STATE 51%; FEDS 49% IN MARQUETTE PROJECT FINAL COST TALLY

Would Put State on Hook for $969,000,000 I-94 N/S Project Tab

"Astonishing" Says Former Mayor

Special to the Readers of milwaukeeworld

By Michael Horne

and the Milwaukee World Hound Dog Team

Forget the 80%/20% split -- that historical Federal / State funding ratio for sharing highway construction costs. It turns out Wisconsin taxpayers funded over half of the recently completed Marquette Interchange project. The news comes as a surprise to many, including a former Milwaukee mayor who worked on many highway budgets while serving in the legislature.

As a result, Wisconsin legislators will have to find $969 million in their next four budgets to pay the state's share of the proposed $1.9 billion I-94 N/S Corridor Reconstruction and Expansion. It would be the largest public works project in state history, and the Wisconsin taxpayers' thus-unfunded share would be hundreds of millions of dollars more than the public had been led to believe by the administration.
This projection is based on the final cost tally for the Marquette Interchange project released to milwaukeeworld by the Federal Highway Administration [FHWA].
Wisconsin's share of that project, completed with fanfare on August 19th, 2008, was 51%. The feds picked up the remaining 49%.
Expect the same ratio for the I-94 project, scheduled to run from 2009 - 2016. Governor Jim Doyle got a head start on the job by letting two contracts for preliminary work in August using money in the state budget allocated for that purpose in anticipation of federal revenues.
Sometime in November he will have to submit a plan to the United States Department of Transportation submitting his budget, including how large a share he would like the feds to pay. You can bet it won't be 80 per cent.

According to Nancy Singer of the FHWA:

"We are expecting the financial plan for the project from the state in November, so at this time we can not definitively state how Wisconsin plans to fund the total project. The North-South project being interstate would be eligible for a maximum of 90/10 funding, but we do not expect the state to propose anything close to the maximum allowable. For example the Marquette Interchange has ended up being 49% federal and 51% state." [Emphasis added]

That means, if trends continue, Wisconsin will face a $969,000,000 bill for its share of the project, far higher than any number previously publicly disclosed. Coupled with a projected $3 billion state budget deficit that looms for the next biennium and the collapse of the Federal Highway Trust Fund, Doyle's freeway might face a dead end.

Former Milwaukee mayor John O. Norquist, now head of the Congress for the New Urbanism, and a longtime opponent of freeways, wrote to milwaukeeworld:

"The fact that the Feds covered only 49% of the cost of the Marquette Interchange should be astonishing to anyone who listened to the advocates of the project. They lied or just dissembled if you wish to be polite. ... WISDOT obviously doesn't want the I 94 widening project to have to compete against other perhaps more worthy projects so they misleadingly imply that the project attracts additional discretionary funding from the Federal government. It does not."


Norquist goes on to explain that after the "infamous" Big Dig Tunnel project in Boston siphoned off "way more than its share of federal funding," the federal government changed to a minimum state funding allocation in response to legislation supported by Wisconsin congressman Tom Petri, [R-6th], then chairman of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit of the House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Norquist wrote:
"The Fed money assigned to I-94 widening and reconstruction from Milwaukee to the Illinois boundary is Fed money that could go to any Fed aid eligible projects in Wisconsin. Under the ISTEA law the Fed highway funds can be used for other paving projects and even transit or intercity trains like the proposed KRM Express.
So neither the Marquette nor the I-94 project attract additional Fed dollars to Wisconsin."

What's his solution? Norquist says the existing freeway could be resurfaced to last over another decade without "improvements" and "expansion." The money saved (or at least that part which the economy can provide) could be used for other more worthy projects like bridge replacement -- and a rational, sustainable transportion infrastrcture.

"WISDOT likes to make the point that widening is a relatively small incremental cost. They fix the cost of rebuild of the current 6 lanes at $1.4 Billion. The cost of rebuild at 6 lanes plus "modernization"( which mainly means making ramps longer and wider) is fixed at $1.7 Billion. The cost of 8 lanes instead of 6 is fixed at $1.9 Billion or a mere $200 million more than 6 lanes plus "modernization. So what the Heck, for only .2 billion more why not go for 8 lanes instead of the measly 6? It sounds like a bargain. What they don't tell Wisconsin taxpayers and what they don't want them to know is that they could resurface the existing 6 lane I 94 for a small fraction of the cost of rebuilding it and the resurface could add a good 12 years or more to the life of the existing 6 lane non "modernized" road."

WHAT ABOUT TRANSIT FUNDING?

The Doyle administration has allowed the planning for the proposed Kenosha - Racine - Milwaukee [KRM] commuter project to languish. Wisconsin Department of Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi, who for some reason has a national reputation as a rail transit advocate, would throw up his hands when it came to state funding for the project, blaming the old 80%/20% funding split, and the mutual unlikihood that the feds would pay 80 per cent or the state could afford more than 20 per cent.

However, with the revelation of the 51% - 49% state - federal share of the Marquette Interchange project, that financial calculus has been thrown out the window.

According to Steve Filmanowicz of CNU, "This is just another sign of how [disingenuous Busalacchi] is when he says that Wisconsin can plunge ahead with highway projects because they're federally funded but that the state can't move forward in the same way with transit projects because they lack Federal funding. The same funds can be used almost interchangeably for highway projects or transit projects. And if they're going to fund highway projects with 50% state money, Fed law allows funding transit projects with the same mix of Fed and state money. All aboard!"

In testimony to the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on October 2nd, 2003, Busalacchi referenced the then- 80%/20% split, and revealed his mindset on federal funding.

The topic was Amtrak's capital budget. Busalacchi was almost plaintive about the need for rail passenger funding for Wisconsin, but told the senators not to expect much until rail and highways were funded at parity. And by that he meant 80% - 20% Federal - State, and not 51% - 49% State - Federal:
"We believe the Capital Program should be modeled on the federal highway and transit programs which have statutory 80/20 shares."
Well the statutes and the shares have changed. So should the Doyle administration's transportation policies. We cannot afford the economic and social costs of ramming an eight lane freeway through Southeast Wisconsin when there are cheaper and more sustainable options.
-- Michael Horne