State panel looks for ways to fix roads

A special panel, the Transportation Funding Task Force, which includes legislative leaders and others, is about to launch a study of ways to boost state aid for Louisiana's often-criticised road and bridge system. "There is not a legislator across the state that does not have some kind of issue with getting a project done, starting a project, finishing a project," said state Representative Karen St Germain, chairwoman of the House Transportation Committee and a member of the panel.
September 4, 2014 Read time: 2 mins

A special panel, the Transportation Funding Task Force, which includes legislative leaders and others, is about to launch a study of ways to boost state aid for Louisiana's often-criticised road and bridge system.

"There is not a legislator across the state that does not have some kind of issue with getting a project done, starting a project, finishing a project," said state Representative Karen St Germain, chairwoman of the House Transportation Committee and a member of the panel.
St Germain said that, unlike previous road funding studies and bills that went nowhere; this one comes amid a widespread public outcry about road conditions.

The study comes at a time of both highway improvements, including in the Baton Rouge area, and a US$12 billion backlog of road and bridge needs.

6174 Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) officials say US$540 million has been spent on road and bridge upgrades since 2008 in East Baton Rouge Parish alone, mostly through surplus state dollars after hurricanes Katrina and Rita and federal stimulus dollars.

However, the Baton Rouge area is considered ground zero for motorists' complaints, including heavy congestion on and near the Interstate 10 Mississippi River bridge.

State Senator Robert Adley says one aim of the study is "to try to get everyone to understand how serious the problem is and how far behind we are."  Part of the problem, he said, is that few taxpayers realize how much money is diverted from the state's Transportation Trust Fund, the key source of road and bridge aid.

He has complained that US$60 million of state gasoline tax revenue yearly helps fund State Police at a time when the state cannot come up with at least US$70 million a year for road preservation.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • IBTTA: use tolls to raise the grade
    March 10, 2021
    Sobering report on state of US roads suggests road user charging on horizon, IBTTA says
    Read More
  • GIS-based state of the art emergency response, damage recovery
    January 26, 2012
    The gecko is one of several members of the lizard family which demonstrate autotomy: the ability to re-grow a tail or some other appendage lost during a time of peril. The GITA's GECCo programme is looking to give US infrastructures much the same capability
    Read More
  • Funding shortfall for US Interstate upgrades
    May 11, 2012
    Andrew Bardin Williams investigates tolling on the federal Interstate system as maintenance and upgrade requirements increasingly outpace funding The I-95 corridor through North Carolina is one of the most heavy trafficked interstates in the US, seeing upwards of 46,000 vehicles per day in some stretches-and North Carolina’s Department of Transportation (NCDOT) estimates this number will to rise to 98,000 vehicles per day by 2040. Along with the rest of the federal interstate system, the North Carolina str
    Read More
  • CBO report on federal highway spending ‘a breath of fresh air’ says IBTTA
    February 17, 2016
    The International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) applauds a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, Approaches to Making Federal Highway Spending More Productive, which examines the economic advantages of tolling as one means of funding the nation’s highway system.
    Read More

Highlighted Content