Lawmakers at work

The Transportation Committee deserves high praise for its proposed solution to Maine’s Highway Fund dilemma. The combination of a modest increase in the gas tax and a modest increase in vehicle registration fees balances needs with concerns, it demonstrates that deliberation and compromise can resolve an issue that as late as Thursday seemed doomed to stalemate.

Best of all is the committee’s recommendation that a study panel be formed to examine the entire question of how the state should finance its growing backlog of road and bridge deficiencies. The panel may determine that the current user-fee approach — fuel taxes and registration fees — is the way to go. It may conclude that highway construction and maintenance deserves the relative stability of the General Fund. In either case, or perhaps in some combination of the two, the question will be answered in the thoughtful setting of a study panel, not in the furious closing days of a legislative session.

Gov. King may be correct in saying the committee’s proposal is a short-term fix, but so was his 5-cent gas tax hike. And at least the committee’s patch takes into account the diverse interests of urban commuters, rural drivers and long-distance truckers, something that could not be said of the governor’s plan. The independent administration seemed consistently surprised by diverse points of view it had not considered and it wavered at a crucial point early in the debate on what was one of its most significant piece of legislation of the session.

Lobbyists might take a lesson from this near-debacle as well. Many legislators were deeply offended by the persistent, over-the-top arm-twisting from the construction industry. The sand-and-gravel crowd should not have to be reminded that the purpose of boosting highway spending is not to benefit its bottom line, but to benefit Maine drivers.

This is a particularly good time for the Transportation Committee to be taking a hands-on approach to long-range planning and in setting priorities; the Department of Transportation could use the help.

The vaguely worded I-95 exit signs at Brunswick are an embarrassing reminder that the Coastal Connector was built without adequately consulting the Brunswick merchants it bypasses. The Scenic Byways program, ensuring that many narrow, dangerously twisting rural roads stay that way, seems to have sprung from thin air. The increased emphasis upon tourist travel — high-speed ferries, tour buses, the preference given to passenger trains over freight rail — is troubling to non-tourists, like businesses and workers, stuck with crummy roads. Just this week, many legislators expressed alarm at a DOT bond proposal that puts nearly all of the money for marine improvements into a Portland cruise ship terminal.

If Maine transportation policy needed some steering, the Transportation Committee’s deft handling of the tricky Highway Fund issue suggests that a steady hand has been found.