Most of this appeared in the Providence Journal, October, 2000
One:
DOT simply borrows too much, and for the wrong things. DOT has made some reforms in recent years: they have cut the amount of borrowing, and moderated the worst abuses, such as borrowing for salaries. (Although DOT documents aren't clear if this is real reform or one-time accounting gimcrackery. Some of the borrowing cutback is covered by proceeds from land sales.) The basic problem remains that roads don't last as long as the bonds we use to build them.
Few states finance road construction with debt. Most recognize that road construction and maintenance are permanent activities, reserving debt for the occasional large project. But we here in Rhode Island have embraced borrowing as an integral part of our road-financing strategy, and virtually every piece of new construction is financed over 30 years.
You don't have to take the word of an outside analyst on the subject. Listen to DOT's own analysis. The current budget has DOT borrowing $30 million per year for the foreseeable future. Here's what Bill Ankner, DOT director, has to say about it in the letter to Governor Almond accompanying the FY2002 DOT budget request (October 18, 2000):
"[T]he $30 million dollar per year level...is still too much.... Debt service costs will continue to rise and there will not be sufficient Gas Tax revenue to meet the debt service obligations and finance the operations of the Department."
Beyond 2002?
"[I]t is unlikely that the [Gas Tax] yields will keep pace with rising personnel costs and the forecasted increases in debt service. The Department will need to look to other dedicated sources to fund its operations."
In other words, the director of DOT believes the Department is on course for fiscal disaster. Why on earth then does the department's budget project borrowing $30 million per year until 2005 and beyond? The current practices are not sustainable and anybody who can count can see that. Ankner apparently can count well enough to see the impending crisis, but what are he -- and the Governor -- doing to stop it? Asking for permission to borrow more money.
Is it worse not to know there is a problem or to know and do nothing?
Two:
After borrowing, it's important to look at what DOT does with their
(excuse me, "our") money. The list of current DOT projects (the "TIP"
list) is larded with unnecessary road projects, and once again skimps
on needed improvements to transit. RIPTA ridership is decreasing,
down more than 10% since 1999. Do we invest more to restore the
system to a useful state? Do we finally start building commuter
stations? No, we fully fund all highways and relegate RIPTA to the
uncertain margins. We have plenty of lip service to "intermodal
transportation", but only just enough dollars to keep that lip service
honest. Here's what the TIP document (September 2000) says about
RIPTA and our investment in public transit:
Suffice it to say that no such note is made about highway funding.
Three:
Even if you think that borrowing is a dandy way to finance roads, and even if you're content with DOT so favoring roads over buses, another problem with the referendum is that it commingles needed maintenance and unneeded construction. According to DOT, we have to have both -- or neither. A vote for the bond fund is presented as a vote for fixing the roads and bridges, but a vote for the bond is really a vote for a new highway to Quonset, and a vote to relocate Rt 195 about a half-mile downstream, among other questionable construction projects. The first is a waste of $120 million. Quonset is already served by a wide road that goes directly there from the highway, and the new road won't even address the major transportation problem at Quonset: access to the south.
The second, the relocation of I-195 might be a good project, but it will cost well over $330 million, and DOT projects it to take 11 years. Counting debt service, that's more than $30 per year for every man, woman, and child among us for 11 years. Would you pay this much for your family for a new bridge over the Providence River? Furthermore, why should we believe these cost estimates?
These two projects alone account for almost 60% of the highway program budget this year.
Four:
Virtually none of the bond funds will be used for road maintenance. DOT funds maintenance out of the gas tax and from federal funds. To claim otherwise, as Director Ankner has done in this newspaper, directly contradicts claims made in the TIP list and budget documents.
The bond is presented as a referendum for maintenance, and perhaps that's the way the voters understand it. But it will be understood by DOT as an endorsement of the Quonset connector, relocating I-195, and other grandiose road projects. It will be understood as an endorsement of the ridiculous and destructive DOT financial management, and it will be understood as a vote of confidence in DOT's management of our state's transportation needs.
Unless you feel proud of that management, vote no on 3.
While researching this article, I happened to be at DOT on Tuesday afternoon, a couple of weeks before election day, when Bill Ankner, DOT director, was on Arlene Violet's radio show, promoting the bond issue in question. Entirely by coincidence, I was sitting in the conference room in the director's office, reading the budget documents I mention above. Naturally, everyone in the office was listening to Ankner and Arlene, and naturally they all had opinions about what was said.
Naturally, they'd shut the door on me, for privacy, but also naturally, the doors there are cheap. I especially enjoyed the loud snorts of derision at the caller who asked why cost overruns seemed to be a necessary part of DOT's business. The caller mentioned a recently built hotel in NYC, and pointed out that it had managed to be constructed on budget. A voice (belonging to one of DOT's many Chief Engineers) from the other room proclaimed, "What's the problem? They're completely different kinds of businesses."
In response to other callers, who had the temerity to complain about their loss of business due to construction projects running behind schedule, the comment was made that the director shouldn't have gone on the show without an engineer with him to explain the perfectly good reason why the bridge over the RR tracks off Elmwood ave has taken so long to be fixed (several years) -- as if this would have restored the money these guys had lost. The real problem, according to the chief voice is that Ankner was allowed out in public without an engineer-chaperone. This was blamed on the innocence and inexperience of the publicist who'd arranged the interview.
The entire gist of the conversation was that DOT's problems are entirely made of bad publicity and ineffective publicists. The chief voice rhetorically asked why Ankner didn't mention that all the construction around the Mall was done under budget and on schedule. This, of course, simply begs the question why public work done for a big private corporation gets first class treatment, while public work for a poor neighborhood off Elmwood Ave gets forgotten.
I've rarely enjoyed one of Arlene's broadcasts more.