts of the state beyond the metro counties, said Argabright.

“I don’t think we want everyone living in Raleigh and Charlotte,” he said.

Killian said spreading economic development is not state government’s job. The state is supposed to provide citizens with security and a sound infrastructure, he said.

“Businesses want to come to an area where employees can buy a house, send their kids to a good school and enjoy the amenities of the community,” he said. “That usually means urban areas, and that won’t change. Putting a road in a rural community isn’t going to suddenly make that location equally attractive.”

David Hartgen, a retired UNC Charlotte transportation professor, faults both state and city leaders for failing to focus spending priorities on projects that will relieve congestion.

Hartgen, a critic of Charlotte’s light-rail efforts, said Raleigh and Charlotte planners have earmarked too much of their money for transit investments that will serve only 1 percent or 2 percent of their residents.

“Charlotte’s plan basically shuts off any capacity improvements on about 60 percent of the arterial road system, and proposes to spend about half the money on transit,” Hartgen said.

“The problem isn’t with the money we get from the equity formula. The problem is the misallocation of the money we have. Fixing that would solve maybe all the congestion issues we have in these two cities.”

State Sen. Clark Jenkins, an Edgecombe County Democrat, doesn’t want to see the equity formula changed to take money away from rural areas. But he agrees that DOT needs to find new money to reduce traffic congestion in the cities.

“The bottom line is we need more money, and it should go into the congested areas,” said Jenkins, vice chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee.

The other major proposal is to raise more money, most likely through taxes.

“It’s that simple. We don’t have enough money,” said Allen Tate, chairman of the board and founder of Allen Tate Co., who heads the Charlotte Chamber’s regional roads committee.

Several study groups have pushed proposals to raise revenue over the past decade, but lawmakers avoid pushing anything that remotely resembles a tax increase.

“If they want us to do more, provide a different level of service, we need to have a conversation about what it takes to make that happen,” said Stephanie King, the transportation department’s accounting director.

Like other urban leaders, Tate wants to see congestion factored into road funding, but he echoed state officials’ emphasis on blurring the boundaries. The major traffic arteries in and out of Mecklenburg extend into neighboring counties, he said.

“Whatever we do can’t stop at the county line,” Tate said. “We have to take a regional approach to this.”

Funding formula change might delay road work for Southeastern N.C. (Wilmington Star News)

Local transportation planners oppose changes to state equity formula

By Patrick Gannon
[email protected]

Published: Saturday, April 3, 2010 at 3:30 a.m.

Proposed changes to the state’s transportation-funding formula might jeopardize new road projects on the coast, while benefitting larger metropolitan areas such as Charlotte and Raleigh, Wilmington-area transportation officials say.

On Tuesday, the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Transportation will hold a public hearing in Raleigh on whether the state should change the “equity formula,” which determines how most road dollars are allocated across the state.

“I am absolutely and unconditionally and 100 percent absolutely opposed to any changes,” said state Rep. Danny McComas, R-New Hanover, who sits on the oversight committee.

The proposed changes are being driven by larger cities, which would benefit if the formula is changed to focus on population numbers alone. Currently, the formula, created in 1989, allocates money based on population and unfinished intrastate road miles in the state’s transportation divisions.

Smaller cities and rural areas are fighting back.

“We oppose any change to that formula,” said Mike Kozlosky, executive director of the Wilmington Metropolitan Planning Organization, who plans to address the committee on Tuesday during its meeting in Raleigh.

Officials said the amount of funding Division 3, which includes six Southeastern North Carolina counties, would lose depends on how the formula is modified.

But McComas said the northernmost section of the Brunswick leg of the U.S. 17 Wilmington Bypass, the extension of Military Cutoff Road and the extension of Independence Boulevard could all be pushed back.

“We’ve got numerous projects in our community that could very well be in jeopardy,” McComas said.

Allen Pope, division engineer for Division 3, said the current equity formula has served the state well since 1989.

