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Region 'shortchanged' in road plan, lawmaker says
[Sep-13-2006]
By Mannix Porterfield
REGISTER-HERALD REPORTER
CHARLESTON - Four consulting firms plowed into five categories, using a Wisconsin road priority model in devising a controversial six-year highway plan for West Virginia, Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox explained Tuesday.
But one southern lawmaker afterward was miffed at the 170-project plan by its failure to assign a high ranking to roads in his region.
Huge boxes crammed with printouts of various data greeted members of Finance Subcommittee C, which had demanded a full accounting of how the plan came about soon after Gov. Joe Manchin took office.
So heavy were the bulging containers the committee pressed staff into toting them back to the offices of the lawmakers when the meeting ended.
"I think they did a 'shock and awe' on the committee today," Delegate Richard Browning, D-Wyoming, complained.
"I had asked for all the information and they just wanted to really just give us so much we couldn't digest it."
Site-Blauevelt Engineers Inc., E.L. Robinson Engineering Co., HNTB Corp. and HDR Engineering Inc. performed the analysis of road needs, working into five categories and based on a plan employed in Wisconsin from a short list of four states that also included Florida, Ohio and Washington.
Economics accounted for 40 percent of the consideration in working up the plan, Mattox told the panel.
Traffic flow and safety made up 20 percent apiece, while environmental and local/regional planning the remaining 10 percent each, he said.
I wanted to make sure the criteria that they used would apply fairly all over the state, Browning said. I dont believe they do.
Browning quizzed Mattox at length about the criteria used to form the plan, which includes not a single mile of highway in southern West Virginia in the upper portion of the list. The delegate felt the criteria should have been adjusted because population losses left southern counties at a disadvantage.
Under the plan, the first three ranked projects are all on W.Va. 9 in the Eastern Panhandle, at a combined cost of $162.6 million.
Ranked fourth through eighth are projects on U.S. 35, at a clip of $407.6 million.
Widening of Interstate 64 in the Nitro area for $102.7 million is ninth, while the 10th slot went to an Interstate 81 project in Martinsburg.
While displeased with some answers, Browning said the opening round with the DOT was at least "a good place to start."
"We got shortchanged because of the sad conditions of our economy," he said of the southern region.
"We can't be measured, we can't be compared to other parts of the state, because we have no basis for comparison. Once again, we're getting the short end of the stick."
Mattox emphasized, however, that matching state dollars are pledged to some projects in that region - the King Coal Highway, Coalfields Expressway, Shawnee Parkway, Beckley Bypass and the Fairmont Connector in the north - as long as Congress keeps putting up some federal cash.
"We will match," he said.
Money is the big holdup for the states highway system overall, Mattox said, noting the six-year plan bears a price tag of $20 billion at a time West Virginia's resources are dwindling. In the coming year, he said, the state has but some $91 million in hand.
"There are an awful lot of projects that need funding," he said.
Given its dearth of finances, Mattox predicted only between 6.5 percent and 8 percent of the 170 projects actually will be completed in the next 24 years unless theres a dramatic improvement in the cash flow.
Browning and Mattox struck a harmonious chord on the issue of alternate funding methods, including the public-private partnership idea one the delegate has pushed in recent years.
"We're in the business of looking at alternate funding," Browning said, reminding Mattox the idea was supported in the Legislature but one of his predecessors opposed the concept.
"He thought he knew better than the rest of us," Browning said.
Browning told the secretary that economic authorities he works with in Wyoming County werent questioned by any of the consultants who were paid between $40,000 and $80,000 apiece for the study.
"I'm just wondering how much research was done," he said.
Browning suggested the population density factor was especially unfair to the southern region, given its loss of population over the past three decades, one he said could be attributed largely to the lack of a viable highway system.
Mattox agreed some alternate means of lassoing money for the strapped Division of Highways are in order, telling the panel, "We need to look beyond the gasoline tax and the privilege tax."
One idea he personally tossed out would collect a percentage of the property value when an increase is linked to the addition of a four-lane highway.
Committee members plan to devote two full days in October interims to digging deeper into the voluminous materials provided by Mattox, and possibly in November, they will get an in-person explanation by the four consultants.
"he six-year plan is meant to be a living document," Mattox said at one point. "It will change."
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