NORTHWEST ARKANSAS Focus : State is short $140 million on toll bypass
Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/National/201929/
The quest to build the Bella Vista bypass as a toll road has hit a ditch about $ 140 million deep — much deeper than state highway officials originally projected.
The $ 140 million chasm between what tolls would raise and the project’s $ 225 million cost — about $ 14 million more than estimated more than a year ago — constitutes a sharp setback.
Highway officials see the proposed toll road as a way to introduce Arkansans to another financing tool in an era when states are grappling with billions of dollars in needs over what traditional revenue sources — mainly fuel taxes — generate.
They tried to put the setback in the best possible light, but couldn’t hide their unhappiness with the news, delivered at an Arkansas Highway Commission meeting in Little Rock on Wednesday.
“It’s difficult to look at these numbers today and see what we’ve got to deal with,” the commission chairman, Jonathan Barnett of Siloam Springs, told his colleagues.
“We’re all disappointed that the numbers didn’t come out like we thought they would,” said Dan Flowers, the director of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department.
The Bella Vista Bypass would provide relief to the growing bottleneck on U. S. 71 through the growing city of more than 16, 000 and north to Missouri, supporters say. Traffic counts along the corridor range from 33, 000 per day south of the city, to about 20, 000 a day between the city and the Missouri border, according to the latest study.
“Bella Vista is just going to get bigger and bigger and the traffic is going to get worse and worse,” said Rep. Donna Hutchinson, R-Bella Vista, who attended Wednesday’s meeting. Barnett noted that the Bella Vista Bypass has been his top
1 priority during his 8 / 2 years on the commission. Flowers noted his agency has devoted a great deal of staff time and money to get up to speed on toll roads as a result of the effort. Flowers and other agency officials say they have no idea how they will cover the gap, but they insisted that the bypass eventually will be built. “This is not driving a stake in the Bella Vista Bypass,” said Randy Ort, a department spokesman. “This started as a non-toll project. Tolls were proposed. It’s still a viable and much-needed project.” Besides an infusion of money, the department has other options. If tolls were raised every five years, the gap would narrow to $ 107. 9 million. Building the bypass as a two-lane road rather than a four-lane would leave the gap at $ 65 million.
Mike Malone, executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Council, called construction of a two-lane rather than a four-lane bypass an “intriguing” concept. He also said regional interests, such as forming a regional mobility authority, eventually could help cover the shortfall.
Madison Murphy, a Highway Commission member from El Dorado, said the latest study illustrates the predicament of Arkansas and many other states: They lack revenue sources to finance bigger projects that are required to cope with increasing traffic.
Another big project in the works, for instance, is the reconfiguration of the Interstate 630 / Interstate 430 interchange in west Little Rock — estimated to carry a $ 130 million price tag. The state has been able to commit only $ 16 million to the project thus far.
Pursuing the bypass as a toll road comes as the Highway Department winds down its $ 1 billion interstate repair program. It overhauled more than 350 miles of interstate. Only one project out of 54 — a section of Interstate 40 in North Little Rock — still remains under construction.
The program was financed by a $ 575 million bond issue, a 4-cent increase in the tax on diesel fuel and federal money set aside for interstate maintenance. The state matched federal funds.
The department spends millions of federal and state dollars each year just to maintain and improve its 16, 000 miles of interstate, U. S. highways and state highways under its responsibility, leaving little for ambitious projects like the interstate repair program and the Bella Vista Bypass. Arkansas has $ 19 billion in needs over the next decade but expects to receive $ 4 billion over that period, according to the Highway Department.
“If we got an extra $ 150 million a year, we could solve the problem” by devoting that new money to a single big project a year, Madison said.
Gov. Mike Beebe earlier this month suggested he would support increasing the severance tax on natural gas and devote the proceeds to state highway and bridge projects. The state’s severance tax is a fraction of what other states levy.
The tax has been threetenths of 1 cent per 1, 000 cubic feet since 1957, according to the Bureau of Legislative Research. That produced $ 619, 000 in fiscal 2007.
The General Assembly won’t be able to address Beebe’s suggestion until it meets in regular session in January 2009.
The latest study for the Bella Vista bypass showed revenue coming in at almost half the rate from the earlier study.
For example, the study presented Wednesday said the 15-mile bypass would generate $ 5. 9 million by 2015, assuming toll collection began in 2011, and $ 7 million by 2025. The previous study estimated revenue of $ 11. 2 million and $ 13. 4 million, respectively.
Carl Rosenbaum, a Highway Commission member representing central Arkansas, wondered what changed.
Joe Sobleskie, a member of the Carter & Burgess consulting team from New York, said each study used different assumptions.
For the 15-mile trip, for instance, passenger vehicles would pay the equivalent of 10 cents per mile, about the national average, under the initial proposed toll of $ 1. 50. But for short trips of say six miles, passenger cars would have to pay 25 cents per mile if the $ 1. 50 toll rate stood.
Sobleskie said he didn’t think many people would use the toll road for short trips between Bella Vista and Bentonville, where it would have more traffic to capture. The Carter & Burgess study reflected that thinking, he said, while the earlier study didn’t.
The earlier study also assumed the Highway Department would place more traffic lights on U. S. 71, which would make trips through that route longer and encourage more motorists to use the bypass. State highway officials said that assumption was erroneous.
“Our opinion is that a lot of the [earlier study’s ] estimates were overestimated,” Sobleskie said.