View on the news

A bridge too far on a long and winding road

Posted

This past week under a decrepit overpass which is part of the 6/10 connector, Gov. Gina Raimondo announced a loose schematic of a plan to repair Rhode Island’s infrastructure over the next 10 years called the “Rhode Island Works Plan.”

Flanked by the speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, Nicholas Mattiello, and Senate President Theresa Paiva Weed at the announcement, the expectation is that the governor’s proposal will become law with speed and ease.

Although no one would dispute the pathetic condition of the Ocean State’s roads and bridges, the good intentions of this proposal will have unintended consequences on commerce and fairness. Also, the plan – which involves tolling large trucks on Rhode Island’s bridges – may not be strictly legal. Parts of the proposal as presented were seemingly purposely opaque and have yet to be clarified. Additionally, local trucking associations were not consulted prior to the announcement. As a result, it seems likely that the governor and speaker did not adequately understand the full effect of such a program. Or, they felt the proposal was politically safe in that regular car drivers would not be directly burdened by any new taxes or fees in order to finance needed repairs. At least that may not be the case initially.

However, the politicians’ presumptions that drivers other than truckers will not see the indirect increase to their costs of living along with the inevitable incremental inclusion of all vehicles in tolling, is short-sighted. After the 38 Studios fiasco, overburdened Rhode Islanders are not as gullible as our leaders perceive them to be.

Whatever the eventual road repair funding looks like, to burden truckers strictly is a bridge too far, and to repair our downtrodden state’s infrastructure will be an arduous long and windy road.

With an attempt to fulfill a campaign promise that she would address Rhode Island’s deplorable road conditions in her first six months in office, Raimondo has presented a plan that begs many questions. Undoubtedly, the infrastructure problems are conspicuous, yet the currently proposed solutions will be caustic to existing businesses and may further disaffect any business that might consider operating here.

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, 167 out of 766 of the Ocean State’s bridges are structurally deficient and 41 percent of our public roads are in poor condition in need of refurbishment. Rhode Island motorists endure $496 million in costs annually due to driving on sub-par roads in need of repair. This translates to $662 per motorist per year. We are rated last among the states in regard to the conditions of our bridges and we remain rated among the bottom 10 states in regard to the condition of our roads.

Action must be taken immediately, just not this action. The costs must be universally endured, not hoisted upon the very segment of vehicles that make our economy move. Raimondo and Mattiello believe this plan to be the path of least resistance. Interestingly, it has not been established at this point whether this unprecedented penalizing of a specific category of vehicle in our state is legal. Local trucking associations are already preparing to challenge the plan’s possible implementation.

Additionally, to impose tolls upon several upper weight categories of trucks will be counterintuitive to building and preserving commerce and will blight our landscape with pervasive money-thirsty gantries. These conspicuous trolling arches of tolling would hardly be endearing to either truckers or potential vacationers to the Ocean State who drive three-axle vehicles.

As presented, any three-axle trucks over 19,000 pounds gross weight will be subject to this new tolling. Many existing Ocean State businesses, small and large alike, use three-axle trucks or greater. They make deliveries, pick up freight, and service residential customers all over the state on a daily basis.

Consequently, the increase in overhead would be devastating. In order to preserve the bottom line, those business owners would have to raise rates on service or prices on merchandise. Correlatively, the business volume versus profit ratio is one of the worst in the nation here in Little Rhody. This unfortunate circumstance is due to excessive, costly regulation and astronomical taxation. There is simply no way businesses can absorb this new additional expense.

Out of state businesses will either revert to common carrier only, rather than sending their own company trucks to Rhode Island, or they will add surcharges to freight rates. The dealers will have no choice but to turn that extra expense on to the consumer to insure reasonable profit and continued business viability. Common carriers will increase their rate charges of cost per thousand pounds into all destinations in Rhode Island. This will adversely affect the dealers and the individual consumer alike. So, even Internet shoppers will bear this brunt of this plan on home delivered merchandise.

Certainly, the Rhode Island Works plan is an ambitious one. It seeks to spend $4.8 billion over a 10-year period on roads and bridges. One could consider the proposal as laudable to the degree that extensive renovation is needed. However, the funding methodology is flawed. To float bonds in anticipation of an uncertain amount of tolling revenue may leave the taxpayer making up for shortfalls in order to pay the debt service of the bonds. Those with toll eligible trucks will try to circumvent the tolled routes. This will have both the affect of lessening revenue and cause alternate routes much greater wear and tear. Those out-of-state carriers who can avoid the Ocean State altogether will. Also, out-of-state companies may choose not to include Rhode Island in their marketing schemes so they can avoid delivering to us.

We are a small market considering the size of our population and our median income. Already, we are a difficult state to get around in, especially for short-run trucking. Whereas companies cannot afford to skip the essential Metro New York market or the Boston proper market, they can avoid Little Rhody and not lose much market share.

Equally problematic is the potential for assigning an incremental burden on the taxpayer. In the vein of the 2 percent temporary state sales tax that became a permanent 7 percent state sales tax, it is likely to say that down the winding road, once the gantries are operating and new revenue starts to flow, that the General Assembly will start including other categories of vehicles. Perhaps eventually they would include all vehicles for tolling. History has taught us again and again that once revenue is diverted into the dark vortex of the General Fund, it is subsumed by the black hole of our bloated and inefficient government.

Unquestionably, Rhode Island must face the facts that the predicate to any kind of renewal has to be the repair of our infrastructure. I believe that in this vein that the governor and the speaker are well intentioned. They simply must find the funding elsewhere in a more equitable manner. Neither official seem inclined to execute the most obvious answer – cut government.

Other than public safety, we could perhaps reduce the size of government 15 to 20 percent without any substantial loss in service by eliminating slow-go or no-show jobs. We must stop patronage appointments and the creation of new superfluous positions to save tax dollars that can be better spent on repairing our state. We could eliminate the duplicative expenses by finally regionalizing. We could cut the carte blanche dispensing of entitlements and change our reputation of being an easy welfare state. We could dismiss the entire staff of the lieutenant governor’s office and give Dan McKee a pager in case the governor becomes ill. We could take the $64 million in savings from the rescheduling of state bond indebtedness for fiscal year 2016 and the $20 million in savings for fiscal year 2017 and at least start to address infrastructure projects. Along that same line, we could apply the unanticipated $95 million in revenue from this year and use it for the same purpose. Instead, the governor and the speaker are creating more government programs.

All in all, the governor’s proposal is inequitable and counterproductive to commerce. It will alienate rather than welcome those who wish to do business here and will undoubtedly be expanded to include all of us in the true insidious Rhode Island governmental fashion.

The governor’s proposed long and winding road to refurbishment of our infrastructure is a bridge too far!

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here