McClatchy Newspapers reports on I-66, I-69, and I-73

[Kniwt]

McClatchy Newspapers is out with a three-story package (several thousand words) on the intersection of politics and road building, including lengthy reports on the status of I-66, I-69, and I-73, plus mentions of I-49, I-422 (Birmingham), I-22, and even good ol' Bud Shuster and his I-99.

U.S. keeps building new highways while letting old ones crumble
Politics and road building intersect in Kentucky
Special-interest push for South Carolina interstate hits roadblock

[cpzilliacus]

McClatchy Newspapers is out with a three-story package (several thousand words) on the intersection of politics and road building, including lengthy reports on the status of I-66, I-69, and I-73, plus mentions of I-49, I-422 (Birmingham), I-22, and even good ol' Bud Shuster and his I-99.

U.S. keeps building new highways while letting old ones crumble
Politics and road building intersect in Kentucky
Special-interest push for South Carolina interstate hits roadblock

[Full disclosure - I know one of the reporters that worked on this story somewhat]

These are excellent articles. I don't know the local specifics all that well to comment on them (especially in Kentucky), but there are some common threads - the first of which is states wanting to continue to build large (and expensive) highway projects while keeping state motor fuel taxes low, combined with their representatives in Washington, D.C. opposing increases in the federal motor fuel tax (South Carolina is a poster child for this - if not for grants from President Obama's stimulus program, long sections of I-95's pavement would still be in terrible condition between Santee and Florence). I do know that operators and promoters of transit systems (e.g. WMATA) play the same game - working to expand the rail system while older segments are falling apart.

I also must disagree with the Sierra Club's claims that "upgrading existing roads" is somehow better than building new, for frequently it is not, especially when it comes to highway safety (but also environmental impact, since advanced highway engineering techniques can reduce the impact of highways on the land (including stormwater runoff during and after construction)).

Yes, I heard the exact same claims about "upgrade existing roads" over and over and over again during the ICC wars.

Finally, I hope that reporters who authored these will consider the (mostly favorable) impact that tolls can have on this discussion (perhaps especially North Carolina's ongoing study to potentially impose tolls on all of its section of I-95 in exchange for significantly upgrading the freeway, which it badly needs).

[hbelkins]

The story about Kentucky is riddled with factual errors, false presumptions and premises, jumps to erroneous conclusions, and so many other problems that I don't have time to list them all.

[Brandon]

One thing I don't understand, is why Kentucky made the parkways toll-free after paying off the bonds.  I would think that leaving them as toll so they can pay for their own maintenance without affecting the other parts of the system would be a better option.

[hbelkins]

One thing I don't understand, is why Kentucky made the parkways toll-free after paying off the bonds.  I would think that leaving them as toll so they can pay for their own maintenance without affecting the other parts of the system would be a better option.

Because that's the way it had always been planned. The bonds were issued explicitly for construction, not maintenance over a definite or indefinite period.

[cpzilliacus]

The story about Kentucky is riddled with factual errors, false presumptions and premises, jumps to erroneous conclusions, and so many other problems that I don't have time to list them all.

H.B., why don't you send some comments to the reporters?

I believe at least one of them would appreciate it.

[cpzilliacus]

One thing I don't understand, is why Kentucky made the parkways toll-free after paying off the bonds.  I would think that leaving them as toll so they can pay for their own maintenance without affecting the other parts of the system would be a better option.

Because that's the way it had always been planned. The bonds were issued explicitly for construction, not maintenance over a definite or indefinite period.

I have no problem with Kentucky de-tolling its toll roads when the construction bonds have been paid-off.  That used to be the practice in Virginia with most of its toll roads and toll crossings.  Of course, the Dulles Toll Road (Va. 267) was getting close to having all of its bonds paid-off when it was decided to use "surplus" toll revenue to pay for the Metro line to Dulles Airport.

Especially if that is what was promised when approval to sell the bonds was granted.

[mukade]

The story about Kentucky is riddled with factual errors, false presumptions and premises, jumps to erroneous conclusions, and so many other problems that I don't have time to list them all.

The Indiana I-69 stuff is also full of conjecture. The Major Moves funding will be exhausted when the part to Bloomington is complete (i.e. sections 1-4), but it does seem like they will find a way to make section 5 happen. Because I-69 will use current I-164 and I-465 that would essentially leave section 6. Irrespective of whether or not section 5 construction will begin this year, there is public commitment to complete I-69, but the article simply states "Indiana is running out of money to finish its part of I-69".

