Highway fund must be kept at adequate level

The N.C. Department of Transportation’s chief financial officer had bad news for his board members last month, and it was bad news for motorists, too.

Mark Foster told the N.C. Board of Transportation that state Highway Fund revenue is not growing as fast as the general population. In some projections, this revenue will even begin to drop in five years.

The state has long known that it was not raising adequate funds to meet transportation needs as projected by current standards. For years, transportation officials have been speaking of a $50 billion shortfall in the next several decades. That’s a shortfall that could mean fewer resurfaced roads, a less ambitious road-building program to deal with population growth or greater accepted risk on our bridges.

Legislators and Gov. Pat McCrory are keenly aware that the state’s economic growth depends today, as it has since the 1920s, on being a “good roads state.” It is hard to imagine that they will not address the transportation funding concerns.

With fuel-mileage standards rising for vehicles and a national downward trend in average miles driven by each motorist, it is becoming increasingly clear that the old standby – raising the motor-fuels tax – isn’t the answer. Other approaches will be needed.

The legislature supposedly addressed tax reform in its past session, but it did not appreciably improve the transportation revenue situation. Changes there are most likely in our near future.

As legislators ponder what to do, they will certainly look at operating DOT more efficiently, eliminating some transportation programs or shifting some responsibilities back to local government. Only after they’ve seen how much money they can squeeze out there will they look for a new tax system.

Other states have studied a tax on miles driven per year, higher registration fees and vehicle-sales taxes and expanded use of toll roads. We’re firmly on the record on opposing tolls, but it’s clear that there will be proposals to get more money out of each motorist.

As we enter the next election cycle, we will all be wise to ask legislative candidates how they propose to address this problem.