“The big issue is there’s not enough dollars to meet the needs that we have (statewide),” Pope said.

Kozlosky said he plans to urge the committee to recommend new funding sources for transportation, rather than squabbling over the distribution method.

McComas said Southeastern North Carolina has been waiting for funding while major roads have been built in other parts of the state. Changing the formula now could divert money destined for the Wilmington area to more populated areas.

“Now that it’s our turn, we cannot afford to be shortchanged,” McComas said.

The committee will make recommendations to the General Assembly about the equity formula and other transportation issues. Legislators could consider equity formula changes in this year’s legislative short session, which begins in mid-May, McComas said.

Division 3 does receive more road dollars per capita than the state average. But local transportation leaders say that calculation doesn’t include public transportation or airport funding, and that the larger cities receive much more of that.

Patrick Gannon: 343-2328

Editorial – State’s major metro areas should not be allowed to hog road funding (Wilmington Star News)

Published: Tuesday, April 6, 2010 at 3:30 a.m.

Well, of course North Carolina’s largest cities want the funding formula for roads changed. By distributing construction dollars on population alone, they would get a bigger share of transportation dollars than other parts of the state. And that would be unfair.

The legislative committee looking at revamping how road projects are selected should resist attempts by Raleigh, Charlotte and the other large metro areas to make such a drastic change. While the current formula can be improved, population should never be the only factor in determining the priority for new roads. Any formula also should take into effect such factors as growth rate and potential for economic development.

If Raleigh and Charlotte get their way, the Wilmington area likely would lose out.

Over the past three decades the Cape Fear region’s population has soared. Prior to the housing bust, Brunswick was one of the fastest-growing counties, not only in North Carolina, but in the nation. Pender’s growth rate also was impressive. And New Hanover County has seen healthy growth as well.

Allen Pope, who heads the DOT’s Division 3 office in Wilmington, is exactly right when he says the issue is that there simply isn’t enough money to go around. Any way you slice it, someone loses out. The current system attempts to divide those limited resources fairly, but it may have bent too far in favor of slow-growth rural areas.

Raleigh and Charlotte certainly have had their growing pains, and anyone who’s driven their beltlines at rush hour knows what real gridlock is. But North Carolina is more than the sum of its metropolitan areas.

Roads in smaller but growing areas also have overtaxed roadways. In Brunswick County, for example, mostly two-lane roads serve a growing population. U.S. 17, which was conceived as an uninterrupted thoroughfare, now has stop lights and “Michigan left turns” to accommodate large new subdivisions and shopping centers around Leland and Belville. And more may be coming.

The Cape Fear Memorial Bridge and the Brunswick County causeway leading to it can resemble a parking lot at times, with traffic slowing to a crawl.

Transportation officials can, and should, improve the formula. Political patronage has given us bypasses around tiny communities and kept money from areas with less influence in Raleigh. That is changing, but better planning is in order, too.

Rather than dividing money regionally, the largest projects should be coordinated according to a statewide priority list, while funding for less-expensive local projects could continue to be divided among the regions. That’s just one suggestion.

But the committee shouldn’t let the large cities drive transportation policy for the entire state.

Improving State’s Equity Formula (FOX Charlotte)

Brien Blakely

Story Created: Apr 7, 2010 at 12:11 AM EDT
Story Updated: Apr 7, 2010 at 12:11 AM EDT

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – It’s called the Equity Formula, where state transportation money is distributed to equally among all 100 counties.

But, people in Charlotte have been complaining for years that it should be called the IN-equity formula because under the program there’s no consideration for densely populated cities like the Queen City to get it’s fair share. Rural counties get the same amount of money as Urban areas.

“We’re the ones getting gypped. It’s crazy, you send the money where the people are. People in Raleigh need to wake up and get their act together,” said Charlotte motorist Casey Shady.

