Communication is the basis of progress

April 6th, 2005 Senators Sarbanes and Mikulski of Maryland entered bill number 719. The purpose of the bill is “To extend Corridor O of the Appalachian Development Highway System from its current southern terminus at I-68 near Cumberland to Corridor H, which stretches from Weston, West Virginia, to Strasburg, Virginia.” Now, of the 35 plus miles of road the bill would have created most would have been in West Virginia, yet neither Senator Byrd nor Rockefeller co-sponsored the bill. The bill never made it out of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee. On March 28th, 2006 Congressman Alan Mollohan introduced the same bill into the house as 5031. Congressman Mollohan had no co-sponsor and the bill went no farther than the House Subcommittee on Highways, Transit and Pipelines.

I had the opportunity to speak with Congressman Mollohan’s representative at a US 50 meeting about bill 5031. My specific question was why it had no co-sponsors. The answer I got spoke volumes. Basically I was told the Congressman introduced it, and that should have been enough, if nobody saw it that wasn’t his fault.

I’m sorry but I think communication and cooperation are important. I also think Congressman Mollohan, Senators Sarbanes and Mikulski dropped the ball on this one by not communicating. I firmly believe that the Maryland Senators should have had a staffer pick up the phone and ask Senators Byrd and Rockefeller to co-sponsor the bill. Congressman Mollohan should have done the same with Congresswoman Capito and Congressman Bartlett. On the house side this would have given the bill bi-partisan support.

This is not about partisan politics; this is about doing what these people were elected to do. This is a bill to build a 4-lane road to replace the 2-lane US 220 from Moorefield, WV to Cumberland, MD. This is not a deep dividing issue such as gun control or gay marriage; it is about building a good road where one is sorely needed. I do not fault Byrd, Rockefeller, Capito or Bartlett for not picking up on these bills. With the hundreds of bills introduced every session it would be easy to miss. I do fault Sarbanes, Mikulski, and Mollohan as they had the opportunity to make a call to make the others aware.

Without communication on the easy stuff, how do you expect to solve the hard problems?

Department of Higher Expense..er..Highways

The DOH complains of not having enough money to maintain the roads in the state, or to build the new ones we need. That is nothing new or for that matter normal for any government department in any government. At the US 50 Association meeting held in Petersburg Wednesday the discussion turned to getting the funding to make improvements.

The ultimate goal of the group is to get US 50 upgraded to 4-lanes from the Virginia state line to I-79 at Clarksburg. This remains the only 2-lane section of US 50 from Ocean City, MD to well into Ohio. The cost for the complete upgrade is estimated at 2 Billion Dollars, but that is because of a WVDOH policy. They have a policy that states all new 4-lane roads are to be built on all new alignments, basically use nothing of the old road. In Virginia US 50 was upgraded to 4-lanes by using the original 2-lane as one half. This cost on average about 70% of building on all new alignments. Now this would turn the WV project from a 2 Billion project into a 1.4 Billion project. Last time a checked six hundred million was a nice savings.

Lets face it, even at 1.4 Billion the US 50 project is a long ways off. But it does bring up the question; of all the projects around the state a change in policy could build current 4-lane projects cheaper. This would free up a lot of money for other road improvement projects in the state, allow more 4-lanes to be built in any given year, or build the same and lower the gas tax. All or any would help the states economy.

Government agencies concentrate too much on increasing funding, and not enough of saving money. Ben Franklin had it right, a penny saved is a penny earned. That penny of course is a tax penny that belongs to you and me, so we should insist it be saved.