Press Releases and Newsletters
Rail Money (NEWS & OBSERVER)
Lawmakers concerned about cost are considering rejecting federal funds to improve high-speed passenger train service between Charlotte and Raleigh. The House Transportation Committee began debate Tuesday on a measure to bar the state Transportation Department from accepting $460 million in federal funds unless the Republican-led General Assembly approves. Newly elected Republican governors in Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio have turned down funds previously agreed to by their Democratic predecessors. Rep. Ric Killian, R-Mecklenburg and a bill sponsor, said he’s worried the state will be left with a big annual maintenance bill for the train service.
Barry Jenkins of Carolinas’ Associated General Contractors asked lawmakers to take the money, which he said would mean thousands of construction jobs on roads and bridges to separate road and rail traffic. “We’re dealing with 20 percent unemployment in our industry in North Carolina,” said Jenkins. But Killian dismissed the jobs issue. “Folks, what we need are private sector jobs,” Killian told the committee. “We do not need publicly financed jobs.”
Killian argued that freight railroad service would be hurt by projects to double-track the line between Charlotte and Greensboro, to straighten curves, to build bridges to separate cars and trains at crossings, and to put more passenger trains on the line. “If you create a chokepoint between Charlotte and Raleigh by putting in a high-speed rail line that effectively bisects that right of way in several places, you’re not going to have the ability to add freight in the future,” Killian said. The committee did not vote on the measure Tuesday.(THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 3/29/11; Bruce Siceloff, THE NEWS & OBSERVER, 3/30/11).
Growth brings challenges (Lake Norman News)
Top needs: Improved roads, more space for police
Roads and police protection will remain focal points for Huntersville in the next couple of decades as the town continues to address its rapid population growth, officials said.
With a population of 46,773, the town is now North Carolina’s 19th-largest municipality and the fastest growing large municipality in the state, according to 2010 Census numbers.
“Clearly, the cost of living and attractiveness of being on Lake Norman and yet accessible to Charlotte are the driving factors,” said town commissioner Ken Lucas of the recently released census numbers.
National media seem to agree. BusinessWeek named Huntersville the fourth-best affordable suburb in America in 2010, and in 2009, Forbes named the town the second-best place in the United States to move.
But the explosive growth – the town grew by 728 percent between 1990 and 2000, and then by 87 percent during the last decade – has brought pressure as well.
Town commissioner Ron Julian pointed to the Police Department as an example.
When town officials approved the department’s 8,000-square-foot building 10 years ago, they expected it to last about 30 years.
But during the last 10 years, the department has grown from 55 sworn officers to 82.
Town residents will vote on a new 50,000-square-foot department building in November, said Julian.
In light of a steady increase in calls for service and certain types of crime during the last decade of growth, Police Chief Phil Potter said one of his main missions has been to increase the number of sworn officers.
Right now, there are 1.75 officers for every 1,000 residents, said Potter.
Chief Potter said he’d prefer that figure be 2 to 2.5 officers per 1,000 or better.
“We’re trying to keep up with our call load,” said Potter.
Many town staff and officials also mentioned roads as the top issue in which the town needs to improve to adequately serve residents.
“We’re working very aggressively toward making sure we widen I-77,” said Bill Russell, chairman of the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce. “We’re also focused on trying to make sure we have a holistic transportation plan, including bringing a high-speed commuter rail to the area.”
Finding ways for people to move around the area will become increasingly important over the next decade, when Huntersville officials expect the population to grow to 60,000. By 2030, that number may be nearly 80,000, officials said.
Town manager Greg Ferguson said transportation improvements will require cooperation between the town, county and state. After all, he said, most of the major thoroughfares in Huntersville are maintained by the N.C. Department of Transportation.
“We’re making sure they’re aware of the needs and growth in this area and that they’re committed to providing us those resources,” said Ferguson.
By Elisabeth Arriero Wednesday, Mar. 23, 2011
Census numbers show Triangle is 1.6 million strong (News&Observer)
Despite the bursting of the dot.com bubble in 2000 and the Great Recession 10 years later, the Triangle continued to attract tens of thousands of newcomers a year. The area is now home to about 1.6 million people, according to census numbers released Wednesday.
