Interstate 73 Project still has major hurdles to cross

The group woke up this morning to fresh coffee and listened to each other's accounts of their meetings with key Congressional leaders from South Carolina up to Ohio. Good news came from the Ohio delegate who met with Congresswoman Kaptur of Ohio, and he was pretty encouraged. He said Kaptur remembered from the early days of I-73/74, that the highway wasn't going to run through Toledo, but she was happy to know that plans are now to do just that.

Delegate Bill Woods from West Virginia was at my breakfast table. He's been a part of the project for 15 years. He said he did a study 15 years ago about what the cost of 1-73/74 would be back then. Even then, total cost added up to $12 billion. Today, there's no real estimate for the cost of the total project- Myrtle Beach to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

Congressman John Spratt form South Carolina gave the talk this morning. He told us it's going to take everyone together to make this highway work. He said we've a long way to go..and you can't bring it to fruition without new ways to fund road. He says there could be a chance to toll I-95 to help fund 73. He said the I-95 Corridor area deserves and needs some infrastructure. The problem is right now dedicated revenues coming into the highway trust fund are dragging behind projections, so soon we will begin spending more money than the trust fund brings in, unless something changes. Spratt is in a good position, Chairman of the Budget Committee, to help make sure funds are replenished in the highway trust fund, and he told us that's his top priority.

Spratt said, "the opposition will be there," when it comes time to establish tolls. "This is not going to come easy," he said because the entire transportation community was together, including truckers, against tolls. "It's not a done deal, yet." "And I don't think you'll see tolls on I-95 without a major fight."

Spratt said the public/private partnership approach to funding the road will definitely be required. That works by a private company taking over a stretch of the highway with tolls, and paying the state a sum of money for that. Spratt told me "It may not be the best way, but it's got to be considered." Spratt also so said the Minnesota bridge collapse brings new attention on the need for repairing about a thousand bridges across the country, and that I-73 will be competing for money at the same time.

Looks like a tough road to hoe, as we say in the South.

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