[vdeane]

The map in the first article is riddled with errors.  I-86 is under construction, not "under consideration".  Ditto for I-73/I-74.  I-94 in MI was part of the original interstate system, not proposed.  I-99 in northern PA and NY is nearly done.

[english si]

I-94 in MI was part of the original interstate system, not proposed.

It's an unsigned, legislatively defined, part of I-69...

[froggie]

The story about Kentucky is riddled with factual errors, false presumptions and premises, jumps to erroneous conclusions, and so many other problems that I don't have time to list them all.

Start.  Especially considering that the first article listed is spot-on with its premise that too many parts of the country are building new highways A) without thought of how to maintain them afterwards, and B) while the rest of their highway system is crumbling around them.

[cpzilliacus]

The story about Kentucky is riddled with factual errors, false presumptions and premises, jumps to erroneous conclusions, and so many other problems that I don't have time to list them all.

Start.  Especially considering that the first article listed is spot-on with its premise that too many parts of the country are building new highways A) without thought of how to maintain them afterwards, and B) while the rest of their highway system is crumbling around them.

[Emphasis added above]

AF, I strongly agree with the above - and I confess to being in favor of a larger and more-extensive network of freeway-class highways. I am not qualified to comment on the specific discussions of I-66 and I-69, though  others here are. 

But perhaps not raising motor fuel taxes, so that new additions to the network, and expansion of existing network links must be (mostly) user-funded through tolls, means that only reasonable improvements (in other words, those improvements for which there is demand and tolls can be charged) will get constructed?

[J N Winkler]

But perhaps not raising motor fuel taxes, so that new additions to the network, and expansion of existing network links must be (mostly) user-funded through tolls, means that only reasonable improvements (in other words, those improvements for which there is demand and tolls can be charged) will get constructed?

No.  It still leaves the possibility of moral hazard (toll road promoters expecting to be bailed out by the state when their roads turn out to be unprofitable).  Given the deadweight cost of toll collection, and the fact that fuel taxes in an increasing number of states are not even adequate for basic upkeep, let alone network expansion, a better idea is to couple an increase in the fuel tax with an explicit rate-of-return test for new capital construction, with the latter having safeguards to ensure that projects are correctly scoped and costs are not backloaded for the sole purpose of doing an end run around discounting.

[cpzilliacus]

But perhaps not raising motor fuel taxes, so that new additions to the network, and expansion of existing network links must be (mostly) user-funded through tolls, means that only reasonable improvements (in other words, those improvements for which there is demand and tolls can be charged) will get constructed?

No.  It still leaves the possibility of moral hazard (toll road promoters expecting to be bailed out by the state when their roads turn out to be unprofitable).  Given the deadweight cost of toll collection, and the fact that fuel taxes in an increasing number of states are not even adequate for basic upkeep, let alone network expansion, a better idea is to couple an increase in the fuel tax with an explicit rate-of-return test for new capital construction, with the latter having safeguards to ensure that projects are correctly scoped and costs are not backloaded for the sole purpose of doing an end run around discounting.

Though the record of private toll roads in the United States is not especially good in terms of making profits for their owners. 

Consider:

• The investors that took over the Indiana East-West Toll Road in the form of a long-term concession agreement apparently overpaid.
• The Dulles Greenway (Va. 267) in Loudoun County, Va. (a long-term concession which will eventually expire) is apparently shown as having negative value on the books of its owners.
• The Pocahontas Parkway (Va. 895) in Chesterfield County, Va. (south of Richmond) should perhaps not have been built, as it has cost bondholders and owners a lot of money, and actual traffic volumes have been well below what was forecast.
• The Southern Connector (I-185) in Greenville County, S.C. went bankrupt, wiping-out a lot of the value of the bonds outstanding.
• The South Bay Expressway (Ca. 125) in San Diego County, Calif. went bankrupt, wiping out about half of the value of the outstanding bonds.

I do not believe that the taxpayers have bailed-out any of the investors in the above projects.

Even in the case of public-sector "traditional" toll roads, the bonds issued by agencies like the Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA) are explicitly labeled non-recourse, meaning that the investors have no recourse back to state taxpayers in the event of a default.  Perhaps one advantage of MdTA bonds is that they are secured by a "basket" of toll roads, not one specific facility, which presumably reduces investor risk.

[J N Winkler]

Though the record of private toll roads in the United States is not especially good in terms of making profits for their owners.

No, it is not, and in the case of corridors that are relatively marginal for tolling, that translates into a high risk premium, which adds to the deadweight cost of tolling.

