BUSH TO TAP TRANSIT BILLIONS TO BUILD FREEWAYS

BUSH TO “BORROW” $2.7 BILLION FROM TRANSIT FUND TO FINANCE $3.7 BILLION HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION DEFICIT

Special to the Readers of milwaukeeworld.com

By Michael Horne

In testimony April 3rd, 2008 before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, it was reported that the Bush administration has proposed two measures for remedying an expected $3.7 billion cumulative FY2009 deficit in the Highway Account of the Highway Trust Fund.

The first would cut federal highway investment to $39.4 billion in 2009 from the announced $41.2 billion. (The $1.8 billion difference is roughly the proposed cost of the I-94 North – South corridor project championed by the Doyle administration.)

The second plan of the administration to maintain solvency in the Highway Trust Fund would be to borrow $2.7 billion for highway construction from the separate Mass Transit Account which is not in a deficit condition at this time. (It won't go broke until 2012). According to testimony of James S. Simpson, Administrator, Federal Transit Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, the numbers work out like this: "The administration is projecting a $3.2 billion shortfall in the Highway Account. The Mass Transit Account is expected to remain solvent through FY 2009, with an estimated balance of $4.4 billion, leaving a net total of $1.2 billion in the combined Highway Trust Fund at the end of FY 2009." Simpson asks for "a new flexibility to manage funds," and requested "temporary authority to allow 'repayable advances' between the Highway and Mass Transit accounts."

Speaking to the subcommittee, which includes Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl as a member, John McCaskie, representing the Transportation Construction Coalition said highway worker employment has dropped 2.4% nationally over the past 14 months. He expects a reduction of as much as 32% in federal highway funding "in every state," which could radically increase unemployment in highway construction trades during an otherwise weak economy. He projects an environment when "state departments of transportation could move forward on federal-aid highway projects, but the Federal Highway Administration [FHWA] would not be able to pay the bills on time," adding that most states get their federal aid shares within 24 hours. "But when the Highway Account cash balance is exhausted, FHWA can pay bills only as new revenues come in, which means most bills will be days to weeks late."

Facing such a funding crisis, he says, "state DOTs often hold back on starting new projects. They simply cannot afford to commit money they may not receive." This could bode ill for Wisconsin’s plans to widen I-94, which could be good news, if it weren’t for the dangerous and reckless proposal to borrow transit funds to build highways. William W. Millar, President of the American Public Transportation Association, told the senators "the President's short-sighted transportation policy 'fix' is irresponsible and flies in the face of common sense, " and that it "jeopardizes public transportation investment by hastening the insolvency of the mass transit account."

Nationally, heavy and civil engineering employment peaked in January 2007, and has declined 2.4 per cent since then, leaving 24,400 construction workers jobless, according to McCaskey of the construction coalition.

This is all very bad news for Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle and Wisconsin Department of Transportation [WisDOT] Secretary Frank Busalacchi. From the era of Caesar to the age of Tommy Thompson, rulers have relied on road construction projects to help spur employment and to boost their campaign coffers.

The 3,425.93 workers employed by Busalacchi’s department represent only a fraction of the folks who depend on his $4,599,579,500 budget for their paychecks.

MORE HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION DOLLARS = FEWER CONSTRUCTION JOBS

Highway construction is heavily reliant on human labor, even in this age of mechanization, and thus is quite appealing to governors hoping to prop up their state’s employment rate. Alas, another orthodoxy is about to be laid to rest thanks to Bushonomics.