The numbers show that the six-county Triangle region added about 400,000 residents, roughly the equivalent population of Durham and Orange counties.
The growth was led by Raleigh, which added 127,799 residents, and Cary, which grew by 40,698. Wake’s smaller towns also grew at a blistering pace; five of them – Fuquay-Varina, Holly Springs, Morrisville, Rolesville and Wake Forest – have more than doubled in population since 2000.
The numbers also show the growing ethnic and racial diversity of the Triangle and the rest of the state. Non-Hispanic whites still account for the majority of North Carolina residents, but that majority is shrinking, as the influx of Asians and Hispanics far outpaces overall growth.
“We are a destination place for immigrants, and most immigrants are not white,” said James Johnson Jr., a professor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill who studies the state’s demographics.
Hispanics, an ethnic designation in the census that includes both whites and blacks, grew by 111 percent during the decade, to account for 8.4 percent of the state’s population.
The Triangle’s population growth creates a critical mass that brings a host of cultural and economic benefits, from high-end stores and nationally known restaurants to the arts. The concerts and shows at Durham Performing Arts Center made it one of the top 10 theaters for attendance in the nation last year.
Small towns ablaze
Nowhere are those changes brought by growth more acute than in the small towns turned suburbs around the edges of Wake County.
Ten years ago, Holly Springs officials had to persuade Lowes Foods to anchor a shopping center, even though the town had added thousands of residents in the 1990s. Since then, the town’s population has nearly tripled, to 24,661. Now, Holly Springs has three more shopping centers, two new fire stations, five public schools, including a new high school, and a massive vaccine manufacturing plant that opened in 2009.
“We have been discovered,” Mayor Dick Sears said.
‘Rolesville is gone’
But with the growth come wrenching changes and new problems, such as traffic, crowded schools, higher taxes and the loss of the familiar.
Bennie Barham has lived all of his 55 years in Rolesville, where the population more than quadrupled in the past decade, to 3,786.
“My little town of Rolesville is gone,” Barham said.
It’s not that Barham doesn’t welcome growth; it’s just that he thinks Rolesville has suffered from too much too soon. Take, for instance, the morning commute.
“I’m a farmer, and a lot of new people in the community do not show farmers respect on the road,” Barham said. “Between six and eight in the morning, our two lanes can be backed up for miles.”
Restaurants are a plus
Barham was eating at Los Tres Magueyes Mexican restaurant on Rolesville’s Main Street on Tuesday night. The restaurant opened nine years ago, just as Rolesville began to expand from small town to suburb.
“I’ve worked here since this restaurant opened,” said Hector Benegas, the manager. “Each year we get more people here.”
Indeed, many locals describe Los Tres Magueyes as a town hangout, a nice place for a quick weeknight meal with a family or a drink after work. Several patrons Tuesday suggested that the restaurant and a Bojangles’ across the street were the only consolations for the rapid growth.
“I remember when there wasn’t but one stoplight in town,” said Wilson Mitchell, 42, who grew up in Rolesville. “I liked it when it was small, and you knew everyone in town.”
BY RICHARD STRADLING AND STEPHANIE SOUCHERAY – Staff Writers
March 3, 2011
Legislator Wants to Kill $152 Million for Mecklenburg Rail Projects (News & Observer)
Mecklenburg County will receive the lion’s share of $461 million in federal railroad funds — unless one of its legislators, Rep. Ric Killian of Charlotte, succeeds in his campaign to kill the deal.
NCDOT provided a county-by-county breakdown of rail projects worth $520 million. It combines the $461 million in ARRA (stimulus) funds committed by the Federal Railroad Administration this week, plus $59 million North Carolina received previously.
Mecklenburg gets projects worth nearly $152 million, and it shares a $92 million project with neighboring Cabarrus County. (Killian contends, below, that Charlotte folks would suffer more than anyone else in the state because of this federal investment.)
