Posted on 06/24/2016 9:54:35 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Madison— Faced with delays and inflation over the past five years, four major state highway projects — including a Madison artery — have accumulated overruns in excess of $700 million.
While some of these increases come from faulty cost estimates or unavoidable inflation, the new figures underline the obvious: Delays can be costly for Wisconsin taxpayers. When projects are paused because of financial challenges in the state's road fund, the price of materials, labor and real estate can rise.
The numbers compiled by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel underline the urgency of a divisive issue for Wisconsin's Republican leaders: finding a long-term but palatable solution for paying for the state's highway and bridge projects.
If the state can't use tax and fee increases or spending cuts to ensure the state's transportation fund can pay for its current projects, then the state could face more construction delays and rising costs.
"I've always had the sense of urgency because we've seen that this has been occurring for the past decade. It's not like it's a surprise," Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said of these latest cost hikes.
"You want to look and say, 'Where are the revenues now, where are the needs, where are the things we can realistically put off, and where are the things that if we put off, it would be bad for taxpayers?'" Vos said. "Either we don't need the projects, which means we should cancel them or prioritize them, or we need to say, 'How are we going to pay for these and what's a realistic time to do so?'"
The four major highway projects were each delayed for one year because last summer Gov. Scott Walker and GOP lawmakers couldn't settle on an approach to paying for them.
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
This is by design. Big projects like this are huge moneymakers for those who are politically connected.
Planned boondoggles.
Absolutely. There are so many hands exchanging money you don't know what went where unless you pull in a forensic accountant to uncover patterns of misappropriation and dereliction of fiduciary duties. I say this as an investigator with quite a bit of experience on corruption cases.
Yep - worked on a shipyard for a while - when they got wind that the government was submitting changes to a job, that job would become the priority so they could bill for the first round and then really soak the taxpayers for implementing the changes....
The problem was caused by the Jim Doyle (Democrat) administration which illegally took money from the Highway trust fund and used it to pay for shortages in the general fund.
Act 10 fixed the budget shortfall, but the damage was done and the highway fund shortfall has not been able to be refilled.
So the urgent issue isn't finding ways to cut costs and repair highways more efficiently and within budget. No, the issue is finding more ways to pay for the overruns, no matter what the cost. To a statist, all roads lead (pun intended) to more spending.
Must be union projects.
Remember the Big Dig 3.5 mile highway/tunnel project in Boston?
Originally estimated to cost $2.8 billion and be complete in 1998 it dragged out until Dec. 2007.
And the Boston Globe estimated that the project will ultimately cost $22 billion (including interest).
When finally paid for the Big Dig will cost almost three times the cost of building the Panama Canal, in current dollars!
And as soon as it was completed the tunnel started falling apart due to faulty workmanship.
If labor unions had been involved in building the first trans-continental railroad it would still be stalled at the Council Bluffs western city limits.
The built-in inflation adjustment to Wisonsin’s gas tax was also stopped in 2005, causing the tax to slowly lose real value over time.
Yes, the Journal Sentinel had no mention of how unions and corruption possibly contributed to these cost overruns.
Don’t forget the piles and piles of Federal, State and Local regulations which drive the cost of these projects in the stratosphere.
Environmental impact reports, land use regulations, zoning laws and appeals, construction regulations all add cost and time to these projects.
I heard one estimate that the cost of the project due to these types of regulations makes it at least double to triple otherwise.
In Seattle they were replacing/modifying the 520 Floating Bridge. The first change order was $400 Million which was issued within the first couple months of the project because the floating bridge pontoons were not designed correctly.
Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) only fired 2 employees over that one. But eventually the Transportation Secretary was force out when the legislature refused to pay her position after an accumulation of WSDOT mistakes and public blunders.
Prior to that the Governor and the Secretary went on a state wide town hall tour asking the people to support some new gas tax they were pushing and how much good it would do for state wide transportation. I attended one of those as a County Engineer and questioned the decision making and the need for the mega-project mindset that WSDOT has adopted. I made the point that that one change order was the equivalent of 200 $2 million projects/80 5-million projects and son and so forth and that if they removed all of the projects from Seattle/Tacoma/Vancouver/Spokane requested funding that this change order would fund every remaining project for the rest of the cities and counties that they had requested funds for.
The room exploded with clapping but it was dead silence from the podium... Go figure
The reality is that vehicles are getting better fuel economy as a result of government regulations which is having a revers effect on generating highway taxes as the tax is based on per gallon consumption.
A governmental self defeating program make cars more fuel efficient get less tax money.
Kind of like the cigarette tax less people smoke less taxes collected.
Here’s a simple solution - we as a nation approve of ZERO new construction projects unless and until such projects are planned out with an actual trust fund that will pay for future maintenance of said road/bridge/tunnel through the rest of its expected life, and said trust fund is ABSOLUTELY protected against being raided for stupid-a** items like retirement plans and f**king pensions. Infrastructure should NEVER be an employment program, the only reason we’re in as abysmal shape as we are now is because we keep confusing the stupid two. Enough of that. Time for the freaking grownups to step up and make ADULT DECISIONS.
Correct. What diamond jim doyle did, and thus delayed, will keep affecting us for years.
Well Thank God. We need more taxes like these. It is a high tax to begin with. In 2014 we ranked 15th highest state gas tax. And that is without the inflation adjustment for 10 years.
And i dont mean additional taxes, just ones that do not self adjust upward with auto-inflation built in.
Also the toll company for part of the SH 130 toll road (advertised to car drivers as a way to avoid the continuous multi-lane train of 18-wheelers on I-35) went bankrupt. Now SH 130 is being advertised to truckdrivers.
Lately there's talk of turning highways leading to the Austin airport into toll roads (just like Orlando).
I'm waiting for the next ripoff... intersection toll stoplights.
WI tends to over-build, especially the closer you get to Madison.
They're already building toll lanes on Texas 71 near Austin Bergstrom Airport.
I'm waiting for the next ripoff... intersection toll stoplights.
They already have built a pair of tolled flyover ramps at the intersection of I-45 and Texas 242 in Montgomery County near Houston.
For sure!
Check out the MESS with I-77 in NC...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.