Bishop: Welcome Joe Biden, to Roads That Don’t Work

Bishop: Welcome Joe Biden, to Roads That Don’t Work

Welcome Joe Biden, to roads that don’t work 

Thanks to RIDOT and USDOT, but you know all about that, the governor said so

Just in time for Joe Biden’s visit to observe the ‘progress’ of the Rhode Works program, its dirty secrets are being laundered at Statewide Planning which today holds a public hearing for a little known rubber stamp required for the expenditure of federal funds on any transportation project.

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The Transportation Improvement Program or TIP is meant to represent a check and balance on the DOT, but has come to be a blank check as of recent.  This year is no exception with a proposed amendment to the existing TIP (that ends this year!), to float $195 million in GARVEE bonds (anticipating future federal funds) for the 6/10 Connector. That would be the same 6/10 Connector which DOT has been falling all over itself to insist is not yet designed. Its back of the envelope conceptual work is subject to change, they say, based on community and environmental input and could look quite different.

First Find Out If Tolls Are Constitutional…

And after what seemed like a rare moment of clairvoyance in which RIDOT announced it intends to test the constitutionality of its proposal to toll only trucks by erecting our orphaned gantry from the Sakonnet River Bridge, they have nonetheless pursued a similar amendment to a plan that will expire long before any such litigation could even be heard. RIDOT wants authority now to tap the same GARVEE well to the tune of $38 million for all the rest of the gantries. 

….Then Match The Cash Flow Streams, Incoming With The Outgoing.

What isn’t clear is why planners who critiqued the requests and put together the final drafts would think this a sensible approach.  Are they trying to rush bonds out in anticipation of interest rate increases? Forgetting that these are marginal concerns and that this spending is widely opposed and lies well in the future, does anyone trust the state to hang onto $230 million that we’re not going to spend.

Perhaps the Department of Administration will stick to the longstanding practice that such bonds should not be issued until the expenses are reasonably anticipated to fall due. But then this rush to front-load these controversial projects into the TIP represents capitulation on behalf of the planning hierarchy that RIDOT can essentially build whatever they want and toll whatever they want.

And If The 6/10 Project Isn't Warranted, Scale It Back.

True dat, legislation was passed that seemed to say RIDOT can toll whatever they see fit. But these tolls were sold to the legislature based on the enormous expense associated with the 6/10 Connector. If that project were significantly scaled back in scope and cost as many citizens have proposed, the justification for tolls would be largely undermined.

At least some in the planning community see an upside to scaling back the 6/10 monstrosity. But none of that is on display where the rubber hits the road, i.e., what goes into the TIP. 

Transit Advocates point out that the norm, which reflects the very reason the TIP process exists, is to try to stream expenses in the years they will likely occur.  That allows for a very efficient transportation budget.  A cherished project of theirs, the Pawtucket Train station, gets a small line item for development of plans, not a blank check for a major part of the project.

Remember, This Is The Same Department That Brought Us The Ill-Conceived Wickford Train Station.

Would that this system had saved us the 10s of millions of dollars wasted in Wickford. Pawtucket might be a sensible place for a train stop, but Wickford was a bridge too far. To back out of that embarrassment, RIDOT and RIPTA officials have moved bus commuter service to the train station. Still not a drop in that bucket and we already had lots we paid for to provide parking for those services.

More hanky panky with Ill-Conceived Welcome Center.

Yet RIDOT appears poised to repeat this same kind of subterfuge, calling the Governor’s proposed Welcome Center a transit project based on moving existing commuter lots that we have already paid for with very modest service to the new center and claiming that is a transit hub. Puh-leeze.

This would-be auto stop is slated for the RI border in Ashaway, where the proposal is anything but welcome.  And in this ‘Warmer & Cooler’ day and age where everyone gets their itinerary on their smartphone, why exactly we need more than a modest rest stop would be the pertinent question. I just wouldn’t ask the folks in this administration who are handling – or not handling – tourism promotion.

And with transparency problems trickling down to communities these days, somehow, without a vote of the Hopkinton Town Council and despite the sense that that Council is opposed to the proposition, a letter was sent by the town manager in support of the ‘TIGER’ grant that will pay the lions share.  But Rhode Island is still on the hook for $3 million for this little adventure, and there are questions raised of whether this is enough funding. So the project is being driven by bringing in private contractors to create sales opportunities to compete on an untaxed facility against businesses throughout southern RI who offer these services and pay taxes.

You begin to see a pattern here that I doubt the Governor will emphasize to Vice President Joe Biden. But if he really wants to take any useful information on transportation planning back to DC, it is that the USDOTs gerrymandered and grant driven funding habits have encouraged a ready, shoot, aim methodology at the state level.

The Race For The Federal Dollar Drives Most Transportation Decisions No Matter What It Ultimately Costs the State Taxpayer.

RIDOT (and no doubt other state transportation agencies) are in such a rush for competitive funds that they submit half-baked ideas and get them funded without the truly consultative and thoughtful process that would deliver more efficiency and forward-looking transportation infrastructure. Municipalities are dragooned into signing onto programs they don’t agree with for fear of retribution from the state if they aren’t Johnny on the spot helping siphon funds from the federal treasury. So a competitive process that should favor more efficient and community integrated transportation development is completely perverted. 

That of course is the case in the latest grant-driven nonsense in which RIDOT applied for the hastily approved ‘FASTLANE’ grant program.  That grant is aimed at improving freight movement to cover the costs of the 6/10 connector. That’s right, a freight grant for the road which moves less freight than any limited access highway in the state!  Which equally makes the idea of the cost of the 6/10 as a poster child for tolls to cover bridge damage from the through freight trucking an absurdity.

Nonetheless, while Providence is clearly on record as opposed to RIDOT’s current plan for a status quo rebuild for the 6/10 Connector with a park on top, preferring a more down to earth cost effective and community sensitive program, the city sent a letter endorsing the grant request for this silly Disneyland like proposal.

Far from the City of Tomorrow though, this is the city of Yesterday. Providence knows it but holds its nose and expresses support. Because Providence is in no position to assert reasonable policy concerns as the state will act punitively if they threaten RIDOT plans.

Citizens Need To Just Say No Because Our Government Can’t.

Enough already, it is the responsibility of Rhode Islanders to see that we do not obtain Federal Funds on the false pretenses that the 6/10 connector is supposedly an important Freight Highway and that Providence supports its rebuilding.

The grant is being administered directly out of the Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx’s office who should hear your concerns that RI citizens do not support the plan submitted by RIDOT, do not trust their sincerity in proposing to work with concerned citizens and municipalities once receiving any grant, and believe they have misrepresented the benefits of their preferred approach and the relevance of this road to highway freight movement.  Write to him at: [email protected] 

Of course its not the norm for citizens to refuse federal money. The very thought of it is discouraged by our bureaucracies that depend on it like crack cocaine. So decent advocates who recognize we are getting poor planning and disingenuous applications out of RIDOT won’t risk their access to state transportation officials by publicly calling this wrong. That is a shame on them.

One can only hope that citizens disappointed with the lack of transparency and devious political gerrymandering around transportation policy that are the hallmark of this administration will realize that such behavior will not cease unless we take the unusual step of asking that the federal government reject our FASTLANE grant application.  

Brian Bishop is on the board of OSTPA and has spent 20 years of activism protecting property rights, fighting overregulation and perverse incentives in tax policy.