Patrick
06-14-2005, 12:56 PM
Looks like nothing is new at the legislature. But, actually, they're probably playing a smart game, not revealing how much they'll invest until Istook and company come up with their final estimates. In a sense, the legislature is pushing Istook to try to fight for all of the federal funding he can before the state jumps in.
Should the state invest into this project? Well, we've discussed this controversial issue many times! I feel that the state should invest some money since it runs through our city and benefits our city, but I don't feel our state should have to fork over half of the funding......afterall, it is a FEDERAL highway.
Anyways, here's the latest......
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"Ever-Elusive Crosstown Project: Congressmen say state funds will be needed for Crosstown, but state leaders remain mum during legislative session
By Shelly Hickman
It’s a tried-and-true rule during any effective negotiation or game of poker: Never reveal your hand until you absolutely have to.
The trick, however, is knowing just when ‘absolutely have to’ is, of knowing when, as the song goes, to hold, fold or simply walk away.
Such appears to be the game of sorts at play with state leaders and the planning and funding for the perennial Crosstown project. Decades of getting the short-end of the stick when it comes to federal highway dollars, Oklahoma lawmakers and the governor are posturing Uncle Sam should pick up the project’s entire $360 million tab.
And while the federal government has committed to paying at least half the tab and the state’s congressional delegation, chiefly Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Tulsa) and Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Warr Acres), has indicated it will push for more, the delegation has consistently maintained that Oklahoma leaders expecting Uncle Sam to foot the entire bill isn’t realistic.
One might presume the delegation’s actions would have prompted lawmakers, the governor and transportation officials to come together during this past legislative session and discuss what the state can commit to the project. Financial planning would seem logical given the state’s extensive road and bridge needs and the fact lawmakers were in session deliberating the next fiscal year’s budget.
However, according to transportation officials, no such meetings or group planning sessions have taken place, no funding request for the project was included in the state Department of Transportation’s budget, and now lawmakers are adjourned until early 2006.
State leaders might be playing a high-stakes poker game, refusing to reveal their hand, so to speak, until Uncle Sam shows his. But 16 years have passed since the safety of the I-40 Crosstown was first brought into question, leaving some to wonder whether it’s time to put the cards on the table.
Denial or Careful Deliberation?
In 1989, the I-40 Crosstown Expressway was closed for emergency repairs and dialogue ensued about whether it was truly safe. Seven years later, a Citizens Advisory Committee and Technical Advisory Committee were formed and public meetings began to be held on what to do.
Built in the early 1960s and designed for 72,000 vehicles per day, the Crosstown has a fracture critical design and greatly exceeded its capacity 10 years ago and continues to do so today. Currently, it carries 113,000 vehicles per day, has a deficient bridge — the state’s largest bridge, substandard ramp spacing, curves and shoulders and has dangerous underpasses at Robinson and Walker avenues.
State transportation officials finally have reached the point where they are able to proceed with permanently fixing the problems by constructing a new alignment for I-40 and, once that is done, tearing down the existing I-40 alignment and constructing an aesthetic, downtown boulevard in its place.
The federal government has agreed to pay for $180 million of the estimated $360 million for the project, but where the other half of the funding is going to come from is anybody’s guess because state leaders aren’t talking about it.
“I have visited with a number of local and state leaders and many of them understand the problem, but they just don’t like talking about it because it requires some action in Oklahoma and not just in Washington,” Istook told OKCBusiness News. “There are certainly some people who are in denial and an unnaturally rosy scenario is being painted for a number of people that can lull them into complacency and inaction.
“Of course, the whole community will bear the burden of that inaction.”
On April 28, Istook sent a letter to Gov. Brad Henry, House Speaker Todd Hiett, Senate President Pro Tempore Mike Morgan and others, indicating he was concerned that “the loose change in my pocket totals more than the state or community have provided for the project.”
According to Istook’s calculations, a realistic expectation on the state’s part for the federal government’s contribution to the project is somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 percent — but 80 percent of the cost of the new I-40 alignment, not the downtown boulevard. That is, the state could justify the price tag for the new alignment at $315 million and expect the federal government to pick up a hefty 80-percent portion of that figure. The $45 million downtown boulevard project has local value, to be sure, Istook said, but it would be difficult to justify the federal government picking up a portion of that tab.
“If you think something is going to be financed totally with federal dollars, you’re going to wait a terribly long time to have something completed and it’s because there are hundreds of billions of dollars of backlogged projects across the country,” he said.
