As a state and a nation, we must invest more in transportation networks

Yet another study has concluded that roads and bridges in the Tar Heel State are crumbling and traffic congestion is costing residents time and money. That includes Wilmington’s transportation network. Tell us something that we don’t know. As for you, residents of Wilmington and the surrounding region, collisions, sitting in traffic, additional operating costs and collisions cost you $1,353 a year. OK, that’s a figure we hadn’t heard. (That’s higher than any other metropolitan area cited in the study, by the way, including Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte.) Almost half the state’s roads, and a comparable percentage in the Wilmington region, are deteriorating or in need of significant repair, says the report by a national transportation research group that goes by the name TRIP. The report was done in conjunction with the N.C. Chamber Foundation, which held news conferences this week in several cities, including Wilmington. As in most things we hear these days, one must consider the source. And the source, TRIP, is made up mainly of people whose companies are related to roads and road construction. But TRIP’s conclusions are in line with what the American Society of Civil Engineers has been saying in its annual infrastructure report card, as well as the state’s own estimates of transportation needs. The most important takeaway: Insufficient attention to the condition of our roads and bridges is costing us jobs. “There is an inextricable link between infrastructure and North Carolina’s ability to compete for job growth and economic development,” the report notes. Once again, it’s nothing we haven’t heard before. We must invest in our state and its infrastructure if we expect businesses to come calling. Manufacturers depend on roads, rail and air networks and ports to move their products, and they will bypass a state that doesn’t work hard to make its transportation network the best it can possibly be. Both the state and federal governments need to increase their investment – and it is an investment; North Carolina’s population has increased 47 percent since 1990 and is expected to grow another 25 percent by 2030. That money will come from the taxpayers, one way or another. But the state’s role may become even bigger as the federal government considers deep cuts in the highway budget. But the N.C. Department of Transportation faces the same problem as the federal highway budget: Too many needs and not nearly enough money to go around. With gas prices increasing, the General Assembly capped the state’s gas tax, which has been a major source of highway construction revenue. The tax is among the highest in the nation; drivers pay as they fill up their tanks. But more efficient vehicles that burn less gas and higher gas prices will force us to reduce reliance on that tax down the road. The legislature is still at a loss as to how to make up that revenue. Many suggested solutions have been poorly received, including greater use of toll roads and billing people based on miles driven rather than amount of gas used – a strategy that does nothing to discourage gas guzzlers. But we can’t postpone planning for and funding future transportation projects. The roads won’t fix themselves.