To add to your list, the Triangle Expressway (NC 540) received an up-front cash subsidy (financed with tax money) when it was realized it was unlikely to attract enough traffic (at least initially) to cover debt service.

Even in the case of public-sector "traditional" toll roads, the bonds issued by agencies like the Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA) are explicitly labeled non-recourse, meaning that the investors have no recourse back to state taxpayers in the event of a default.  Perhaps one advantage of MdTA bonds is that they are secured by a "basket" of toll roads, not one specific facility, which presumably reduces investor risk.

"Non-recourse" is not always what happens--for example, the original bonds for the Kansas Turnpike were backed by the full faith and credit of the state.

But actually the possibility of the taxpayers being left holding the bag is just one facet of a wider problem.  Toll roads are nowadays spoken of as if the toll financing method itself guarantees that the toll road will be built only if it is needed, but in actuality both toll roads and free roads are gambles to some degree as to whether they will attract traffic.  For every state there are a few roads which are sure bets, a rather larger number of roads for which a favorable payoff is likely but less certain, and a certain number of roads which are definite bad bets but have considerable political juice behind them; both taxes and tolls have been used to build roads in all three categories.

Given that it is never possible to evaluate the return on investment with certainty until a given road has been built and traffic has had a chance to respond to it, I contend it makes more sense to manage risk by using a properly designed rate-of-return test to select for the sure bets and the likely winners, rather than counting on a tolls-only policy for new capital construction to screen out the white-elephant proposals.  Risk screening is hardly a traditional reason for resorting to toll finance and it is very expensive to use for that purpose.

[hbelkins]

The most obvious glaring error is the statement that Lawson and Nighbert were cleared by a state grand jury. The two were indicted by a federal grand jury and stood trial in federal district court, in which they were acquitted.

To me, as someone with two degrees in journalism and a long past career as a newspaper editor, making such a blatant and easily verifiable factual error like that calls the entire story's veracity into question.

[vtk]

I don't like the one headline about building new roads while old ones go unmaintained.  Yes, we need to budget more money for maintenance.  But we also need to budget more money for expansion (new roads and capacity upgrades to existing roads).  Our transportation departments are shamefully underfunded.

[hbelkins]

Going to try to critique this story. Apologies if I don't get the quotes to work properly. C.P., if you wish to point your acquaintance to this post, feel free. I should state that any opinions expressed here are my own and do not in any way reflect that of my employer.

Its completion is far from assured. But the fact that it got this far is a testament to the power of one member of Congress to get a new road through his district, even at a time when the state transportation secretary who approved it and a contractor that worked on it were under federal investigation.

I-66 was on the books and scheduled for construction long before the Ernie Fletcher administration. Fletcher was still a state representative; Scotty Baesler was the 6th District congressman and he and Rogers had a battle over the routing of I-66 that Rogers won. Bill Nighbert was, I think, still just the mayor of Williamsburg. This statement makes it seem that Rogers forced Kentucky to build that section of I-66 during Fletcher's term, when it had been scheduled for years. The contractor won the bid through a legitimate process that had no relationship whatsoever to the alleged bid-rigging that was later disproven.

Interstate 69 was supposed to be the "NAFTA highway,"  a 1,700-mile job-generating corridor from Michigan to Texas, with Dawson Springs, the hometown of Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, right in the middle.

But the only thing new about I-69 in Kentucky is the number. It stitches together three old state parkways that require more than $800 million to bring them up to interstate standards, including an interchange in Beshear's hometown.

Beshear was not even in politics when I-69 was legislated by Congress. The Dawson Springs interchange was one of the old cloverleaf exits where a toll booth was located. Kentucky has converted two other old cloverleafs to diamonds; Exit 33 on the Mountain Parkway and the US 127 exit on the Bluegrass Parkway. This story makes it seem as if Beshear influenced the routing of I-69 to go by his hometown -- a town in which, by the way, he hasn't lived in decades. The I-69 routing decision was made long before Beshear ran for governor in 2007 and the fact that the route passes by his hometown is pure coincidence.

These two statements try to paint the decisions made by the state concerning I-66 and I-69 as done on a purely political basis to benefit state officeholders. That is most assuredly not true. But the first few paragraphs are definitely intended to set a tone that is not necessarily true.

"They're always a big fundraiser,"  said Trey Grayson, a former Kentucky secretary of state who's the director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "At the end of the day, they want to be winners."

