Funding
roads, rail not mutually exclusive
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/07/29/Opinion/Funding_roads__rail_n.shtml
By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published July 29, 2007
Taxpayers wanting
to see a blueprint for wasteful government spending should look at
Hillsborough County's road plan. A panel chaired by Commissioner Ken
Hagan wants
the county to spend $500-million over the next five years, in addition
to at least $125-million in regular spending, on a package tied almost
exclusively to roads. Anyone stuck in traffic in Brandon or Carrollwood,
where the highways max out as soon as they are built, can anticipate the
same mess in Sun City Center and Citrus Park. The cost is staggering
and won't subside until this commission starts to manage growth.
The price of Hagan's
plan is not the major problem. Better roads are part of the equation for
any growing community. Hillsborough has billions of dollars in unfunded
roads needs - and has for years. Whittling down the list is progress.
Some big-ticket projects in Brandon and the Carrollwood area are long
overdue. Reducing commute times is a quality-of-life, monetary and
environmental issue. For all the attention to rail, this community is
years away from even a skeletal system, and improving roads now will
make the whole network better.
Where Hagan failed was
in striking some balance between roads and mass transit. He had the
money to do both, which would have improved mobility and the political
climate in the coming years for a referendum on rail, by showing that
roads and mass transit were not exclusive choices. But his plan commits
only $40-million of the $500-million to transit, and most of that goes
for passenger amenities on a handful of corridors. Even an additional
$30-million set aside for future land purchases, which many assumed
would go to mass transit, could be used for roads instead. Half the
money would go to 19 existing or new roads, with the biggest projects in
north and south county, near major undeveloped areas primed for sprawl.
Spreading a
half-billion in pork is easy when the plan requires no tax increase and
the road work - under Hagan's requirement for making the list - can get
going by the time the current board members stand for re-election.
Hagan said by producing immediate, tangible results, this plan sets the
stage for his committee, in the next phase of its deliberations,
scheduled for the fall, to focus on long-term and regional mass transit
solutions. He will have to raise his game and look for real, if
sensitive, solutions, such as finding new monies for transit, doing more
to limit sprawl and working to make the suburbs less reliant on cars.
Hagan's appointment to a new regional transit authority will test his
leadership on this issue, and the board's ability to think in terms
beyond more and more asphalt.
[Last modified July
28, 2007, 21:35:38] |