ARRA Funding for Projects Covered by Agreement by County
Alamance $11,703,156
Cabarrus $344,715
Davidson $44,545,437
Davidson and Rowan* $1,444,659
Durham $18,130,644
Guilford $13,925,453
Cabarrus and Mecklenburg* $92,116,212
Mecklenburg $151,711,401
Rowan $98,657,349
Wake $47,822,797
Wake, Durham, Alamance, Guilford, Davidson, Rowan, Cabarrus, Mecklenburg $39,598,176
Total: $520,000,000
* Projects crossing county lines
Double tracks, straightened curves and other improvements will qualify tracks for a top speed boost from the current 79 mph to 90 mph a few years from now, after the railroads install positive-train control safety technology.
The biggest single project, in Charlotte, involves $128 million to grade-separate CSX and Norfolk Southern tracks that now meet in a four-way stop. The work will send CSX trains burrowing beneath Norfolk Southern tracks. It will prepare the way for Charlotte’s next big transportation project: a multimodal station downtown for Amtrak and local transit trains and buses.
Killian contends that the deal will saddle North Carolina taxpayers with future operation and maintenance costs as high as $50 million a year.
In an interview this week I asked him whether the federal funding he wants to kill would benefit his constituents in Charlotte.
“My concern is for the citizens of this state,” he replied.
Asked again about whether Charlotte in particular would benefit, Killian said:
“I think the answer probably could be no, knowing the citizens of Charlotte pay such a great amount of taxes. And any potential liability is going to be borne by the taxpayers; therefore, I think it could hurt the citizens of Charlotte even more than other areas of the state.”
The House Transportation Committee is scheduled to take up Killian’s kill bill at its next meeting, Tuesday at noon in 643 Legislative Office Building. Other legislators have said they want more details from NCDOT about the rail projects.
By Bruce Siceloff
Posted: Thursday, Mar. 24, 2011
Council wants rail money(The Herald Sun)
DURHAM — City Council members are gearing up to fight several bills being considered by the N.C. General Assembly, including one that could prevent the state from accepting federal subsidies for a major rail project in Durham and other cities.
Mayor Bill Bell briefed members last week on what he and other big-city mayors in the state have been doing to both round up and protect the federal money, which they hope will pay for major track improvements on the main lines that link Charlotte, Raleigh and Richmond, Va.
His colleagues urged him to keep at it. “I’m really concerned about the role the legislature might play in this process, particularly the rail funding piece,” Councilman Howard Clement said.
Clement was alluding to a move by 13 Republicans in the N.C. House, led by N.C. Rep. Ric Killian, R-Mecklenburg, to file a bill that would bar the N.C. Department of Transportation from accepting or even applying for federal high-speed rail grants “unless the project has been approved through an act of the General Assembly.”
DOT has been gearing up to spend more than $500 million in federal economic-stimulus aid on the corridor, largely to double-track parts of the main line, upgrade road crossings and revamp key rail junctions.
One of the most important pieces of the project targets a stretch of track on the eastern edge of Durham, in RTP near Hopson Road.
Engineers intend there to spend about $18 million to straighten out a curve, install a 2.4-mile-long passing track and eliminate a grade crossing by installing a bridge to carry the line over Hopson.
Statewide, the project’s goal is to boost the train-handling capacity of corridor, and allow the trains that operate in it to run at somewhat faster speeds, up to about 79 mph in many places.
DOT officials stressed, both to the federal government when they applied for the grant and to reporters afterward, that the operational benefits of the upgrades would flow not just to passenger trains but to the freight traffic that moves through the corridor.
Killian and his allies — seven of whom are freshmen legislators — contend the project by facilitating increased passenger service will impose higher operating costs on the state, jeopardize freight traffic and burden small towns on the route that aren’t in line to receive direct service.
But Bell told council members it’s not clear to him the bill enjoys wide support even among Republicans. “I don’t want to say it’s the whole party,” he said.
House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, has been noncommittal. He “doesn’t have a position [on it] at this point, but he supports the information-gathering process that’s going to take place as a result of this bill,” said Jordan Shaw, a Tillis spokesman.