At the end of March, the FHWA revised downward its job estimates for a typical $1 billion spent in highway construction. Folks like Doyle and Busalacchi used the previous figure of 47,500 jobs created per $1 billion spent when they planned the I-94 project. The new figures, released in a report to Congress, drastically diminish that number. The new estimate is only 30,076 jobs per billion dollars spent on highway projects. Why? It’s certainly not because workers’ wages nearly doubled. Instead, the report points to dramatic increases in the price of steel, concrete, diesel fuel and gasoline absorbing the money previously spent on wages for workers. I suppose the increase in concrete prices might be helping Wisconsin’s lime cartel, but sending our money to China for steel and to Saudia Arabia for oil instead of sending it to southeast Wisconsin for wages seems counterproductive. Perhaps the governor and Busalacchi should study how many jobs they could create per billion dollars spent on construction of a comprehensive, integrated transportation infrastructure.--Michael Horne

ABOUT THOSE “PUBLIC NOTIFICATIONS,” “PUBLIC HEARINGS,” PUBLIC COMMENTS”

The people have spoken and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation [WisDOT] doesn’t care. That’s business as usual, according to James Rowen, who has been frequently critical of the department on his Political Environment blog.

“These public input charades, these hearings, are a fake process, a formality. … More truth: It's a closed, tightly-controlled process, designed to look open.”

Although it says “public hearings are an integral part of the public involvement process,” WisDOT presses on with its plans to widen I-94 from the Illinois line to Milwaukee, despite receiving more negative than positive comments from the public and interest groups. As environmental attorney Dennis Grzezinski told Sean Ryan of The Daily Reporter on April 9^th, 2008, “I’m still looking, without much hope, but I’m still looking for some sign that they even read much of what my clients and I submitted. It’s rather disappointing.”

According to the newspaper account, WisDOT comments ran to 128 against and 72 for the widening.

A city of Milwaukee request to devote $200 million of the $1.9 billion budget to transit projects in lieu of the land widening received 100 favorable comments and only seven against.

But both proposals were ignored, despite the department’s blithe promise on the I-94 North-South Corridor website that “WisDOT places a high priority on public involvement and plans to conduct a full and open process … WisDOT will consider all input and incorporate key issues into the planning process.”

--Michael Horne

FRIENDS INVITED, OPPONENTS EXCLUDED

According to the project website, “the study team will continually provide updates via project newsletters, news releases and e-mail notifications,” and provided a means for interested citizens to subscribe to the latter feature. Last year, Milwaukeeworld signed up and waited for the continuous updates to start jamming its mailbox. Instead, only two were ever sent, one in November, 2007 announcing the details of the highway plan, and another in December, 2007 announcing the rescheduling of a hearing cancelled due to snow.

Just to be sure, the MilwaukeeWorld Hound Dog Team checked the site from time to time just to see if we were missing anything. For a time, it looked like we didn’t. But in March, using an independent electronic notification service not associated with WisDOT, news came through of an “I-94 Traffic Mitigation Stakeholder Kickoff,” which had been held under the department’s auspices a month before on February 14^th, 2008.. A reasonable person would have expected that an organizational meeting to coordinate a half decade’s worth of highway construction issues would have been worthy of an e-mail notification, and of the publication of the 46-page plan on the department’s website.

But WisDOT doesn’t operate that way, so the MilwaukeeWorld Chief Hound Dog wrote the department’s Roberto Gutierrez and it counsel, Atty. Robert J. Jambois [UW ‘81] to complain:

I note the enclosed "Stakeholder Kick-Off" document, and I have read its contents. Why was this meeting not publicized? How did you determine who would be notified of this meeting? It appears you "cherry picked" the stakeholders. Furthermore, no mention of this meeting or of this document appears on your official project website. Also, there was no notification of this meeting sent to those on your mailing list. I believe this is a serious matter and I propose to use it to show that you are not following the proper and legal procedures for a project of this magnitude.

/s/ Michael Horne

Christopher Klein of WisDOT then asked milwaukeeworld to outline the procedures it felt the department was failing to follow. We didn’t fall for that hoary old trap and declined to do so. Out of order!

Gutierrez later outlined the stakeholder team’s mission, but did not address any of the other concerns raised in the letter, other than a little legalese saying the “extensive public involvement process … has followed all National Environmental Policy Act guidance and requirements.”

Old Attorney’s Adage:

“If you have the facts, argue the facts. If you have the law, argue the law.”

--Michael Horne