* Arguing that we need to invest in infrastructure is easy peasy…
It’s happening all over the state, according to Craig Fink, an engineer with Tazewell County and former president of the Illinois Association of County Engineers. And it could get worse.
The association tracks how many miles of roads are having maintenance deferred or suspended all together. The analysis shows this year nearly half of their roads, 47 percent, will suffer from some form of neglect. […]
That’s more than double the bad roads there were five years ago.
* The big argument is how to pay for it. Sun-Times editorial…
Legislators in Springfield, both Democrats and Republicans, love to stress that Illinois must do what’s necessary to remain competitive with neighboring states. So consider this:
In 2017 in Indiana, Gov. Eric Holcomb approved a 10-cent-per-gallon hike in the state’s gasoline tax to pay for infrastructure repairs and construction, and another penny per gallon was added last year. In 2015 in Iowa, Gov. Terry Branstad signed legislation to raise the gasoline tax a dime per gallon. Currently in Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine is proposing an 18-cents-per-gallon increase. In Michigan, a bipartisan group of former legislative leaders has called for a gasoline tax hike of 47 cents a gallon — to pay for infrastructure — over nine years. And Wisconsin’s new governor, Tony Evers, has signaled that he favors a gasoline tax hike there to pay for infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the buying power of Illinois’ motor fuel tax is about half of what it was, in real dollars, when James R. Thompson was governor.
* And…
Last week, the Metropolitan Planning Council hosted “Paying by the mile: A new way to fund transportation,” a roundtable comprised of experts exploring mileage-based user fees, a per-mile road user charge that helps fund transportation infrastructure and maintenance.
On the panel was Maureen Bock of the Oregon Department of Transportation and program manager of OReGO, Oregon’s road user charge program; Nate Bryer, vice president of innovation at Azuga, a GPS and fleet tracking data company providing the technology for multiple mileage-based user fee programs; and Audrey Wennink, director of transportation at MPC. Moderating the panel was David Schaper, correspondent on NPR’s National Desk based in Chicago.
Bryer opened the conversation with a presentation on Azuga’s technology and where it’s been tested. Azuga has assisted in developing user-friendly account management systems for programs in California, Colorado, and Washington, among other places. Bryer discussed how Azuga’s technology helps provide a tool to determine road user charging by capturing miles driven by users, in addition to providing transportation planning data. “The fuel tax is an elegant tax, probably one of the most elegant taxes known to man,” Bryer said. “The flaw is that it’s single use.”
Yeah, but a House Democrat recently tabled a bill to institute a pilot project because of all the heat he received.
* Meanwhile…
Saying the state’s newest constitutional amendment doesn’t reduce Cook County’s home rule powers to tax and spend, a Cook County judge has rejected a bid by a coalition of road building contractors and others to force the county to spend $250 million more on transportation projects.
On Feb. 22, Cook County Circuit Judge Peter Flynn granted the county’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the road builders’ coalition.
The lawsuit had challenged the county’s authority to reroute hundreds of millions dollars to the county’s Public Safety Fund, when the coalition said the so-called Safe Roads Amendment requires the county to spend on roads, bridges and other transportation-related infrastructure.
Judge Flynn, however, said the coalition’s interpretation of the Safe Roads Amendment’s mandates is flawed, as the drafters of the amendment did not craft the amendment in a way to reduce the ability of the county and other so-called “home rule” units of local government to allocate resources as local leaders deemed necessary.
“… The Constitution itself contains … a very specific means of limiting the powers of home rule units,” Judge Flynn wrote. “The Safe Roads Amendment simply does not use that means. Its drafters could have done so. They did not. Enough said.
“What is more, the drafters manifestly did not intend to do so. They themselves disclaimed, in the ballot summary given to voters, any intent to impair home rule powers. In this instance, their actions and their words coincided perfectly.”
…Adding… A vow to appeal…
A broad-based industry coalition vowed to appeal a Cook County Circuit Court judge’s dismissal of a case brought against Cook County for violations of the Safe Roads Amendment to the Illinois Constitution (Article IX, Section 11). The suit alleges that Cook County unlawfully diverts approximately $250 million annually in revenue collected from transportation-related taxes and fees. The County filed a motion to dismiss claiming that the plaintiffs lacked standing, and that Cook County is exempt from complying with the Safe Roads Amendment to the Illinois Constitution.
