NH INFRASTRUCTURE: January 2013

Government Relations Update-Infrastructure Funding

By Darren Benoit, ASCE-NH Government Relations Chairman

This session of the New Hampshire legislature will be critical for funding our State’s infrastructure. ASCE has long been an advocate for the investment of our nation’s infrastructure. As a minimum, we need to consider the investment needed in order to arrest the deterioration of our transportation resources.

For the benefit of any that missed our December meeting with Transportation Commissioner Chris Clement, the Commissioner provided a fiscally responsible evaluation of state transportation needs. The Commissioner identified four key areas where investment will be needed in order to sustain New Hampshire’s infrastructure from further deterioration and the costs associated with that investment. Key areas included yearly miles of paving, red-list bridge repair, I-93 widening investment, and transportation operation costs.

In order to provide a regular pavement maintenance program for the major state roads approximately 500 miles of road need to be resurfaced each year. This allows an eight to ten year cycle and minimizes the number of roadway miles requiring more expensive rehabilitation or reconstruction. Additional investment to meet the 500 mile threshold is $12 million. For comparison, to bring all poor condition roads to good condition would require an investment of about $615 million.

Each year there are bridges added to the list of red-list bridges. A reasonable goal is to remove the same number of bridges from the list through rehabilitation and reconstruction projects. Additional investment would also shorten the time it takes for a municipality to fund bridge improvements. Investment needed to match the bridges repaired (removed from the red-list) with the bridges added to the list each year would be about $15 million of additional investment. For comparison, to fix all current state red list bridges would require about $680 million.

The I-93 widening project between the Massachusetts border and the I-293 break in Manchester has been identified by the State Legislature as the top infrastructure investment priority and is one of the keys to the economic vitality of the State. In order to finance the remainder of that project an additional $250 million is needed. This would require about $22 million in additional bonding investment.

In addition, the State maintenance and preservation program will be short $25 million dollars per year beginning on July 1, 2013 due to a reduction in funding previously available through the sale of a portion of I-95 to the Turnpike system. This is a significant cut in Department revenue that could result in a substantial number of layoffs if not rectified.

The total additional revenue needed to meet these four goals is approximately $74 million. We are currently waiting for the Governor’s budget to see what funding is proposed and how those items will be paid for. The funding options include an increase in the state gas tax, an increase in registration fees, or other fees both directly related and unrelated to the transportation system. For discussion purposes, a one-cent gas tax would raise approximately $8.3 million dollars a year in revenue of which about $1.0 million would go directly to cities and towns in the form of block grant aid. The state gasoline tax has not been increased since 1992. The registration surcharge that had been enacted previously provided approximately $45 million per year in revenue. We will continue to evaluate alternatives as the Governor’s budget and future legislation is available.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

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Friday, January 18, 2013