When OKCBusiness News contacted the governor’s press office to schedule an interview with Henry on the Crosstown matter, the office responded the governor was deferring interviews on the subject to Phil Tomlinson, his secretary of transportation. However, the secretary’s office deferred the interview to ODOT Director Gary Ridley. While ODOT wasn’t able to make Ridley available for an interview, ODOT Asst.
hief Engineer David Streb and two project development engineers assigned to the Crosstown project spoke to OKCBusiness News.
Streb said ODOT had never requested any state funds for the Crosstown project because it was the agency’s position the project had regional and national importance. As such, it should receive federal support, he said.
And, despite members of the congressional delegation indicating a significant state commitment would still be necessary, he said he was optimistic about the federal funding outlook.
“Sen. Inhofe is a key player,” Streb said. “We’ve been waiting for a long time for this [federal] transportation bill.”
He added it just wouldn’t be effective for the state to deliberate what, if any amount would be necessary from state coffers until Congress settled the matter. To do so would be “shooting in the dark,” he said.
Inhofe’s Role in the Crosstown
When it comes to Beltway politics, it doesn’t get much better for state transportation officials than having a senator from your state serve as chairman of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.
Even Inhofe admitted Oklahomans could expect more patronage for their high-profile road projects because he is chairman. Yet despite the power the post enjoys, there’s only so much one man can do.
Inhofe pointed out not only is $180 million more required for the Crosstown project, an I-44 project in his hometown of Tulsa is on the table, as well. Its price tag requires about the same amount of money as the Crosstown project and state transportation officials have requested federal funding for it, too.
“I’m going to try and get both of the projects money above the line, or outside the formula,” Inhofe said.
However, if state leaders are posturing Washington should pick up all the tab, that is counterproductive, he added.
“It’s not going to happen and, quite frankly, it shouldn’t happen philosophically,” he said, indicating such arguments “are what every state uses to justify funding. That is just not realistic.”
It may not even be realistic for Oklahoma to expect more funding through 2009 from the federal government’s highway funding formula.
As of press time, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2003, or SAFETEA, was being deliberated in a House-Senate conference committee, where it died last year. The result was states receiving an extension of their funding, as calculated in FY 2002.
Inhofe said there is optimism that won’t happen again this year but there is no guarantee President George Bush won’t veto the bill, which was authored by Inhofe, if it makes it to his desk. The extension for the state’s highway funding expires May 31 and Bush has indicated he will veto any highway bill which exceeds $283.9 billion. The Senate’s version of the bill calls for $295 billion, Inhofe said.
“That’s hardly a 1-percent difference, so the president might not veto it,” he said.
If something close to the Senate version of the bill is signed by the president, it will increase Oklahoma’s rate of return in the formula — or the amount it receives versus the amount the state contributes to the federal government in gas tax proceeds — to 94 cents on the dollar, which will result in the state receiving $2.8 billion for 2005-2009.
Currently, the state’s rate of return is about 90 cents on the dollar.
Oklahoma has never received more in highway formula funding than it has contributed and state officials, to some extent, have used the argument in lobbying for full funding of the Crosstown project.
Inhofe said Congress was working to address inequities but that the problem was more complicated than one might presume. Oklahoma achieving a 1-1 return couldn’t be achieved unless other states suffered serious funding cuts.
Familiar arguments donee states, such as New York and most of New England, have made in defense of their greater than 1-1 return are their bridges are often older than those found in the South and West, that population density makes their road projects more expensive and that their roads carry more traffic.
And, even boosting all donor states’ rates of return to, say, 95 cents on the dollar, would require about a $315 billion highway bill which, Inhofe said, the president would likely veto.
Istook said clinging to the donor state argument wouldn’t make the Crosstown get fixed any time sooner.
“Griping about donor state problems is not leadership and this whole project suffers from a need for greater leadership,” he said. “People need to talk about how it can be done rather than make excuses for why they are not doing anything.”
Streb indicated ODOT would be proceeding with preliminary construction on the Crosstown project this summer, starting on the infrastructure that will be needed for a series of canal bridges. Plus, it will be proceeding with finishing up its design plans for the project. Plans range from being 30-percent to 90-percent complete as it stands now.
If the rest of the $180 million for the project comes through in the near future, the new alignment of I-40 could be done by the end of 2008 and the downtown boulevard could be finished by the end of 2010, he said.
