Revenue sources that replenish the Delaware Transportation Trust Fund are wide and varied: taxes paid by Delawareans on each gallon of gasoline, tolls taken at the plazas along Route 1, and the fees paid for licenses and renewals.
As the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) faces a potential $1 billion deficit, these and many other options – 95 in all – are up for consideration after a five month review of the financing alternatives for the TTF, which pays for Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) projects, operations, salaries and more.
The Transportation Trust Fund was created in 1988 as a source of funding for capital projects. A few years later, trust fund dollars also began going towards operations such as the Division of Motor Vehicles, Delaware Transit Corporation and other DelDOT programs not directly related to capital projects.
Ted Williams, Principal and Executive Vice President of New Castle-based LandmarkJCM Science and Engineering, chaired the Transportation Trust Fund Task Force which released its findings this spring. The panel was formed as a result of passage of the Fiscal Year 2011 Bond Bill and looked at transportation funding projections for Fiscal Year 2012 through 2023.
“Based on the items that have been previously approved under their capital program, and what’s required of their core program, we found that the revenues necessary fall short by approximately 30% of what’s needed to complete those programs that have been previously approved,” Williams said.
Williams says the panel found that the Trust Fund is financially solvent and in good health, due in part to cutbacks and postponements already undertaken by DelDOT. Since the economic downturn began in 2008, 46 projects that were part of the Capital Transportation Program (CTP) have been eliminated and several others have been delayed. However, Williams added “programs, maintenance and capital projects are being deferred over a longer period of time because the revenues are not there to do those programs.”
Transportation Trust Fund Task Force Chairman Ted Williams discusses task force report
Williams outlines the scope of the panel’s four-month review.
Williams recaps talks about the panel’s findings.
According to the report, if the current imbalance is not corrected, the result will be “either the elimination of all new capital projects by 2017 or severe reductions in DelDOT’s core program, resulting in an accelerated deterioration of Delaware’s transportation infrastructure.”
There are several reasons for the financial difficulties facing the Transportation Trust Fund, according to the task force. These include “unprecedented traffic growth, limited resources, substantial cost increases related to construction, and declining revenues.”
But how do projects move forward in the first place? Who decides on traffic patterns, where road cones are placed, which roads get resurfaced and which bridges get re-built?
In a way, you do. The Wilmington Area Planning Council (WILMAPCO), which serves New Castle County and Cecil County MD, examines traffic data, demographics, patterns of residential and commercial growth and commuter statistics before recommending to DelDOT which projects should be part of its capital plan. That recommendation is made after WILMAPCO conducts public outreach surveys and hearings.
Federal funding for highway projects is approved if the state can provide a 20% match for every federal dollar.
“If we don’t have the local or state match, we would not get federal dollars,” said WILMAPCO Executive Director Tigist Zegeye. “The bottom line is we will be jeopardizing federal dollars if we do not have a viable and healthy Transportation Trust Fund at the state level.”
Surveys conducted by AAA Mid-Atlantic, which has 150,000 members in Delaware, indicate that members want a safe, effective transportation system that allows them to get where they want to go as quickly as possible.
- A recent poll asked which options would Delawareans support as a funding source for transportation programs(Click to enlarge)
But, they also want something else, especially if they are asked to contribute more towards maintaining and developing the transportation system.
“I think what we’re seeing is, the consumer and the voter want accountability now,” said Jim Lardear, director of public and government affairs at AAA Mid-Atlantic. He says the report on the Transportation Trust Fund is “sobering.”
“It’s not a problem where we can kick that can down the road,” Lardear said. “It needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed very soon.”
Lawmakers have been briefed in caucus meetings in the two weeks since the release of the report. Now, they are bracing for complaints from constituents about deteriorating roads and bridges.
“We’ve got a lot of them down my way that need to be repaved, and I’m pretty sure it’s that way across the whole state,” said State Senator Robert Venables (D-Laurel), who has been chairman of the bond bill committee since 1995 and served on the Transportation Trust Fund Task Force. “And, the further they deteriorate, the faster they deteriorate, the more it costs to fix them up – if you ever get the money to do it.”
A few years ago the Transportation Trust Fund actually had a surplus. The state’s budget difficulties in 1992 led elected officials to transfer operating expenses such as salaries, vehicles and regular maintenance of roadways to the Transportation Trust Fund.
“Right now, some of those fees like the gas tax and many other things are going to pay salaries,” said State Representative Daniel Short (R-Seaford), who served on the task force.
The tax on a gallon of gasoline is 23-cents per gallon, and has remained unchanged since 1995. Mass transit and paratransit fares have not been adjusted since 1988.
One of the task force’s proposed courses of action is to shift back into the general fund anything that doesn’t have to do with road maintenance, repaving or expansion.
“That way, we would have a better picture of what the department needs to run on, and we’d have a better picture of what we need to do to fund the building of our roads and infrastructure,” Short said.
It may not be that easy, says State Senator Karen Peterson (D-Stanton), another member of the task force.
“Every dollar we take and put back in the trust fund, we may have to raise taxes to cover that,” Peterson said. “It’s a lose-lose kind of a situation.”
She believes the public is in no mood to face higher gas taxes, tolls or fees, especially with recent controversies surrounding the Delaware Department of Transportation. DelDOT has come under fire for land purchase arrangements that paid developers not to build along a proposed Route 113 bypass. Earlier this year, Carolann Wicks resigned as Secretary of Transportation. Cleon Cauley is currently acting secretary.
“We might just be in a holding pattern this year until things settle down at DelDOT,” Peterson said. “Most of the recommendations we made, I think, will be dealt with next year rather than this year.”
“I don’t think there’s a real interest in raising taxes in the delicate economy we’re in,” Short added.
State legislators react to Transportation Trust Fund Task Force findings
State Senator Robert Venables (D-Laurel), a member of the Transportation Trust Fund Task Force, worries about the impact the fund’s troubles will have on road maintenance.
State Representative Dan Short (R-Seaford), a member of the Transportation Trust Fund Task Force, explains how the fund got to this point and one way the task force suggests addressing the issue.
State Senator Karen Peterson (D-Stanton), a member of the Transportation Trust Fund Task Force, says there are no easily solutions to finding stable long-term funding.
Another financing option contained in the report, is the addition of a lightering tax on oil in the Delaware River. Lightering is the process of transferring cargo between vessels of different sizes. This allows vessels to reduce their load and enter port facilities that have size restrictions. In addition to imposing a lightering tax, increasing fees on a wide variety of license-and-registration requirements, installing new tolls on Route 1 ramps that are now free, and hiking fines for illegal signs placed near state roadways are also under consideration.
The Transportation Trust Fund could face a $1-billion deficit within five years. Williams says further delays in solving the funding difficulties will start to have ramifications.
“We will not have unsafe roads, but they will not be the road system and the network that the citizens of Delaware have learned to live on,” Williams said.
Any possible deterioration in the transportation infrastructure could have a negative impact on the state’s economic competitiveness and ability to attract jobs, according to task force members.
Zegeye, of WILMAPCO, agrees.
“I think it’s very important, if we want to be competitive – especially being located between Baltimore and Philly, New York and Washington – that we have to have a good transportation system,” Zegeye said.
“It’s not just DelDOT that has to fix this problem,” said Lardear, of AAA Mid-Atlantic. “It’s you and I as travelers, drivers, people who take transit. So many issues are at play. We all have to work together to make sure the roads are safe, and that people can get to wherever they want to go, by whatever means they want to, safely and quickly.”
Transportation Trust Fund Task Force Findings
Transportation experts offer their opinions
