Highways On The Decline Aaa Concerned Roads Quickly Wearing Out

Barry Quinlan’s road trips have been going downhill for 20 years.

He doesn’t need to be told about the nation’s crumbling highways at a news conference. He’s bumped across them.

“I see cars in here all the time with bad shocks,” said Quinlan, owner of Barry’s Downtown Automotive shop. “You can ruin a set of shocks by catching a bad rut or a pothole.”

Oh, how the Inland Automobile Association knows. The association held a news conference Wednesday morning in Spokane to talk about deteriorating highways and depleted road funds in Washington, Idaho and across the nation.

“In a nutshell, the national transportation system - the backbone of our economy and lifestyle - is beginning to crumble,” said Stan Miller, association president.

The Inland group’s efforts are part of the American Automobile Association’s new campaign - “Crisis Ahead: America’s Aging Highways.”

More than one-third of the country’s roads are in poor or mediocre condition, and the problem will only get worse if money isn’t spent, representatives of the association said Wednesday.

Almost half of the 3,598 highway lane-miles in Eastern Washington are on the state’s 1997-99 list for being due or past due for repairs, said Al Gilson, spokesman for the Washington Department of Transportation.

The department would have to pay $75 million to fix the 1,700 lane-miles, but has $48 million available. Only 950 lane-miles will be tackled.

The problem’s not a crisis, Gilson said in a phone interview. “I’d call it concerning,” he said. “The problem we run into in this respect is the longer we let the roads deteriorate, the worse condition they get, and the more expensive it gets per lane-mile to repair them.”

At the news conference, representatives from the automobile association, the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce, the Washington Transportation Commission and the Spokane Area Good Roads Association complained that money intended for roads is instead shoring up other government programs.

The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents a gallon, but about 23 percent of federal gas tax dollars have been diverted from the highways trust fund since 1993. That’s to make the federal deficit appear smaller than it actually is, road advocates say.

State figures aren’t much better.

Slightly more than half of the $1.37 billion generated by the Motor Vehicle Excise Tax in Washington from 1993 to 1995 goes to transportation. The rest is meted out to the state general fund and to cities and counties.

The state gas tax of 23 cents per gallon hasn’t increased at nearly the rate of inflation, said Linda Tompkins, vice chairwoman of the Washington Transportation Commission. If it had, it would now be about 38 cents per gallon. All of the state gas tax goes to maintain transportation.

“I’m here not to say that the sky is falling, but literally the foundation might be crumbling,” Tompkins said.

It crumbled on Quinlan.

In 1976, he sold his San Diego home and business, picked up a motorhome and traveled 23,000 miles in four years. He never had a flat tire.

In 1990, he tried to take a different motorhome to St. Louis and Minnesota. He blamed poor road conditions for problems.

“The $600 in cash I brought with me was gone in three days for three flat tires,” said Quinlan, who suffered two more flat tires before trip’s end, ran up two credit cards and eventually paid $6,000 to fix coach damage. “It was the trip from hell.” , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CRISIS AHEAD The American Automobile Association’s “Crisis Ahead” campaign asks that state and federal governments: Use taxes collected from motorists exclusively to maintain and improve highways. Remove the Highway Trust Fund from the federal budget to ensure it’s used just for transportation. Develop a long-term plan to address infrastructure needs.