Two Republicans outside the General Assembly, former Durham Mayor Nick Tennyson and former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, made it clear Friday that they hope both the bill and the project receive careful scrutiny.
McCrory — a former gubernatorial candidate who’s been leading Gov. Beverly Perdue in polls gauging voter opinion on a possible rematch of the 2008 election — said DOT officials “need to do a better job of explaining the cost-benefit assessments” of the project.
But he added that boosting the line’s capacity “would have positive long-term ramifications” for the state.
“It would be wrong to reject the grants before getting the facts,” McCrory said.
Tennyson — who like McCrory has a record of supporting rail-based mass-transit projects — said officials have to think of transportation as a network that by necessity uses many different kinds of technology.
“Public investments are in the system, not in specific facilities,” Tennyson said. “The fact you don’t ever drive on some road in the system doesn’t mean the money [to build it] was wasted, it just means it was necessary to make it a complete system.”
DOT officials have stressed that planning for the corridor has spanned decades, unfolding under governors of both parties.
The state House did weigh in on the issue in July 2009, voting 99-18 for a nonbinding resolution that encouraged DOT to apply for high-speed rail stimulus grants. The majority agreed “the capacity of the rail network serving North Carolina is strained, which impacts our consumers, producers, shippers, communities and citizens.”
The resolution attracted bipartisan support. All Democrats who cast votes that day backed it, while the GOP caucus split 34-18 in favor.
Tillis and his now No. 2, House Majority Leader Paul Stam, R-Wake, both voted for the resolution. Killian opposed it.
03.27.11 – 10:31 pm
By Ray Gronberg
Capping the Gas Tax (The Insider)
RALEIGH — We’ve been here before.
The last time came following Hurricane Katrina, in 2005 and 2006. Refineries shut down. Speculators jumped in. Gas prices started rising. North Carolina’s gas tax, which rises or falls every six months based on the wholesale price of gas, climbed with the increases.
A Republican gubernatorial candidate tried to turn the tax into a campaign bludgeon. Feeling the pressure, Democratic legislators popped his gas balloon by temporarily capping the tax.
That temporary cap ended two years ago. So today, with revolution in the air and on the ground in oil-rich Libya, the price of gas is back on the rise. The tax could go up with it come July.
Legislative Republicans are again discussing a tax cap.
There are, of course, some differences between 2011 and 2006. North Carolina and the nation are still struggling to shake off recession . For state government, the bill for that recession is just now coming due, as federal stimulus dollars disappear.
Tax collections still haven’t recovered. The good news is that North Carolina generally separates its highway tax collections from its general operating tax collections. Gas taxes go primarily to highway construction, meaning any cap shouldn’t affect teaching jobs or public university budgets.
What a tax cap — or a drop in tax collections due to falling demand during a recession — will do is slow down highway construction and delay road maintenance projects.
The proponents of a gas tax cap say that’s not necessarily the case. Some highway tax collection dollars, about $73 million, do feed into the state’s general operating budget. Critics of that money movement like to call it a “raid” or “supplanting,” but it is part of a swap that’s been in place since the creation of the Highway Trust Fund in the late 1980s.
Gasoline and other highway-related taxes also pay for the operation of the state Highway Patrol and drivers education programs in the public schools. But trying to significantly cut either would be both foolish and politically risky.
Understanding that, thoughts that capping the tax won’t slow down road construction and maintenance are really just wishful thinking.
Capping the tax at its current 32.5 cents per gallon will save taxpayers, though. The state Department of Transportation estimates that the old tax cap saved motorists $540 million during the three years that it was in place. Not that all those drivers were North Carolinians. Plenty gasoline sold here is bought by motorists just driving through along interstates and state highways.
The difference between tax rates among the states is another argument for a cap.
When North Carolina’s gas tax rises significantly higher than that of neighboring South Carolina and Virginia, border area residents notice. Making a pit stop in that other state makes more sense.
What North Carolinians and their elected representatives need to decide is whether saving $20 or $30 a year is worth driving through a few more potholes or waiting an additional six months for that nearby road project.
