More money needed to fix NH highways, lawmakers told

[Recumbent ReCycler]

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=More+money+needed+to+fix+NH+highways%2c+lawmakers+told&articleId=5c8d3b16-7423-433a-a80a-1fc5905137ea

More money needed to fix NH highways, lawmakers told

By TOM FAHEY
State House Bureau Chief
Thursday, Aug. 2, 2007

CONCORD – Gasoline tax hikes and higher tolls are on a list of proposed fixes to the state Highway Fund that acting Transportation Commissioner Charles O'Leary recommended to lawmakers yesterday.

Even if the state cuts $1.1 billion in proposed highway work, the state will need an extra 22 cents a gallon in gas taxes over the next 20 years for the state to stay even.

O'Leary has said the current Ten-Year Highway Plan is really a 35-year, $4.5 billion plan. He has proposed cutting the list to $3.4 billion, which would take 22 years to finish.

Even with the cuts, he said, the state has to find more money for maintenance because the state Highway Fund balance is shrinking. He expects an average operating deficit of $74 million a year over the next 10 years if nothing changes.

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O'Leary told a special committee studying the Ten-Year plan that it should also consider increasing tolls across the board, or selectively to pay for turnpike projects. He also suggested a new toll booth on the F.E. Everett Turnpike in Nashua, where one was designed but never built.

Lawmakers said they will study O'Leary's ideas this fall and introduce a complete bill on highway plans, tolls and taxes in January.

Rep. Candace Bouchard, D-Concord, who chairs the House Public Works and Highways Committee, said she asked for a full list of ideas for shoring up the Highway Fund.

His list included sale or lease of toll roads, an idea that Bouchard gave scant chance of passing.

O'Leary provided figures that show New Hampshire's gasoline tax -- at 20.6 cents a gallon -- is the second-lowest in the New England, behind Vermont, and 7 cents below the U.S. average of 27.4 cents per gallon. It was last raised in 1992. Bouchard admitted that a gas tax increase could be politically risky.

"We're elected to be leaders, and sometimes you have to take steps that are politically awkward," she said.

"The hot potato item is the Nashua Toll Booth," she added.

The Nashua plaza would produce roughly $10 million a year, enough to cover a $130 million 30-year bond. O'Leary also suggested moving a Dover toll plaza to Newington to raise an extra $5 million a year.

O'Leary said cutting the E-ZPass discount from 30 percent to 15 percent would raise $7.5 million a year. Eliminating it would raise $15 million. Roughly 53 percent of turnpike revenues come from E-ZPass users.

He said the state should stop using highway funds on turnpikes. The ten-year plan calls for $300 million in federal aid to be spent on turnpikes through 2016.

"The turnpike system is supposed to be self-funded, but it is not," Rep. David Campbell, D-Nashua, said. He chairs a committee studying toll roads this fall and plans to coordinate with Bouchard plan on a highway bill this fall.

He noted that O'Leary's economic forecast assumes a somewhat rosy future. The numbers include modest increases in gasoline sales, steady funding from the federal government, where steep cuts are being proposed, and construction inflation at 3 percent a year, compared to 45 percent over the past three years.

Campbell said he thinks some kind of highway revenue boost is in the future.

"We can't build and pave roads or repair and maintain our bridges without cold, hard cash," he said.

I think if the state didn't misappropriate Article 6-a funds, we wouldn't have a shortage of highway funds.
Article 6-a of the NH Constitution:

All revenue in excess of the necessary cost of collection and administration accruing to the state from registration fees, operators' licenses, gasoline road tolls or any other special charges or taxes with respect to the operation of motor vehicles or the sale or consumption of motor vehicle fuels shall be appropriated and used exclusively for the construction, reconstruction and maintenance of public highways within this state, including the supervision of traffic thereon and payment of the interest and principal of obligations incurred for said purposes; and no part of such revenues shall, by transfer of funds or otherwise, be diverted to any other purpose whatsoever.

[mvpel]

And perhaps if various state departments didn't have to pay fees to one another in order to build a road...