Remarks by Erich W. Zimmermann, Policy Analyst
Delivered at River Valley Club, Louisville, Kentucky
June 3, 2005

Good afternoon, my name is Erich Zimmermann and I am a transportation analyst with Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington, D.C.-based, non-partisan budget watchdog. It is a great pleasure to be here with you today. If you haven't heard of us, we have the thankless task of trying to keep lawmakers in the nation's capitol from wasting your money. In addition to our work on transportation, we work on a wide variety of issues including national security, Forest Service reform, energy policy, and water issues.

On my flight to Louisville, I spent some time thinking about the bridges project and more generally about the yeoman's work of groups like River Fields. Keeping public officials who make the decisions about your city's transportation priorities more accountable to taxpayers is hard work, and River Fields should be commended for it.

Having just run the Vermont Marathon this past weekend, I feel like I can relate. Completing a marathon and stopping huge transportation projects actually require strangely similar attributes. First, you need to know how to withstand a lot of pain and frustration. In addition, both activities require not only stamina, but age and wisdom as well. Young runners like the fast sprints that are over quickly and don't take nearly the preparation or patience. When you are little more mature, you come to understand that with persistence, good things and even huge things can happen, but they take time. This is one of the reasons it's such a pleasure to work with River Fields, a smart, mature organization that understands the value of patience and has done the training necessary to succeed in the marathon to oppose the eastern bridge.

I am here today to talk with you about Taxpayers for Common Senses' interest in the bridges project and how it fits into our mission. We believe our nation needs to do a much better job setting priorities for federal transportation spending, and we have focused our work in the following areas: effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, and equity. I will use these broad categories to frame today's discussion.

It is our view that the future of transportation spending lies in setting stringent priorities. Anybody who tells you that simply throwing more money at the transportation system is the best solution is wrong.

More generally, then, I hope to make this conversation one about priorities, both in regard to how we, as a nation, spend our transportation tax dollars and what we expect in return for that spending.

The first priority is effectiveness. The greatest measure of an effective transportation system is how well it moves us from point A to point B. Since most American's travel by automobile, effectiveness is often measured by how much or how little congestion there is on the roads. As congestion becomes an increasing barrier to mobility and economic growth, it is vital that the billions we spend go to smart projects that will produce tangible congestion benefits. This is especially important for Louisville. As you can probably tell when from driving around the city, the average Louisville commuter spends more than 40 hours per year stuck in gridlock, compared to only 25 hours in other medium-size cities. According to the Texas Transportation Institute, this is up from less than 20 hours in 1992 and about 10 hours in 1982.

In addition to being a headache, congestion comes with real costs. The Road Information Project, a Washington, D.C.-based organization, estimates that the poor state of Kentucky's roads costs Louisville motorists roughly $1,300 per driver each year, and costs the entire commonwealth $2.1 billion annually.

The second priority is spending efficiency. Efficient spending means wisely considering where every dollar is going and ensuring that our tax dollars are paying for the most effective projects. Though there are clearly similarities between measuring effectiveness and efficiency, effectiveness has us asking, for example, will this project reduce congestion while efficiency has us asking is this the very best way to reduce congestion.

Viewing the bridges from a federal taxpayer perspective and considering the effectiveness and efficiency of the project, the Ohio River Bridges project is something of a no-brainer. On one hand, Spaghetti Junction is a traffic and transportation nightmare that impacts Louisville and the surrounding region, and clearly needs to be fixed. On the other hand, building a new eastern bridge would serve a much less urgent transportation need while raising significant concerns about its effect on Kentucky's economy and land-use. The estimated cost of the eastern bridge to federal taxpayers would be at least $640 million. Though my organization doesn't tell the federal government how to spend taxpayer dollars, we have no problem yelling at the top of our lungs when our money is going to be wasted. For this reason, we are proud to be part of the growing ranks of individuals and organizations opposing the eastern bridge.

As federal dollars become scarcer and project costs across the nation continue to skyrocket, we need to ensure that the dollars we invest in transportation projects go a lot further than they have in the past. For this reason, we need to be especially careful when considering new roads, new bridges, or new train lines. To build new is extraordinarily expensive and time-consuming. Whenever possible, we first need to improve and upgrade existing infrastructure, which is often more cost-effective and brings faster gridlock relief. We should build new only when absolutely necessary. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, 24 percent of Kentucky's major roads are in poor or mediocre condition and 30 percent of its bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Though some see this as a justification for radically increasing federal funding, we see a need to rebuild the nation's crumbling roads and bridges.