- wordslinger - Friday, Mar 1, 19 @ 11:10 am:
I’m still in favor of a gasoline tax bump over a mileage tax. For decades, consumers have been encouraged to reduce emissions. Changing the rules abruptly strikes me as a bait-and-switch.
- Grandson of Man - Friday, Mar 1, 19 @ 11:17 am:
I believe we should have a mileage tax, and where our vehicles have to have a device connected to the government to track mileage, and automatic pay withdrawal per mile, where the government takes the money out of our checks.
Just kidding. But we really need road and bridge construction/repair. Many bridges are in bad shape, some terrible. How long must we wait before tragedy strikes?
- Chicagonk - Friday, Mar 1, 19 @ 11:28 am:
Road construction costs in Illinois are inflated due to high construction wages. I’m not going to begrudge the 150 and other unions for delivering for their members, but I do think legislators and the Illinois DOT should ask themselves why Illinois pays $35 an hour to construction workers which is 20% higher than any other state in the Midwest.
- Anonymous - Friday, Mar 1, 19 @ 11:37 am:
Illinois government has never been a good Steward of taxpayer money. I have little hope that will change with our current governor and legislature.
- Anon221 - Friday, Mar 1, 19 @ 11:42 am:
This needs to be taken into consideration as well-
https://www.roadsbridges.com/road-maintenance-damaging-wind-farms
HB2988, if it becomes law, will place all of the power of siting into a county board’s hands. Like it or not, we still have townships in this state, and the township will be responsible for the roads and bridges in their area. And, yes, companies must sign an Agricultural Impact Mitigation Agreement with IDOA (https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/agr/Resources/AIMA/Pages/default.aspx), however, LLCs come and go in this business, and “promises” are not always held up to.
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2018/07/23/hilltopper-wind-farm-construction-causes-issues/
These are some of the legitimate concerns people in rural areas have, including those in Douglas County. Just having a Road Use Maintenance Agreement (RUMA) may not be all the protection needed for rural roads and infrastructure, especially of the current LLC owner has really deep pockets.
- Pot calling kettle - Friday, Mar 1, 19 @ 11:53 am:
It’s ironic the conservatives reject pay-per-mile. They usually prefer user fees to more socialistic systems.
- anon - Friday, Mar 1, 19 @ 12:04 pm:
But why doesn’t anyone want to talk about where did all the road money go? How much is currently collected every year?
Fund 11 and Fund 12 have quite a sweet inflow from current revenue structures.
Now its being argued they need more, but no one is stepping up to look critically at how these funds have been managed.
This is so typical of Illinois politicians and the reporters that let them get away with this.
- Annonin' - Friday, Mar 1, 19 @ 12:07 pm:
Meanwhile one of Wherli’s Wizards, Margo McDermott, gave an impassioned post session oration demanding IDOT fix the I-80 bridge in Joliet. Unspoken is this dramatic readin’ was a mention on the total GOPie failure to get GovJunk to focus on this type of work.
One would think since just about all GovJunk did for 4 years was force the troopers to drive him around there would have been some notice in the decline of road conditions. He must have been snoozin’
- Six Degrees of Separation - Friday, Mar 1, 19 @ 12:11 pm:
I chuckled when I read above that the highest per-gallon tax (MI) was proposed by a bipartisan group of FORMER legislators…easy to take the heat when you’re not in office, I still remember the tongue-lashing former USDOT Sec. Ray LaHood got when he floated a federal gas tax raise early in the Obama administration…from his OWN administration! A raise in the gas tax is probably doable with a structured vote, but we are obviously miles away (pun intended) from mass acceptance of a mileage-based fee. However, tolling is a form of mileage-based fee, and I expect it will be needed for any major overhaul of the expressways of Chicagoland since we are not exactly awash in the billion$ it will take.
- anon2 - Friday, Mar 1, 19 @ 12:15 pm:
So GOP governors in other Midwest states have supported hikes in their gasoline taxes. But that won’t stop most IL Republicans from opposing one here. But most will vote to spend the revenue when the infrastructure projects come up.
- City Zen - Friday, Mar 1, 19 @ 12:37 pm:
==So GOP governors in other Midwest states have supported hikes in their gasoline taxes.==
Meanwhile, in Bizzaroland…
Indiana Democratic Party Chairman John Zody condemned the tax increases. “Gas prices in Indiana are the fastest rising in the nation and now Indiana Republicans are just piling on with another tax hike.”
