Budget woes affect Bangor area road projects

BANGOR – Planning for needed road projects, already an exercise in frustration for local transportation officials, just got even more challenging.

Representatives of Bangor Area Comprehensive Transportation System, or BACTS, and the nearly dozen communities the organization serves have been told by Maine Department of Transportation Officials that funding for road projects planned for this construction season has been reduced by about 65 percent.

According to Director Rob Kenerson, BACTS was slated to receive $4.6 million for highway projects in its service region, which encompasses much of Greater Bangor.

Kenerson said Monday that instead, DOT officials now are saying only $1.6 million will be available, at least in the short term.

BACTS is one of four metropolitan planning organizations in Maine designated by the federal and state governments to carry out transportation planning. BACTS covers the Greater Bangor urban area, which comprises Bangor, Brewer, Veazie, parts of Hampden, Orono, Old Town, Milford, Bradley, Eddington, Orrington and Indian Island.

“It’s not good and we’re gonna have to deal with it,” Bangor City Engineer Jim Ring said Monday.

“We have several projects that we anticipated being able to do, based on what we were told by [BACTS] was going to be available,” Ring said.

“I’m not entirely surprised,” Ring said. “It’s a serious issue statewide.”

Kenerson said BACTS members would meet today to begin reviewing which projects should be funded with the remaining money this construction season.

As was the case in late 2005, when $130 million in road work was deferred, state DOT officials are blaming this year’s transportation budget woes on cash flow problems, specifically a 35 percent hike in construction costs and a drop in state revenue from the gasoline tax.

“We were struck by surprise,” Kenerson said.

“Why? That was kind of the question,” he said, adding that a 35 percent increase in construction costs “doesn’t equal” the 65 percent hit BACTS and its counterparts are bracing for.

Reasons cited for the 2005 deferrals included: changes in the new federal transportation law that provides more money overall over the next five years, but later in the funding cycle than state officials anticipated; higher fuel costs which are affecting gas tax revenues; and a spike in costs for construction materials such as asphalt and steel because of the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of the hurricane season.

Maria Fuentes, executive director of the Maine Better Transportation Association, said she has never seen the transportation funding outlook this bad in her 15 years on the job.

“We’ve been concerned for a number of years now,” she said. “One of the biggest problems is that we don’t have a plan to deal with this.

“Frankly 30 years ago, 26 percent of state funding was spent on roads. Today, that number is 10 percent. Clearly, the state is spending more money on its other priorities, like education, Medicare.”