Next, transparency. We believe that taxpayers should play a bigger role in the decision-making process, and should have access to as much information about a project as they need to make an informed decision. In this regard, there are several potential reasons for concern. For one, this project was placed on a review “fast track” as a result of an executive order by the current administration. This order sped up the process of review for a select few transportation projects. In regard to the eastern bridge, this has raised concerns regarding whether drinking water impacts were thoroughly and adequately considered. Second, and an issue that has certainly raised my ire a little, the complete environmental review documents are no longer available on the project's website. Third, it raises a red flag that the company Parsons Brinkerhoff was chosen to design part of the eastern bridge. This is the same company that was in charge of Boston's Big Dig, which famously cost taxpayers more than $14 billion and was billions over budget. Sure, Parsons has worked on other projects, but their track record of waste should send shivers down your spines. Finally, it is especially troubling that construction plan for this project has changed with little public knowledge. As it stands now, the eastern bridge would actually be completed six or more years ahead of the downtown bridge.

Finally, transportation spending must be equitable. This means that one mode of transportation should not have special treatment that allows it to flourish at the expense of other transportation choices. As is stands now, for example, it is much easier to get federal approval for a major highway project than it is for a major transit project. The federal government will also pay for 80 or 90 percent of a highway project, but only 50 percent of a transit project. This creates a situation where the eastern bridge is far easier to achieve and far more financially feasible than a proposal such as Louisville's T2 light rail project.

Another concern we have is not just about the total price tag, but how some of that funding is being funneled to the project. In this year's House-passed transportation reauthorization bill, lawmakers in Kentucky and Indiana secured a total of $55 million worth of special interest earmarks, for the bridges, one of the larger amounts secured in the bill for any one project in the nation. Taxpayers for Common Sense opposes earmarking because it drives up the transportation bill's cost, takes control away from local decision-makers, makes it difficult to verify the level of need for the funded project, and often represents a small down payment on a much larger project that federal taxpayers will dump money into for years to come. This is an ever-increasing concern as the number and value of earmarks continues to skyrocket.

Another problem is that earmarks create the appearance of project momentum, because this money allows studies to continue and project design to move forward. Part of the purpose of this earmarked funding is to create a sense in the community that building the eastern bridge is inevitable. You'll hear the argument that so much money has been spent on the project that it would be a waste not to build it. Don't be fooled. The $55 million in earmarks in the current House transportation legislation represents a tiny fraction of the approximately $1.68 billion that federal taxpayers would have to contribute to build both bridges, and does not help overcome the greatest challenge the eastern bridge faces: securing adequate federal, state, and local funding for an unneeded project.

In addition, earmarks are more about political clout than transportation need. This results in inequitable distribution of earmark funds, so that the more powerful lawmakers can get huge chunks of money for their favorite projects. We created a database of all 4,000-plus earmarks in this years House bill, which allows us to look at state totals and per capita data. It would be one thing if the bulk of this money was truly going to high priority projects that would reduce congestion and get Americans moving, but what we found was millions of dollars for horse trails, transportation museums, and snowmobile trails, as well as earmarks for special interests such as Wal-Mart and Donald Trump.

The other inequity that comes from such a huge amount of money going to the eastern bridge, both in earmarks and from the state's federal distribution, is that there remains much less money for other projects that might have a real effect on congestion and other transportation needs in the region. We see little equity in a process where that funds the Brent Spence Bridge, another much-needed Kentucky to Cincinnati bridge, with only a $2 million earmark, despite that it carries 150,000 vehicles each day and is falling apart. This is only the most obvious example, however, and there are probably hundreds of other projects in Kentucky that will take a backseat in order to build the eastern bridge.

Again, this takes us back to talking about priorities. Since federal dollars are limited, and Kentucky's contribution is limited, choosing to build one thing means choosing not to build or fix other things. Choosing to build an $800 million bridge that will do little to solve congestion means choosing not to build or fix a lot of roadways, bridges, and other transportation needs that are clearly more pressing.

Let me conclude by saying how hopeful I am that your work and the work of River Fields will succeed in stopping the eastern bridge. This is a taxpayer waste and an unnecessary project. There are unfortunately so few organizations with the sophistication and influence of River Fields fighting these types of projects on the local level, but their involvement certainly makes this a winnable battle.

Thank you.