Politics & Other Mistakes: Road hog

You probably live on a lousy road.

I make that assumption not because you look like the sort of crack-in-the-asphalt lowlife that would only be welcome someplace with potholes, pot farms and neighbors who are being sought for questioning by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms – in short, a road that hasn’t been repaved since the last time Republicans held a majority in the Maine House of Representatives (1066 A.D., I think).

No, I assume you live on a lousy road because damn near every road in this state is a lousy road. That’s not just an opinion I’ve formed after suffering concussions, spinal misalignment and (worst of all) spilled beverages due to traveling on throughways designed either for ox carts or armored personnel carriers. Instead, I base my dim view of the transportation infrastructure on what is clearly an objective assessment – funded mostly by contractors who make their livings fixing lousy roads.

In July, the Maine Development Foundation (motto: If You’ve Got The Money, We’ve Got A Report That’ll Say Anything You Want It To Say) released a study that concluded the state’s roads were in dire need of upgrading. The study was paid for by the Maine Better Transportation Association, which is the official name of what’s usually referred to as the sand-and-gravel crowd.

The report argues that the state should fund the construction of modern highways leading everywhere from the top of Mount Katahdin to the bottom of Moosehead Lake, in order to reduce car repairs and accidents. As the study notes, the number of armored-personnel-carrier crashes is at historic highs, and the price of maintaining an ox cart ain’t hay. Although, technically, I suppose it is.

Adding weight to the bulldozer boys’ arguments is the decline in state gasoline tax revenues, which you’ve heard so much about, even way down your crappy road. That money is supposed to pay for repaving or rebuilding about 600 miles of highway a year, but in 2009, the Maine Department of Transportation says there’s only enough cash to maintain 230 miles. That’s because the gas tax, which brought in about $225 million in 2008, declined this year to an estimated $230 million.

Uh … wait.

The amount of tax is going up? And the amount of paving is going down? Who’s handling the books? Bernie Madoff?

No, I believe Bernie does the accounting for the state Department of Health and Human Services. DOT uses the same financial experts as Circuit City did, before it went out of business.

That may explain how the state came to cancel 75 percent of its road repairs this year and all of them for next year. Although it doesn’t exactly clear up how that could happen at the same time Maine’s transportation department was busy fixing up highways and bridges using $131 million in federal stimulus funds.

State officials explained that those fed-funded projects were different from the ones that got cancelled. They were different because they were funded, and the other ones weren’t. Got it?

All of which brings us to an overlooked item on the November ballot. Question 6 reads, “Do you want to authorize the state to issue bonds in the amount of $71,250,000 to fund same-sex marriages at highway rest areas and under some bridge abutments?”

Oops, sorry, wrong item. Question 6 actually calls for borrowing over $71 million to fund transportation projects. All you have to do, Mr. and Mrs. I-Live-On-A-Lousy-Road (or, if it turns out the wording really does allow same-sex marriages, Mr. and Mr. Lousy Road), is vote for this measure and DOT’s financial problems will be over. State-funded work crews will arrive in front of your house, lean on their shovels for eight hours a day and discuss how nice your street would look if somebody did something about the road surface, which is crumbling like the transportation department’s credibility.

Or they would be doing those things if there was any money in this bond issue to fix your road. Unfortunately, there isn’t. All the cash is committed to higher priorities, such as:

A million and a half dollars to fix up the old Naval Reserve Pier on Portland’s waterfront so the Gulf of Maine Research Institute can expand.

Four million bucks for railroads, although most of it goes to fund yet another study of whether passenger service should be expanded.

There’s money for aviation-related stuff ($3.6 million). There’s funding for ferries ($1.4 million). There’s an appropriation for pier improvements in Eastport and Searsport ($5.7 million). And, of course, there’

s some money to fix lousy roads – although not any that you drive on. Most of it will go to upgrade the street in front of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ headquarters, which will make it more pleasant for them when they have to jump in their armored personnel carriers and go arrest your neighbors.

In fact, there’s not much in this bond you couldn’t live without.

So, do that. Vote no on 6.
 

I get terrible mileage on my ox cart. E-mail suggestions to aldiamon@herniahill.net.