By Scott Mooneyham
March 28, 2011
Editorial: Fast track or dead end? (Salisbury Post)
Area lawmakers say they’re just exercising fiscal caution in endorsing a state bill that potentially could derail $461 million in federal stimulus to create North Carolina’s portion of a high-speed rail corridor between Washington and Charlotte.
However, the bill’s title suggests a different destination: “No High-Speed Rail money From Federal Gov’t.” And, in three states, that’s exactly what Republican lawmakers and governors have done. Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio have turned down their share of stimulus money for high-speed rail projects, and North Carolina could pick up a portion of that money. If the state rejects this funding, it won’t put money back in the taxpayers’ pockets, but it could set back track and crossing improvements, including approximately $100 million worth of projects in Rowan County.
In co-sponsoring the N.C. bill, Reps. Fred Steen and Harry Warren said they’re concerned about the state taking on future financial obligations it can’t afford regarding maintenance and upkeep, and they want to ensure the legislature has oversight over high-speed spending decisions. Digging into the fine print is part of the due diligence legislators should do. Nobody wants to acquire a pig in a poke, no matter how fast it runs. But they also should carefully consider the benefits that the high-speed rail project can bring — benefits that won endorsement for the project from Sen. Richard Burr and Reps. Howard Coble and Sue Myrick, among others in the N.C. Congressional delegation.
In the short term, those benefits are jobs — an estimated 4,800 over the next two years — and safer, more convenient rail service. Rail commuters aren’t the only ones who stand to gain; so do motorists who will benefit from upgrades that will reconfigure hazardous and time-consuming grade crossings like the one in Salisbury at Klumac Road. Longer term, North Carolina’s cities and towns along the corridor will benefit from increased ridership — the state recently added a third train to the Raleigh-Charlotte route — and high-speed connections to major municipalities in other parts of the country.
If North Carolina rejects this funding, it doesn’t gain anything — and it’s not as if rejection of stimulus funding negates the need for future rail improvements, lessens the coordination complications between freight trains and passenger cars, replaces outdated crossings or relieves the congestion on our roads. The future will continue coming at us just a fast. We just won’t be as prepared for it. So by all means scrutinize the potential costs of high-speed rail, listen to constituents’ concerns and ask questions. But as for the notion that North Carolina can’t afford to look that far down the tracks, how can it afford not to?
Tuesday, March 29, 201
Gas Tax Cap Opposed (HIGH POINT ENTERPRISE)
HIGH POINT, N.C. — City leaders are hoping state lawmakers don’t enact a bill they argue would harm a major transportation funding source.
The High Point City Council next month will consider adopting a resolution in opposition to N.C. House Bill 399, which would cap the state gas tax at the current rate of 32.5 cents per gallon. The tax funds state and local transportation initiatives, from resurfacing of streets to major construction projects. It’s also the main source of Powell Bill revenues, which cities use for maintenance of local streets. Capping the gas tax at its current rate could cost the state up to $100 million per year, while saving only 20 cents per week for the average driver, according to the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition.
The possible revenue loss looms large in High Point, which has an estimated 60 miles of streets with deteriorated pavement conditions.
“Just look at the intersection of Johnson and Eastchester. That’s just one. You could find 1,000 more all over town,” Councilman Latimer Alexander said. “If we don’t fund transportation, we’re going to lose out.”
The city put off asphalt-resurfacing work for two years to save money. Until 2009, the city budgeted up to $2 million annually for resurfacing and typically paved about 10 miles of roadway per year.
Officials said there is a critical need to resume the funding, but finding the money is difficult because of uncertainty in the state and local budgetary outlook. It would take an estimated $9 million to bring the city’s backlog of substandard streets up to good condition.
North Carolina has the highest gas tax rate in the Southeast and the third most roads in the nation, according to city transportation officials. The proposed legislation would place a 15-cent cap on the portion of the gas tax rate that is adjusted every six months as the wholesale price of gasoline changes.
The other part of the tax is a flat 17.5-cent rate that does not fluctuate. With wholesale prices on the rise recently, the tax is expected to go up this summer unless the legislature takes action to approve a cap.
