Report: Poor roads, bridges costing Mass. millions

Highway improvements, including rumble strips, wider lanes and better road markings could bring that number down. The Federal Highway Administration estimates every $100 million spent on highway safety improvements results in 145 fewer traffic fatalities per decade.

The report also points to other well-documented problems including the state’s crumbling bridges and the MBTA’s struggling finances.

Gov. Deval Patrick is pushing a plan to borrow nearly $3 billion to speed repairs for 250 to 300 “structurally deficient” bridges and the MBTA has reported a steady increase in ridership as gas prices soar.

The formation of the coalition follows a report released last year by a blue ribbon transportation commission.

The commission said the state needs to raise an additional $15 to $19 billion to repair and maintain its existing transportation infrastructure over the next two decades and the best way to close the gap is by hiking the gas tax by 11.5 cents and creating a new 5-cent-per-mile highway “user fee” on state highways.

The gas tax hike alone could bring in an estimated $10.5 billion over the next two decades.

The earlier report also called for key savings — from paring back the pension and health benefits for MBTA employees to eliminating paid police details on road construction projects to barring the state from borrowing money to pay for operating expenses.

The call for new taxes and tolls met with resistance on Beacon Hill, where lawmakers were reluctant to add to the soaring price of gasoline.

Critics say that before the state can think about putting more of a financial burden on over-stressed drivers, it has to wring all the savings it can out of the system.

Those reforms include a proposal by Gov. Deval Patrick and legislative leaders to replace some police traffic details with civilian flag bearers.

“They shouldn’t even talk about new revenues until they do the reforms first,” said Barbara Anderson of the anti-tax group Citizens for Limited Taxation. “They simply have a lot of nerve talking about a tax increase. They have to show where the last gas tax increase went first.”

But Draisen said the state can’t dig itself out of the transportation funding hole with reforms alone.

“Even if we did all [the reforms], we would still need to raise additional funds and that means taxes, tolls or both,” he said.

(Associated Press)

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