State May Lose Billions In Road Funds There’s Some Hope In Highway Bill Awaiting Clinton’s Signature

Washington is facing a potential $7 billion shortfall for road construction and maintenance over the next 20 years with the federal government cutting back highway funds, state officials say.

During construction of the interstate highway system over the past 40 years, Washington received $1.64 of federal highway funds for every dollar of federal gas-tax revenue that was generated in the state.

The result was that Washington only had to pay 10 percent of the construction costs; the federal government footed the bill for the rest - about $4.38 billion.

But the interstate system in this state is essentially complete, and the return to the state on gas-tax revenues has dropped to about $1 for every dollar generated.

That has left state transportation officials worried, because the need for maintaining and improving highways and other roads remains.

There is some hope in the National Highway System bill passed by Congress and awaiting President Clinton’s signature. It designates 3,300 miles of roads and highways in the state as critical to the nation’s interest, and therefore eligible for federal funds.

But if state and federal transportation tax revenues don’t increase, state officials warn, the state will be about $7 billion short over the next 20 years for needed maintenance projects that have been identified.

“That doesn’t even begin to look at what we will need to meet demands of a growing population,” Transportation Department spokesman Rick Olson said.

For example, the state needs to build more high-occupancy-vehicle lanes to ease congestion, but won’t get any federal money for that, said Helga Morgenstern, state deputy assistant secretary of transportation for finance and administration.

“We need to build HOV lanes, but we no longer get the 90 cents on the dollar in (federal) interstate funds” for new construction, she said.

The $60 million the state is currently getting annually from the federal government isn’t even enough to maintain the interstates, Olson said.

“We have a backlog of bridges that need fixing. We have plans to do seismic retrofits, but there is not nearly enough funding,” he said. “Many portions of our interstates were constructed in the 1960s and have outlived their design lives and need fixing.”

A good example of that is the stretch of Interstate 5 through Seattle, said Tom Lentz, maintenance engineer for the Transportation Department’s northwest district.

“All those bridges are 30 years old,” he said. “We don’t have any plans to do anything with that pavement. When you stop, you can see that the concrete is really worn. … We are going to start seeing more and more problems.”