BY PAT KIMBROUGH, HIGH POINT ENTERPRISE
POSTED: 8:45 am EDT March 29, 2011
UPDATED: 8:47 am EDT March 29, 2011
Editorial: Fibrant war, one down, more to go (Salisbury Post)
The war metaphor is often overused in politics, with people talking of battles, clashes, victories and defeats. But the cable industry is waging nothing less than war against Salisbury and other municipalities that have developed their own broadband networks. If the industry succeeds, it will defeat not only city government but also city taxpayers and residents.
Time for a call to arms.
The city won a key battle last week when the House Finance Committee voted 26-1 to exempt Salisbury and other existing municipal systems from House Bill 129. Called the “Level Playing Field” bill, it is designed to curtail local governments’ ability to get into the broadband business. The House approved the revised bill Thursday, 80-32.
But that was just one battle. More will come as the matter works its way through the state Senate. The war is far from over.
Newly elected Rep. Harry Warren has been a key ally for the city. A Salisbury resident, Warren offered the amendment to HB 129 to exempt municipalities with existing systems. For these towns — Salisbury, Wilson, Davidson, Mooresville and Morganton — the debate over whether government should get into the broadband business is moot. They’re in it. And the last thing they need is an assault on their efforts to make those systems successful.
Lawmakers who want to appear business-friendly face a question — at what price? Does protecting the cable industry justify crippling these cities’ systems and moving the burden to taxpayers? If advocates for HB 129 really want to protect citizens from doomed municipal ventures, as they say, they would avoid hurting the existing systems.
And let’s talk about level playing fields. Since Salisbury launched Fibrant, Time Warner has offered local customers faster service at lower prices — not too difficult for a company that reported fourth-quarter revenue of $7.81 billion last year. In its cable networks division alone, total revenue rose 14 percent to $3.3 billion.
And they’re worried about small cities like Salisbury having an unfair advantage?
City officials saw a need for broadband service. Time Warner and AT&T were not ready to extend that level of service to all parts of Salisbury, so the city legally and publicly launched its own network. If things go according to the city’s plan, revenue from the network will pay off the $30 million bond that built Fibrant. It’s in taxpayers’ best interests to see Fibrant succeed — which calls into question the motives of the Rowan County Tea Party, which called for a sunset clause to lift the city’s exemption in three to five years.
No doubt we’ll hear more about that as the battlefield moves from the House to the Senate. Salisbury cannot afford to lose, and neither can its taxpayers.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Proposed cap on gas tax could hurt local roads (Fayetteville Observer)
RALEIGH – With gas prices averaging more than $3.50 a gallon this spring, a bill in the North Carolina House seeks to give relief to drivers by limiting the gasoline tax.
But such a move would cut revenue for highway construction, meaning Fayetteville’s Outer Loop could face more delays.
North Carolina capped the gas tax in 2006, and that was one reason work on the loop slowed, a state transportation official said.
Lawmakers canceled the limit on gas taxes in 2009, setting instead a minimum tax of 29.9 cents per gallon. The boost in revenue revived highway funds; six miles of Outer Loop construction is just getting under way, two years late.
Since Jan. 1, gas prices have risen about 50 cents, and they are projected to continue climbing into summer. State lawmakers are considering House Bill 399, which would reinstate the cap on fuel taxes to soften the price increases for consumers. Advocates point to how neighboring states have lower gas taxes, which makes North Carolina less competitive.
“North Carolina must be more responsible with the gas taxes it collects, and we must be more competitive so businesses along our state’s border do not lose business,” said a statement from Rep. Michael C. Stone of Sanford, a Republican who is a prime sponsor of the bill.
The tax cap from 2006 to 2009 saved drivers about $540 million over three years, according to the Transportation Department.
“There’s a lot of people that are concerned with rising gas prices, and this bill is an attempt, in my opinion, to start the discussion about what we want to do with this gas tax,” said Rep. Ric Killian of Charlotte, another prime sponsor.
The motor fuels tax, which applies to gasoline and diesel, is currently 32.5 cents per gallon. The state adjusts the tax every six months based on wholesale prices. The tax is expected to rise about 2 cents on July 1, unless the bill becomes law.
