According to UNC-Charlotte professor David Hartgen, North Carolina doesn’t need new taxes to fund repairs of its deteriorating state highways. Instead, the state should end wasteful road projects, such as the following highlighted in his 2004 study:
Many new highway projects, such as widening urban roads and freeways or creating climbing lanes (which allow slow vehicles to move over when going uphill), are generally worthwhile. Others, such as new exits on rural freeways, new rural four-lane arterials and some new freeways, are of dubious value because they serve so few cars.
On average, major highway projects in North Carolina cost about 2.7 cents per vehicle-mile served, but they vary widely in effectiveness. According to Hartgen, if a given project costs more than 5.3 cents per vehicle-mile (a standard roughly twice the state average) officials should consider delaying or even foregoing the project altogether. Why use this threshold? First, says Hartgen, had state leaders done so between 1990 and 2003, North Carolina could have saved an estimated $2.5 billion, making any new transportation taxes unnecessary. Second, Hartgen calculated a mock deferral of expensive (exceeding the 5.3 cost-point) projects and found that no particular part of the state would have been unduly burdened. Indeed, most of the projects that exceed the cost-point are unnecessary exits and additional lanes in rural areas throughout the state.
In addition to eliminating unnecessary and expensive projects, transportation officials can do some other things to save money:
In short, if officials turn their priorities back to maintenance, meeting traffic demand, and finding creative, cost-effective solutions, North Carolina can be the good roads state once again.