"maintenance always gets shortchanged"

Bridge Collapse Revives Issue of Road Spending

Bridge Collapse Revives Issue of Road Spending
By SUSAN SAULNY and JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: August 7, 2007
Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota appears to have had a change of heart about raising the state’s gas tax to pay for transportation needs.

Excerpts:

Even as the cause of the bridge disaster here remains under investigation, the collapse is changing a lot of minds about spending priorities. It has focused national attention on the crumbling condition of America’s roadways and bridges — and on the financial and political neglect they have received in Washington and many state capitals.

Despite historic highs in transportation spending, the political muscle of lawmakers, rather than dire need, has typically driven where much of the money goes. That has often meant construction of new, politically popular roads and transit projects rather than the mundane work of maintaining the worn-out ones.

Further, transportation and engineering experts said, lawmakers have financed a boom in rail construction that, while politically popular, has resulted in expensive transit systems that are not used by a vast majority of American commuters.

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Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in a telephone interview Monday that earmarks for transportation in federal legislation were “almost always new construction and not maintenance.” Earlier, Mr. Schumer said that he would introduce legislation next month to double a proposed federal transportation bill appropriation, with a focus on upkeep to $10 billion.

“The bottom line,” Mr. Schumer said, “is that routine but important things like maintenance always get shortchanged because it’s nice for somebody to cut a ribbon for a new structure.”


Comments: It's a sad state of affairs when politics (and pork spending) will direct funds to new projects while leaving existing infrastructure maintenance unfunded. Picture is from a ribbon cutting ceremony for I-94 in Wisconsin