“We are still moving forward this summer,” he said. “There will come a point of time in the near future if we don’t get the additional funds that the schedule would change, but right now it is attainable.” "
Should the state invest into this project? Well, we've discussed this controversial issue many times! I feel that the state should invest some money since it runs through our city and benefits our city, but I don't feel our state should have to fork over half of the funding......afterall, it is a FEDERAL highway.
Anyways, here's the latest......
--------------------
"Ever-Elusive Crosstown Project: Congressmen say state funds will be needed for Crosstown, but state leaders remain mum during legislative session
By Shelly Hickman
It’s a tried-and-true rule during any effective negotiation or game of poker: Never reveal your hand until you absolutely have to.
The trick, however, is knowing just when ‘absolutely have to’ is, of knowing when, as the song goes, to hold, fold or simply walk away.
Such appears to be the game of sorts at play with state leaders and the planning and funding for the perennial Crosstown project. Decades of getting the short-end of the stick when it comes to federal highway dollars, Oklahoma lawmakers and the governor are posturing Uncle Sam should pick up the project’s entire $360 million tab.
And while the federal government has committed to paying at least half the tab and the state’s congressional delegation, chiefly Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Tulsa) and Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Warr Acres), has indicated it will push for more, the delegation has consistently maintained that Oklahoma leaders expecting Uncle Sam to foot the entire bill isn’t realistic.
One might presume the delegation’s actions would have prompted lawmakers, the governor and transportation officials to come together during this past legislative session and discuss what the state can commit to the project. Financial planning would seem logical given the state’s extensive road and bridge needs and the fact lawmakers were in session deliberating the next fiscal year’s budget.
However, according to transportation officials, no such meetings or group planning sessions have taken place, no funding request for the project was included in the state Department of Transportation’s budget, and now lawmakers are adjourned until early 2006.
State leaders might be playing a high-stakes poker game, refusing to reveal their hand, so to speak, until Uncle Sam shows his. But 16 years have passed since the safety of the I-40 Crosstown was first brought into question, leaving some to wonder whether it’s time to put the cards on the table.
Denial or Careful Deliberation?
In 1989, the I-40 Crosstown Expressway was closed for emergency repairs and dialogue ensued about whether it was truly safe. Seven years later, a Citizens Advisory Committee and Technical Advisory Committee were formed and public meetings began to be held on what to do.
Built in the early 1960s and designed for 72,000 vehicles per day, the Crosstown has a fracture critical design and greatly exceeded its capacity 10 years ago and continues to do so today. Currently, it carries 113,000 vehicles per day, has a deficient bridge — the state’s largest bridge, substandard ramp spacing, curves and shoulders and has dangerous underpasses at Robinson and Walker avenues.
State transportation officials finally have reached the point where they are able to proceed with permanently fixing the problems by constructing a new alignment for I-40 and, once that is done, tearing down the existing I-40 alignment and constructing an aesthetic, downtown boulevard in its place.
The federal government has agreed to pay for $180 million of the estimated $360 million for the project, but where the other half of the funding is going to come from is anybody’s guess because state leaders aren’t talking about it.
“I have visited with a number of local and state leaders and many of them understand the problem, but they just don’t like talking about it because it requires some action in Oklahoma and not just in Washington,” Istook told OKCBusiness News. “There are certainly some people who are in denial and an unnaturally rosy scenario is being painted for a number of people that can lull them into complacency and inaction.
“Of course, the whole community will bear the burden of that inaction.”
On April 28, Istook sent a letter to Gov. Brad Henry, House Speaker Todd Hiett, Senate President Pro Tempore Mike Morgan and others, indicating he was concerned that “the loose change in my pocket totals more than the state or community have provided for the project.”
According to Istook’s calculations, a realistic expectation on the state’s part for the federal government’s contribution to the project is somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 percent — but 80 percent of the cost of the new I-40 alignment, not the downtown boulevard. That is, the state could justify the price tag for the new alignment at $315 million and expect the federal government to pick up a hefty 80-percent portion of that figure. The $45 million downtown boulevard project has local value, to be sure, Istook said, but it would be difficult to justify the federal government picking up a portion of that tab.
“If you think something is going to be financed totally with federal dollars, you’re going to wait a terribly long time to have something completed and it’s because there are hundreds of billions of dollars of backlogged projects across the country,” he said.