A 2-cent increase would cost the average driver about $15 more a year, said Greer Beaty, a spokeswoman for the transportation department. The estimate assumes 15,000 miles of travel in a car that averages 20 miles per gallon.
North Carolina’s fuel tax collects $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion a year. Besides building highways, the transportation department uses the money to repave and repair roads, fill potholes and clear snow. A portion of the money goes to cities and towns to help them pay for street maintenance.
The tax cap would prevent the state from collecting an average of $97 million more per year over the next 10 years, according to DOT estimates.
Fayetteville City Manager Dale Iman and a lobbyist for the state’s mayors said the proposal will hurt municipalities in the long run.
“If the gas tax cap bill is passed, the city of Fayetteville will have to make more difficult decisions in order to keep our roads in good shape,” Iman said. “It’s unfortunate that the gas tax is being capped at a time when the city of Fayetteville has invested significant money into road resurfacing projects.”
The city would have to cut other parts of its budget to pay for the street work, Iman said.
The DOT made 10 years of roadwork plans based on the premise that the tax would rise as specified by the 2009 gasoline tax law.
A cap would cost Fayetteville and other Cumberland County communities a total of $680,000 in road maintenance money, known as Powell bill funds, under that plan, the DOT estimates.
Including Powell bill funds and other state spending that relies on the fuel tax, the DOT predicts that a tax cap would reduce roadwork money available by $14.5 million over the next 10 years in Cumberland County. Maintenance of 342.6 miles of roads in the county would be put off.
A $58.7 billion bypass around Greenville would be delayed, and multi-million-dollar projects in other cities would be on the bubble, too.
Statewide, the cap would reduce the money the DOT is expected to receive by $967.7 million. That would affect 18,467 miles of roads that the department plans to resurface.
Drivers would have to get along without widened roads and put up with unfixed potholes, said Julie White, a lobbyist for the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition.
White would like the cap to be around 34 to 35 cents, instead of the 32.5 cents proposed by Killian.
Killian’s gas tax cap could delay completion of 7.5 miles of the Outer Loop, said Mark Foster, the Transportation Department’s chief financial officer. That section of I-295 will run from the All American Freeway to Ramsey Street, where it will connect with the previously built portion to carry traffic to I-95.
The state had been poised to put the section of I-295, estimated at $270 million, out for bid in late 2008. Then it ran out of money.
“We had to delay all projects,” Foster said.
The cash shortage was caused by the recession cutting state revenue in general, as well as the gas tax cap, he said.
“That $500 million would have gone a long way to smoothing the delivery of those projects,” he said.
The federal economic stimulus program of 2009 revived 1.5 miles of the I-295 project that summer. The bridges are being built and the roadbed graded, but not paved.
The rest has had to wait until this year. The state this month awarded a bid for some of the project, and more is to go to bid over the summer. None of the work includes paving.
The state typically allows construction projects that are under way to continue, Foster said. But work that hasn’t been started, including the paving of I-295, would be subject to postponement if there isn’t enough money for it.
Killian, the tax cap sponsor, said I-295 and other road projects should be able to draw on other money at the transportation department.
In all, Killian said, the department takes in $4 billion from various fuel and motor-vehicle-related taxes, and only $3 billion is spent on roads. The rest, he said, goes to other things – nonroad transportation projects, such as rail.
Killian cited as examples DOT tax revenue used to supplement general government spending ($70 million per year), run the N.C. Highway Patrol ($200 million) and teach drivers education in public schools ($40 million to $50 million).
“We have to minimize that so we can maintain the system that we have and build out the projects like your loop,” Killian said.
Stone, the other lawmaker, said the federal government should step up to fund the majority of I-295 in the interest of Fort Bragg security and military readiness.
“It is irresponsible of the federal government to place 40,815 people in the area and not provide funding for safe roads. It is the least the federal government can do to make our military families’ lives easier when they are back from serving in combat,” his statement said.
By Paul Woolverton
Staff writer
Published: 06:49 AM, Sun Mar 27, 2011
