Taxpayers Opposed to Useless Roads

WHAT DOES THE HADLEY BEND TOLL ROAD HAVE TO DO WITH THE FIFTH INTERCHANGE?

by Danny L. Newton

      I went to the Hadley Bend Toll Road Public Meeting on 22 April to see what people were thinking in the urban areas about toll roads. My guess was that there were about 60 people there, though the crowd seemed to grow even after the meeting was started. A lot of the people there were legislators like Representative Diane Black and Mike Turner. There were county commissioners and other politicians there too. They mostly stood back and listened. Representative Turner even decided not to respond when Representative Black suggested that he had changed his mind on the toll road project.

      I have spent so much time griping about TDOT and how they do business that it seemed only right that I try to praise them when they do something right. TDOT has gotten one of the best consultants in the world to advise them on this project but it seems that not all of that advice is filtering down to the legislature. Their consultant has a proven track record of providing reasonable estimates but I seriously doubt that the consultant suggested that the tolls be collected manually, even one toll booth at each exit, since the technology is bringing that cost down rapidly.

      I also suspect that the consultant decided to present the revenue forecasting with two scenarios in order to try and make an impression on the client how important it is to finance the project with a gross pledge rather than a net pledge. A gross pledge is essentially the same thing as financing with general obligation bonds. A net pledge is similar to financing with revenue bonds. The state will probably try to finance this project with revenue bonds and pretend that if it goes belly up, the state has no obligation to the investor but will step in to make sure that the road and bridge are taken care of. These bonds are more difficult to sell because of the risk and the interest rates are higher. The legislature recently approved of a general obligation bond for the completion of SR 840S that had an interest rate of 6% for 20 years. Revenue bonds would be much higher than 6%.

      This toll project is very unpopular with the people at this meeting. With a two county population of close to 723,000, it seems that more people would show up. On a pro-rated basis, Putnam County had more people show up to the I-81/I-40 Upgrade and Fifth Interchange Meetings. Davidson County got more politicians per county to the meeting than Putnam County usually does. According to estimates from the consultant, one might expect one out of 38 people in the two-county area to use this road every day. Now that the Fifth Interchange is not a part of Corridor J, the daily traffic is hard to calculate. I did some partial counts of traffic going across the existing Bennett Road bridges and agree that the daily count is about 1000 per day with morning and afternoon peaks of about one vehicle per minute.

      TDOT's representative at the Meeting was Ed Cole, Chief of Environment and Planning. He spent a lot of time trying to remind people that this project was not going to be built any time soon in spite of the financial planning horizon that showed that it would be built by 2013. He reminded people that the legislature would have to approve anything they did and that the road and bridge would not get special consideration in the usual environmental considerations. The legislature has tasked TDOT to give them a report on this by the first of next year but Mr. Cole believes that this meeting and the one scheduled later in the week at the other end of the proposed bridge would accelerate and fine tune their report so that the legislature can be ready to render a decision sooner than next year.

      This whole process, decorated with a court reporter, open time for anyone to comment by snail mail and an openness to those who have computers to respond electronically to the meeting directly with TDOT seems like a very fair and democratic process. The only fly in the ointment is the sampling of public opinion. Many of the people who go to these meetings are policy wonks like members of the MPO and environmental activists. Even I am not a representative citizen because I have a background in transportation and engineering that prevents my views from being average. NIMBYS are thick in these crowds and having more than one potential project alignment only enhances their numbers.

      Should TDOT use the same process to gauge support for the Fifth Interchange as it does to decide support for the Hadley Bend Toll Project? There was only one person out of sixty at this meeting who announced that they were for this bridge. If you take the population of Davidson and Sumner County as 723,611 people and figure about 18% of them are too young to have a driver's license, then the most that could be interested in this bridge and road would be 593,361. If the $8.449 million in tolling income for the best scenario for the first year is divided by the average toll of $1.50, then there should have been 15,421 motorists per day willing to pay the toll. Maybe all of the people who could benefit from this project were still stuck in traffic or could not make the 5:00 PM meeting? Should the NIMBYS at this meeting stand aside and give up their property so that 15,421 people per day can get to the shopping center or the airport a little quicker?

      This is a completely different situation than the Fifth Interchange. The public benefit, if measured per motorist, is much smaller in Putnam County even if the connecting road to the Fifth Interchange is built. Several in the Hadley Bend crowd challenged TDOT to show a good reason for this road and bridge. Others confidently panned the consultant estimates of diverted and attracted traffic. Ed Cole did not try and respond to the question of benefit. Another unusual circumstance was that a person identifying himself as being affiliated with the local chamber of commerce was totally against the project because the project's perceived impact on the history of the area. Another thing that was unexpected was that I called for a show of hands for the people in the room that just did not like this project because it was a toll road. Even though three people had previously spoken against the double taxation, no one seemed to be against the road just because people would be paying for it by tolling. The problem seemed to be environmental and due to location.

      Mr. Cole admitted early in the presentation that the project would require some public money, perhaps 30%, over the lifetime of the project to get started because of the zero income during the construction and the slow build up of tolling traffic in the first three years. This only lead to a suggestion that they start tolling over in Knox County first since the Knox County I-475 project would be more likely to support itself throughout the service life of the project according to the consultant.