When OKCBusiness News contacted the governor’s press office to schedule an interview with Henry on the Crosstown matter, the office responded the governor was deferring interviews on the subject to Phil Tomlinson, his secretary of transportation. However, the secretary’s office deferred the interview to ODOT Director Gary Ridley. While ODOT wasn’t able to make Ridley available for an interview, ODOT Asst.
hief Engineer David Streb and two project development engineers assigned to the Crosstown project spoke to OKCBusiness News.
Streb said ODOT had never requested any state funds for the Crosstown project because it was the agency’s position the project had regional and national importance. As such, it should receive federal support, he said.
And, despite members of the congressional delegation indicating a significant state commitment would still be necessary, he said he was optimistic about the federal funding outlook.
“Sen. Inhofe is a key player,” Streb said. “We’ve been waiting for a long time for this [federal] transportation bill.”
He added it just wouldn’t be effective for the state to deliberate what, if any amount would be necessary from state coffers until Congress settled the matter. To do so would be “shooting in the dark,” he said.
Inhofe’s Role in the Crosstown
When it comes to Beltway politics, it doesn’t get much better for state transportation officials than having a senator from your state serve as chairman of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.
Even Inhofe admitted Oklahomans could expect more patronage for their high-profile road projects because he is chairman. Yet despite the power the post enjoys, there’s only so much one man can do.
Inhofe pointed out not only is $180 million more required for the Crosstown project, an I-44 project in his hometown of Tulsa is on the table, as well. Its price tag requires about the same amount of money as the Crosstown project and state transportation officials have requested federal funding for it, too.
“I’m going to try and get both of the projects money above the line, or outside the formula,” Inhofe said.
However, if state leaders are posturing Washington should pick up all the tab, that is counterproductive, he added.
“It’s not going to happen and, quite frankly, it shouldn’t happen philosophically,” he said, indicating such arguments “are what every state uses to justify funding. That is just not realistic.”
It may not even be realistic for Oklahoma to expect more funding through 2009 from the federal government’s highway funding formula.
As of press time, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2003, or SAFETEA, was being deliberated in a House-Senate conference committee, where it died last year. The result was states receiving an extension of their funding, as calculated in FY 2002.
Inhofe said there is optimism that won’t happen again this year but there is no guarantee President George Bush won’t veto the bill, which was authored by Inhofe, if it makes it to his desk. The extension for the state’s highway funding expires May 31 and Bush has indicated he will veto any highway bill which exceeds $283.9 billion. The Senate’s version of the bill calls for $295 billion, Inhofe said.
“That’s hardly a 1-percent difference, so the president might not veto it,” he said.
If something close to the Senate version of the bill is signed by the president, it will increase Oklahoma’s rate of return in the formula — or the amount it receives versus the amount the state contributes to the federal government in gas tax proceeds — to 94 cents on the dollar, which will result in the state receiving $2.8 billion for 2005-2009.
Currently, the state’s rate of return is about 90 cents on the dollar.
Oklahoma has never received more in highway formula funding than it has contributed and state officials, to some extent, have used the argument in lobbying for full funding of the Crosstown project.
Inhofe said Congress was working to address inequities but that the problem was more complicated than one might presume. Oklahoma achieving a 1-1 return couldn’t be achieved unless other states suffered serious funding cuts.
Familiar arguments donee states, such as New York and most of New England, have made in defense of their greater than 1-1 return are their bridges are often older than those found in the South and West, that population density makes their road projects more expensive and that their roads carry more traffic.
And, even boosting all donor states’ rates of return to, say, 95 cents on the dollar, would require about a $315 billion highway bill which, Inhofe said, the president would likely veto.
Istook said clinging to the donor state argument wouldn’t make the Crosstown get fixed any time sooner.
“Griping about donor state problems is not leadership and this whole project suffers from a need for greater leadership,” he said. “People need to talk about how it can be done rather than make excuses for why they are not doing anything.”
Streb indicated ODOT would be proceeding with preliminary construction on the Crosstown project this summer, starting on the infrastructure that will be needed for a series of canal bridges. Plus, it will be proceeding with finishing up its design plans for the project. Plans range from being 30-percent to 90-percent complete as it stands now.
If the rest of the $180 million for the project comes through in the near future, the new alignment of I-40 could be done by the end of 2008 and the downtown boulevard could be finished by the end of 2010, he said.
“We are still moving forward this summer,” he said. “There will come a point of time in the near future if we don’t get the additional funds that the schedule would change, but right now it is attainable.” "