- Huh? - Friday, Mar 1, 19 @ 1:11 pm:
Prevailing wage is the law of the land. There are 2 prevailing wage laws, federal Davis-Bacon Act and the Illinois Prevailing Wage law.
Essentially, if a local public agency is going to contract out work, they have to pay the appropriate prevailing wage, regardless of funding source. The key words in the above sentence are “contract out”. If the local agency uses their own staff to do the work, prevailing wage does not apply.
- Responsa - Friday, Mar 1, 19 @ 1:17 pm:
== “The fuel tax is an elegant tax, probably one of the most elegant taxes known to man,” Bryer said. ==
No matter how one feels overall about the merits or benefits fuel taxes, surely I am not the only person who got a huge guffaw about the guy describing their uh, “elegance”.
- Russ Renner - Friday, Mar 15, 19 @ 11:40 am:
The above comment from “Anonymous”, while relatively short, includes quite a bit of misinformation, at best, or outright lies, at worst, depending on how much information “Anonymous” had at his/her disposal. One of the downsides of social media is the ease with which someone can anonymously make claims that are totally baseless or outright false with no ramifications for doing so, compelling those being implicated to waste valuable time addressing those claims.
To state that there is a “huge amount of corruption” by citing one specific case that occurred over 7 years ago is quite an overreach. Even if you include some of the more recent cases that have come to light, the number of cases like this are isolated to specific individuals and are small compared to the thousands of local agencies that do an admirable job of getting the most out of the limited funding that is available.
The only time I have “testified” to this issue was a statement, and supporting memo, that I made at the regular meeting of the Public Works Committee in October of 2015 after County Board member Shane Celestino had requested at the previous meeting to have the County look into having the County take over the Road Districts. I took the time between the two monthly meetings to complete an informal survey of the Road Districts to estimate the amount of time spent by Highway Commissioners on their system each year to see how many additional personnel the County would have to hire to commit to that same effort. My summary was simply that it would either cost substantially more money to provide the same level of service that the Road Districts provided or the level of service would be significantly reduced. (I would be more than happy to share a copy of the memo that I presented to the Committee to anyone interested in my findings). Why would I not want to “expand” my “domain” and “get a bigger budget?” Because in the end the taxpayers, of which I am one, would have been the “losers” by either having to pay more out of their pockets or had less maintenance done on their roads.
The claim that the County does work for Arnold Vegter without compensation is false. If it is being claimed that the County does work for Arnie Vegter the private citizen, that is completely false. If it is being claimed that the County does work for Union Grove Road District, yes, we do occasionally help Union Grove and most of the other Road Districts on projects because we have the equipment and manpower to do these projects that the Road Districts often don’t have. Their alternative is to hire a contractor to do the work at likely a much higher cost than what the County charges. However, the County does invoice the Road Districts for reimbursement of our time and equipment. Although it would be perfectly legal and acceptable to “trade hours” since Union Grove and other Road Districts help the County with hauling chips during seal coating operations and other projects as well, the County chooses not to do it that way. However, Road Districts often trade hours as opposed to paying funds back and forth to one another. It is simply an “intergovernmental agreement” between agencies which is perfectly legal under Illinois statutes.
With regard to the last comment, the specific case cited as part of “the crafty good old boys in the rural counties” also doesn’t hold water. First of all, to paint with such a broad stroke based on one case is irresponsible. Secondly, in that specific case the County Engineer had been in that position for only 4 years and was a lifelong IDOT employee prior to that. Nothing about that situation could be construed as function of the “good old boys” system to which you refer.
To the overall topic of having Counties take over the Road District systems, there are good solid arguments that can be made for this in some Counties, specifically in highly urban areas. However, they should be considered on a case-by-case basis. At the very least, the economic and level of service impacts should be studied before making that change. If I was convinced it would be a win-win situation for the public I would support it for this County. However, having spent nearly 18 years as a County Engineer in two different rural Counties, I can confidently say that would not be the case for most, if not all, of the rural counties in the State at the current funding levels wherein the Road District’s share of state-collected highway user fees falls excessively short of the most basic maintenance needs of the Road District road system.