      More than one person thought that the solution was somehow connected to trains. Another person also thought that the train solution would be quieter. This route would be carrying over 12 times the daily traffic of the Nashville Star between Lebanon and downtown Nashville. The estimated width of the bridge and road was 300 feet. Even though a train would have a smaller theoretical foot print, the parking provided for the Nashville Star was about 1000 free spaces. Pro-rated, it would take 12 times that plus stations. The Nashville Star Cost $38 million to get it started and most of that, $22 million, was to upgrade the existing tracks. The Nashville Star travels averages 35 miles per hour even though it is legally able to go 60 MPH. You can always count on train oriented people going to a TDOT meeting. The proposed toll bridge over the Mississippi River in Memphis incorporates a train track.

      Once the same people began to rise again and again to add other negative comments, Mr. Cole tried to wrap up a meeting that was already beyond the two hour limit. One gentleman got up and tried to propose a third alternative. The map was poorly located for me to see exactly what was going on and I knew this was going nowhere since the legislature strictly forbids TDOT from looking at other toll projects.

      TDOT has entered this project more financially aware of the consequences than any project I can think of. Even if it is a bad project and never gets built, anybody planning to spend $255 million dollars and tring to recover that over 40 years would be crazy to spend that kind of money without some kind of consultation with accountants. None the less, TDOT has been doing that for decades, not with millions of dollars but billions of dollars every year.

TENNESSEE NEEDS TO REDUCE EMPLOYEES BY 2,250

by Danny L. Newton

      Dave Goetz, the Commissioner of Finance and Administration, the governor and the commissioners of many state departments will be reporting to the press and public some of the more difficult details of exactly how the state will handle a revenue shortfall of $468 million dollars late Monday, 12 May, 2008. Normally when a state needs funds, it looks to the local and county governments for assistance. This is not going to happen according to information passed on to members of the House on May 7, 2008. Even though the state sees a rainy day coming, the Rainy Day fund, almost $750 million dollars, is only big enough for a drizzle, not a real rainy day.

      Representative Mike Turner was fully in favor of using that fund to cover the shortage but was told by Commissioner Dave Goetz that using non-recurring Rainy Day Fund money to pay recurring salaries would endanger the credit rating of the state. Representative Turner also spoke with regret concerning the fact that this bad news had come so late in the budget process. Later in a discussion with other representatives, it was estimated that if state analyst were correct the real shortage over more than one budget cycle could be $800 million. The planned reduction in state employees was about 2,250. In the first year, this would only represent a reduction of $60 million compared to a total target of $468 million.

      Federal reductions in funds were also a major factor in concluding that the drought in state funds would be long term and not comparable to the past shortfalls that lasted less than half a year. Medicare reforms by the federal government are hitting every state. Also cited was the housing bubble and the price of fuel were cited as an on-going concern as disposable income, especially disposable income that would be rung up as taxable.

      One of the more interesting proposals was from Representative Hardaway from Memphis. He actually proposed that the legislature get its own budget analyst and counterattack the recession with its own stimulus package. Commissioner Goetz discouraged such things based upon Keynesian logic and theories that held that economic stimulus comes from government deficit spending. The state, according to Commissioner Goetz, could only borrow for things, not wages.

FIFTH INTERCHANGE TIMELINE

30 SEPT 1988    Herald-Citizen Reports that Vice Mayor Grogan expects Fifth Interchange by the year 2000. Estimate for the interchange is $1 million. The estimated cost of extending Gould drive to the industrial park is $500 thousand.

03 DEC 1998    Cookeville City Council asks TDOT to perform a feasibility study on constructing fifth interchange on I-40 at Mine Lick Creek Road. SPONSOR-JIM SHIPLEY

01 APRIL 1999    The Cookeville City Council asks TDOT to study the Maple Avenue flyover at I-40 as the new Fifth Interchange.

25 OCT 2000     TDOT dates the Interschange Justification Study for Federal Highway Administration Review as part of Corridor J intersection at Mine Lick Creek Road.

20 MAY 2002    Cookeville proposes to move the city limits to the vicinity to surround the Fifth Interchange

21 JUNE 2002    TDOT Advance planning report on the Northern Connector

15 JULY 2003    Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury releases report to the legislature with reccommendations for objective system of project selection.

AUG 2003     Final Report of Independant Investigation Sanctioned by TDOT. Studies selection process of 15 problematic road projects in Tennessee, Mine Lick Creek Road is one of them.

24 FEB 2003     City of Cookeville approves alternate "A" as Phase I Councilman Sam Sallee asks that The Northern Connector be Considered as Phase II.

22 SEPT 2005     Herald-Citizen reports Highlands Initiative Kickoff with $2million.

OCT 2005     State Transportation Improvement Plan Shows Project #71005 "Construct New Interchange at Mine Lick Creek Road" ROW acquisition marked for 2006 and construction marked for 2008. See Adobe Page 41/99. Estimated Cost is $10.3 million.

DECEMBER 2005    TDOT Provides explaination of the Project Evaluation System

23 MAR 2003    TDOT report reccommends using SR 111, not Mine Lick Creek Road for Corridor J intersection with I-40.

24 MAY 2006    Tennessee Legislature removes protection from land owners when government acts to build roads or build industrial parks. Bill allows transfer of property to private concerns. Charlotte Burkes listed as a sponser.

14 DEC 2006    TDOT Signs the Environmental Assessment FHWA concures later on 18 APRIL 2008. The connecting road is to have a design speed of 70 MPH and 250 foot wide controlled access right-of-way.