McCrory, Perdue offer ideas on roads

Gubernatorial candidates Beverly Perdue and Pat McCrory say they want big changes in how North Carolina builds roads -- though some of those changes were put in place months ago.

The next governor will help figure out how to pay for the state's growing burden of clogged roads and how to change the way decisions are made on road spending.

The 19-member state Board of Transportation, whose members represent districts, oversees spending all the way down to approving stoplights. Money is parceled out through a formula that doesn't consider factors such as traffic congestion.

"The board has evolved into a shadow legislature," said David Hartgen, a transportation analyst at UNC-Charlotte who also writes for the conservative John Locke Foundation. "They see their job as bringing home projects to those counties. That's wrong."

One board member recently resigned after The News & Observer reported he steered road work near commercial property he owned. The member, Louis W. Sewell Jr. of Jacksonville, raised money for both Perdue and Gov. Mike Easley. Another board member and Perdue fundraiser resigned in January after trying to raise money from country singer Randy Parton and others building a theater in Roanoke Rapids.

McCrory, a Republican, said he would not appoint someone to the board who raised money for him, though contributors could serve. He wants a smaller board appointed based on expertise.

"It should be a statewide plan that they're approving, with interconnectivity," McCrory said, "not ward politics with everyone trying to get their share of the pie."

Perdue, a Democrat, said the board should act as a planning body.

"Board members will no longer be voting on projects," Perdue said at a speech in Charlotte on Tuesday. "We're going to leave decisions up to the experts and engineers."

Perdue would not commit to banning fundraisers from the board. She said any ban would extend to all boards, but she first wants to create an endowment funded by nonprofits that would fund candidates in the governor's race. That would eliminate the need for fundraisers, she said.

The candidates agree on changes to the board, as well as some of the larger questions about the system.

What they don't fully address are where transportation money will come from and how road construction projects should be chosen, say some observers.

"Neither of them is getting at the fundamentals," said UNC-Charlotte's Hartgen.

Unlike nearly every other state, North Carolina pays for roads at the state level. There are no county-maintained roads.

The burden has grown immensely in the past decade as population growth has strained highways. An increase in the price of oil-based asphalt has made road construction costs soar.

$64 billion question

The state's need for endless black ribbon -- as the truck-driving song calls it -- helped prompt the legislature to create a special commission to suggest overhauls.

The group will recommend how to pay for $64 billion in transportation needs to prepare the system for 2030, when North Carolina is predicted to be the seventh most populous state.

McCrory and Perdue both call for halting the shift of $170 million a year from the highway trust fund, which is filled up by car-sale taxes. The fund pays for road construction and repair, but the transfers go to the state's general fund, which covers virtually all other spending.

"Bev will end the $170 million transfer during her first term" as governor, Perdue's Web site declares. She co-sponsored legislation in 1989 that created the trust fund and also began the transfer of money.