Trey Grayson floated a trial balloon that he might run against Ernie Fletcher in 2007 and it went nowhere. Grayson lost the 2010 GOP Senate primary to Rand Paul despite being the chosen candidate of the Republican establishment and of Mitch McConnell. He resigned as secretary of state to take that position at Harvard instead of running for another Kentucky state office, since he was elected to two terms as SOS and was term-limited from running for re-election. Anything he says about politics in Kentucky is to be regarded as sour grapes.

Prather became the head of Kentucky's transportation department after a series of scandals that engulfed the administration of Republican former Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a key Rogers ally. Fletcher and 15 members of his administration were indicted in 2006 on charges that they'd fired career employees in the transportation department and replaced them with political appointees.

This is a common error made by in-state press as well as out-of-state press. No merit system employee with status was fired for political reasons. Only one merit employee who was still on probation was let go when his probationary period ended.

Fletcher's transportation secretary, Bill Nighbert, and Leonard Lawson, the owner of one of the state's biggest highway contractors, were indicted in 2008 on bid-rigging charges, months after Lawson's company, Bizzack Construction, won a $31 million contract for a project that included the bridges and an interchange on the first section of I-66 in Somerset.

A state grand jury acquitted Nighbert and Lawson in 2010. By then, Lawson's company had finished the work on I-66, also known as the Somerset Northern Bypass.

This is the egregious factual error that casts a pall over the entire story. Nighbert and Lawson were indicted by a federal grand jury. They were tried in U.S. District Court in Lexington and were acquitted. The charges had nothing to do with Bizzack, which is an earth-moving outfit that does grade-and-drain projects. Lawson also owned paving companies, and in Kentucky a lot of resurfacing projects only get one bid because of the location of blacktop plants and the distance they are from projects. The allegation was that Lawson was being given the official estimate on the projects that would draw only one bidder, so he could bid in an amount above the estimate that would not be rejected as being too high.

(As a personal observation, I always thought that the charge was full of crap and the acquittal at trial confirmed my thoughts. I was very happy to see Nighbert exonerated.)

[cpzilliacus]

Going to try to critique this story. Apologies if I don't get the quotes to work properly. C.P., if you wish to point your acquaintance to this post, feel free. I should state that any opinions expressed here are my own and do not in any way reflect that of my employer.

Thank you and I will - I will add emphasis that the opinions are yours alone.

[lordsutch]

Because that's the way it had always been planned. The bonds were issued explicitly for construction, not maintenance over a definite or indefinite period.

Note that not all of the parkways were paid off by users.  Hal Rogers got Congress to use federal highway funds to pay off the bonds on several of the newer and less traveled parkways.

[hbelkins]

Rogers got the Daniel Boone and Cumberland parkways paid off. It was because of this that Gov. Paul Patton ordered the Daniel Boone Parkway to be renamed in honor of Rogers.

I believe former Congressman Ron Lewis got the federal appropriations to pay off the bonds on the Natcher and Audubon parkways.

[thefro]

The story about Kentucky is riddled with factual errors, false presumptions and premises, jumps to erroneous conclusions, and so many other problems that I don't have time to list them all.

The Indiana I-69 stuff is also full of conjecture. The Major Moves funding will be exhausted when the part to Bloomington is complete (i.e. sections 1-4), but it does seem like they will find a way to make section 5 happen. Because I-69 will use current I-164 and I-465 that would essentially leave section 6. Irrespective of whether or not section 5 construction will begin this year, there is public commitment to complete I-69, but the article simply states "Indiana is running out of money to finish its part of I-69".

Agreed there.  There's certainly a lot of independent utility just with the route within Indiana.  Section 5 & 6 will get finished just because SR 37 is already a pretty busy road between Bloomington & Indianapolis and will need the upgrades once I-69 connects to it.

Furthermore, the twin bridges in Evansville are eventually going to need to get replaced (the older bridge was built in 1932), and when that happens they'll make the replacement up to standards to finish I-69.

You can make a good argument that the cost to KY to upgrade their parkways for I-69 isn't worth it, but the Indiana portion will eventually get finished.

[hbelkins]

Furthermore, the twin bridges in Evansville are eventually going to need to get replaced (the older bridge was built in 1932), and when that happens they'll make the replacement up to standards to finish I-69.

Doubtful. There would be major issues with converting "The Strip" in Henderson (the section of US 41 between US 60 and the river) to a freeway.

[ShawnP]

The strip is not even remotely able to upgrade to Interstate standards. A bypass is the only way to go around Henderson.

[theline]

Look here: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=3245.msg186092#msg186092

Alternative 2 is the preferred route. Unless there is a massive rethinking, no part of US-41 will be incorporated into I-69.