According to published reports from the State Department of Transportation, The Charlotte Metro Area ranks near the bottom in per capita spending for road construction and maintenance. Of the State’s 100 Counties, Mecklenburg ranks 89th, Gaston 98th, Union 97th, Cabarrus 81st, Lincoln 72nd and Iredell 69th.

Mecklenburg County Representative Jim Gulley (Republican) says, “I think Charlotte is subsidizing the rural parts of the state at our expense.” Representative Tricia Cotham (Democrat) from Mecklenburg says, “we need and deserve our fair share. Our current system doesn’t work.”

Lawmakers in Raleigh heard public comments Tuesday about changing the Equity Formula. Rep. Bill Current Sr. from Gaston County (Republican) says the best comment of the day was “nobody seems to like the Equity Formula, so it must be pretty good.” But, he adds, even with all the talk about changing the system, in the end he doesn’t think anything will happen.

N.C. Transportation System Needs Better Project Selection Process (John Locke Foundation)

JLF expert offers advice during legislative hearing

By CJ Staff
April 06, 2010

RALEIGH — A better project selection process is more important than new funding sources in addressing North Carolina’s transportation needs. The John Locke Foundation’s top budget expert will deliver that message today in testimony to state legislators.

“The question of how to address North Carolina’s long-term transportation challenges is not fundamentally a question of where or how to find new money,” said Joseph Coletti, JLF Director of Health and Fiscal Policy Studies. “It’s a question of how to select road projects that best meet the needs of the state.”

It’s an important question, since a recent study of North Carolina’s road system estimated that residents waste $5.7 billion a year in lost time, lost fuel, and vehicle repairs because of poor roads, Coletti said. “Congestion relief alone in the state’s six largest regions would have a positive economic impact of about $850 million,” he said. “Other improvements also would help lower that huge figure of road-related economic losses.”

The “most critical” action lawmakers could take to improve the state’s current transportation funding system involves changing funding formulas, Coletti said. Current formulas rely too heavily on distribution of dollars to seven predetermined geographic regions.

“Present funding distributions based on geography waste both money and public trust,” Coletti said. “Formulas that evaluate individual projects, rather than steering dollars automatically based on geography, would ensure that the state’s highway dollars are used as wisely as possible.”

Coletti testifies during the 1 p.m. meeting of the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Transportation Oversight Committee. He’s basing his comments on research compiled in a new JLF Spotlight report. That report builds upon various state and national research projects conducted by Dr. David Hartgen, emeritus professor of transportation studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Recommendations in the latest report focus on six key areas. One involves a better project selection process. The new process would turn North Carolina away from funneling dollars toward seven existing “distribution regions.”

“Remove geography from funding allocations,” Coletti said. “Replace geography with formulas that evaluate projects. For interstate and primary roads, lawmakers should direct the Department of Transportation to compare projects head-to-head across the state, using objective data relating to cost-effectiveness. Those data would include total savings from reduced congestion, savings in reliability, savings in operating and accident costs, and pavement condition.”

A second major recommendation urges transportation planners to “live with less,” Coletti said. “The highway program must be refocused on stewardship rather than ribbon cutting,” he said. “Improving, and then maintaining, road conditions must be the first priority, not the last.”

That means avoiding new construction projects with very low levels of cost-effectiveness, Coletti said. “The state could impose a cost-effectiveness criterion on new projects, such as rejecting any project that costs more than three times the average rate per vehicle-mile,” he said. “Steering money away from those projects would boost the amount of money available for maintenance.”

Coletti’s third recommendation urges lawmakers to be “very cautious” in seeking new revenue sources. “It is tempting to suggest that additional funds for highway maintenance should come from additional user taxes,” he said. “We do not believe this is a wise policy. North Carolina already has one of the highest fuel taxes in the region. Further increases would hurt consumers and businesses.”

Road funding already has increased almost 20 percent since 2002, Coletti said. “The problem is that we’ve decreased attention to maintenance, relative to other needs,” he said. “This hurts us in the long term. We have a long way to go in addressing areas such as deficient bridges and poor road-surface conditions.”

