Senate Transportation Committee Hearing Urges House Action On Funding Plan

The Senate Transportation Committee Wednesday held a hearing on transportation funding issues, including the failure of the House to act on Senate Bill 1 (Rafferty-R-Montgomery) prior to the summer break.  The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 45 to 5 on June 5.

A video of the hearing is available online.

Barry Schoch, Secretary of Transportation, discussed the consequences of not getting the transportation legislation passed this summer. He explained that the consequences of a lack of comprehensive transportation funding began under the Rendell administration.

Secretary Biehler said, “we can’t afford to add lanes to the system; we have to take that money that was previously programmed for additional capacity adding projects and cancel those projects and focus all the available dollars on basic maintenance on bridges and roads.’That was the right thing to do,” he stated.

“The consequences have already started. I am in the unfortunate situation of being the secretary who now looks at there isn’t anything extra to cut now what do we do without additional funding,” he added.

Secretary Schoch said PennDOT is currently at a $2 billion construction letting schedule and this year it will be at $1.6 billion in lettings for 2013. He indicated that under the Corbett administration transportation plan there have been $2.6 billion in annual construction lettings by 2020 and 50,000 jobs would have been created.

Due to a lack of a comprehensive transportation plan, Pennsylvania is on track for $1.4 billion in annual construction lettings by 2020 and 12,000 jobs lost in Pennsylvania. “Even if we do get action this fall, we have lost the construction season,” he stated. “That’s an immediate impact due to a lack of action.”

Secretary Schoch then turned to the condition of Pennsylvania bridges and indicated that engineers are currently examining 1,200 state bridges and another 1,000 bridges that are in the local system.

“There will be additional weight restrictions starting in August coming, there is no choice at this point but to do so,” he stated. “The governor and I will be out soon with our recommendations as to how many of these bridges will be weight restricted. The issue as you weight restrict these bridges is an economic issue for the Commonwealth. We’re doing it for public safety and it’s certainly not something I or anyone else in this agency is looking forward to doing. Yet, in an overall, if you only have certain resources up have to make sure we are taking care of the system as best we can we have to slow the deterioration of these bridges otherwise we will be faced with a much more significant problem in the not too distant future.”

Secretary Schoch emphasized that businesses, timber, coal, Marcellus Shale, Agriculture, emergency services, and school transportation will all be negatively impacted by having weight restricted bridges.

Turning to mass transit, Secretary Schoch said a lack of a transportation bill will affect service and there will be fewer transit capital projects statewide. He provided a chart of ten transit lines and explained that six of the lines can continue to run because of federal Job Access Reverse Commute (JARC) funding with the local or state match but four of the lines will end in August or mid-September.

 “We don’t have enough money in our trust fund for public transportation,” he stated. “This is going to have a significant effect on the traveling public. It’s also in places where people are making the choice to use transit and will choice to use a car and put more vehicles in an already overloaded system. These are very consequences and things that are going to happen.”

A copy of his presentation is available online.

Sen. John Rafferty (R-Montgomery) serves as Majority Chair and Sen. John Wozniak (D-Cambria) serves as Minority Chair.

NewsClips:

State To Post Weight Restrictions On 1,000+ Bridges

Tougher Bridge Weight Limits To Start In August

Lawmakers, Officials Continue Push For Transportation Funding

Turnpike CEO Discusses Toll Increases At Senate Hearing

Truckers: PA’s Roads Actually In Pretty Good Shape

Op-Ed: Lawmakers Should Tackle Highway Funding

Turnpike Tolls to Rise In January

State Takes In Nearly $2 Billion In July Tax Revenues


8/5/2013

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