Voters to Decide on Setting Up Bank to Repair Louisiana’s Roads, Bridges
This story appears in the Oct. 27 print edition of Transport Topics.
Louisiana will vote Nov. 4 on a constitutional amendment that backers said is necessary if the state is to create an infrastructure bank to finance road projects.
If approved, the amendment would authorize the state’s treasurer to deposit money into such a bank.
“Basically, what we’re saying is: ‘Look, this is a first step in trying to put together a system that’s going to help our roads,’ ” said Mark Lambert, spokesman for the campaign to get the amendment passed. “This doesn’t raise our taxes; this doesn’t raise any fees, but it allows us to move forward with a system that could help local government build projects.”
Louisiana’s roads received a D grade and its bridges a D+ from the American Society of Civil Engineers’ biennial report card last year.
ASCE labeled 62% of Louisiana’s roads in poor or mediocre condition and 29% of its bridges as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, which means they require intensive maintenance or were not built for the traffic they currently carry.
Driving on poor roads costs Louisiana motorists $1.2 billion — $408 per motorist — annually in extra vehicle repairs and operating costs, ASCE said.
“Right now, infrastructure-wise, the state has about $12 billion in needed projects the state can’t afford,” Lambert said.
Louisiana’s fuel tax — 20 cents a gallon for diesel and gasoline — has not been raised in 23 years. And 4 cents of every 20 cents is dedicated to paying off bonds, while some of the remaining 16 cents support operations in the state Department of Transportation and Development, which leaves little money for capital investment, Lambert said.
No money from the state’s general fund is spent on roads, and the money from the state’s vehicle sales tax goes to the general fund not the road fund, he added.
In recent years, Louisiana has attracted new industries but doesn’t have the money to build the road network needed to handle the accompanying traffic, Lambert said.
Likewise, he added, suburban growth has accelerated, but traffic in and out of such areas is clogged on aged farm-to-market roads.
One of the key projects the state has struggled for years to finance is a corridor called Interstate 49, a major truck route that would connect ports on the Gulf Coast to the rail yards in Kansas City, Missouri.
The state has widened the existing corridor to interstate standards from the Arkansas state line south to Lafayette, but state transportation officials have said they need billions more dollars to reach New Orleans.
Two coalitions advocating for the I-49 project are among those endorsing the ballot measure.
Other groups endorsing in-clude the Louisiana Good Roads and Transportation Association, the Ports Association of Louisiana, the Louisiana section of ASCE and the Council for a Better Louisiana, Lambert said.