Another recommendation calls for close management of the state’s Transportation Improvement Program. “That means ensuring that the program is not overly optimistic, with too many projects and understated future costs,” he said. “It also means conducting a thorough review of all money diverted away from the highway program. The time has come when we must set priorities between highway needs and other uses of highway funds.”

The fifth recommendation would prevent DOT from using existing funding formulas too restrictively to block worthwhile projects, while the sixth calls for a restructured Board of Transportation. “The board should be a policy-setting group with significantly fewer members,” Coletti said. “Board members should be knowledgeable in transportation issues. They should be charged with setting the state’s vision for transportation, not with approving individual projects.”

North Carolina must have a better road system, Coletti said. “Our transportation system is the backbone of our economy, yet we have frittered away the quality of this critical asset by not attending to its maintenance and upkeep.”

“More money is not the only issue, or even the most important issue,” Coletti added. “Spending what we have more wisely is the key, by acting to delay or delete funding for the most cost-ineffective projects and moving that money into maintenance needs.”

A Formula for Roads (John Locke Foundation)

By John Hood
April 08, 2010

RALEIGH – If North Carolina lawmakers continue to eye the state transportation budget like greedy kids spying a basket of candy, they’ll continue to grab and squabble. As JLF adjunct policy analyst Dave Hartgen observes in a new Spotlight briefing paper, policymakers need to look at the issue from a different perspective – as members of an investment pool seeking the highest possible rate of return.

Building transportation infrastructure is an investment activity. In rough proportion to their use of state roadways, motorists pay car and gas taxes into the Highway Fund and Highway Trust Fund. Officials are charged with investing some of the money in adding valuable new capacity to the system, saving the rest for maintaining the value of the existing capital stock.

Unfortunately, so many hands touch the capital flow that it becomes diluted. Transit boosters want to force non-riders to subsidize the trips of transit riders. Governors want to do favors for their biggest supporters and friends. Legislators want to maximize the flow of funds into their districts as a means of buying votes, with the more-senior members having the greatest opportunities to do so. The private firms that design, build, and supply raw materials for new projects want to maximize their revenues. City and county officials want to move their local projects to the top of the list.

At a legislative committee meeting yesterday, many of these individuals or interests paraded past the microphone to restate their wants. Few offer a coherent, objective assessment of the state’s true transportation needs.

Hartgen did so in his new research paper. Rather than focus on divvying up highway funds by region, Hartgen argued that North Carolina needs to focus on projects, wherever they are located, that promise the greatest bang for the buck in alleviating traffic congestion and improving safety. The need is pressing, because:

• Roads of inadequate quality and capacity reduce the incomes of North Carolina citizens by billions of dollars a year in lost time, lost fuel, and vehicle repairs.

• Achieving a significant reduction in future traffic congestion alone would boost the state’s economy by nearly $1 billion a year.

• Reallocating existing revenues to address the state’s highest priorities is a more realistic approach than trying to tax our way out of the problem, since North Carolina’s transportation-related taxes are already high by regional standards.

The conventional wisdom in Raleigh appears to be is that North Carolina needs to raise taxes and change the equity formula to steer more dollars to urban areas such as Charlotte and the Triangle. It’s not so much the wrong answer as it is the wrong phrasing of the question. If policymakers used current and projected traffic counts to allocate highway dollars, some counties would gain projects and some would lose them. But North Carolinians do not confine their driving within county lines. They travel from city to city, region to region – or, at least, the products they consume travel across the state in trucks. Most North Carolinians would benefit from projects that alleviate congestion and improve safety along highly traveled corridors, be they around the southern side of Wake County or a stretch of rural interstate in the foothills, sandhills, or coastal plain.

Tossing a pot of money into the basket and watching immature politicians fight over it may be entertaining, but it’s not a transportation policy worthy of the name. Maybe some grownups will get involved at some point.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation