Transportation woes and future of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is notorious for many things, the worst of them often highlighted in this space. It is, after all, our job as newspapers to point out what’s failing and what needs correction, whether it be the tax structure, education funding, election reform, environmental regulations or oversight of gas pipeline construction.

Near the top of that list of Pennsylvania’s shortcomings is transportation and failures that affect our everyday lives and our future prosperity.

The litany of complaints as detailed in a legislative task force report, “Build to Lead” described the commonwealth’s transportation crisis of “crumbling roads, failing bridges, aging rail cars and buses along with hours of time wasted on congested highways and inner-city gridlock.”

According to the report, detailed by MediaNews Group staff writer Evan Brandt in a recently published analysis, efforts to address those problems have come up short. The highest gas tax in the nation meant to fund $2.1 billion in highway and bridge construction and maintenance has not produced the promised results. One of the reasons, according to the report, is that funding is being diverted to pay for state police.

“Nearly half of all municipalities in the state no longer offer local police services due to growing reliance solely on state police services,” the report stated.

In April 2019, after an audit of PennDOT, it was estimated that approximately $4.5 billion was diverted from the state’s Motor License Fund to the state police since fiscal year 2012-13. Currently, an estimated $1.25 billion or 65% of the state police budget is paid for with nearly one-third of the entire Motor License Fund, Brandt wrote.

As a result of the diversion, only 27 percent of PennDOT’s projects in

2017 were completed, according to Auditor General Eugene Pasquale, Brandt wrote. Projects important to communities are being put on hold. The Keim Street bridge that connects Pottstown and North Coventry has bee closed for

10 years, much to the chagrin of local residents. In Berks County, a $600 million plan to upgrade the Route 422 corridor is being scaled back to a single project — the $35 million replacement of a bridge over the Schuylkill River at the Interstate 176 interchange and ramp reconfiguration in Cumru Township.

While motorists stuck on 422 or detouring around a closed bridge deal with the daily frustration, the legislators who wrote the report took in the big picture: Failure to repair and upgrade roads and bridges — and rail — threatens economic growth and the commonwealth’s future prosperity.

“Pennsylvania’s transportation system has fallen into an alarming state of disrepair and is in critical need of new funding. With today’s growing economy placing increased demands on our infrastructure, we must rise to meet the needs of families and businesses across the Commonwealth,” wrote the 10 legislators who authored the report.

Among its recommendations are the King of Prussia rail extension; an increase in regional rail capacity; a feasibility study for the passenger rail in the Reading-Pottstown-Philadelphia corridor; giving counties and cities the ability and authority to create local funding solutions and public/private partnerships to expedite construction projects.

Central to both the past shortfalls and recommended upgrades is a dedicated source of funding. Inadequate funding and the diversion of transportation funding to the state police has increased the backlog of work, according to the report.

Pennsylvania and its cities also lag the rest of the nation in transit improvements. A rail connection of some kind between Reading and Philadelphia was among the projects the report’s authors said should get further consideration, Brandt reported, highlighting a longstanding item on the wish list of every revitalization analysis done for the region in the past 20 years.

Back to those issues that put Pennsylvania on the lists of “worsts”: — the greater Philadelphia area is ranked among the top 10 worst in the nation for traffic congestion

— Pennsylvania with the fourth largest highway system in the country, has five of the nation’s top 100 truck bottlenecks according to a study released earlier this year by American Transportation Research Institute.

— the state has the highest percentage of structurally deficient bridges (23 percent of 22,600 bridges)

The “Build to Lead” report makes several recommendations for the legislature to increase the pace and scope of transportation improvements.

Among those recommendations are increasing public/private partnerships to leverage funding for projects; updating design standards and expediting permits to encourage cost savings; giving cities and counties authority to implement local solutions, similar to the $5 vehicle registration fee Montgomery County implemented to raise money for infrastructure work.

These ideas come in the spirit of building a transportation system to lead Pennsylvania into the future. At stake is not just the wasted hours of commuters. The future economy depends on moving people and goods efficiently from one place to another. It’s time to move Pennsylvania up on the list of results toward a brighter, faster, less congested tomorrow.