DOT struggles under gas tax stretched thin

State's crews will do less repaving

RALEIGH -- The state Department of Transportation plans to do 20 percent less repaving this year because of rising prices of oil-based asphalt.

That cutback may get even larger. Oil prices continue to climb, but one of the revenue streams intended to help pay for road construction, the state gas tax, remains capped at 29.9 cents per gallon.

In the Triangle and elsewhere, engineers are tapping next year's money to finish this year's repaving, meaning that the cutbacks won't be felt until 2009. Some work crews already are on a work week of four 10-hour days to save truck fuel, and more may switch.

"We're not going to get as many lane miles paved and resurfaced," said Wally Bowman, division engineer with the DOT based in Durham. "It's hitting us hard."

Transportation officials said they could not yet identify any specific projects that will be affected and said that major highway projects will continue as planned.

"We resurface roads every year in every county," said Jon Nance, director of field operations for the DOT. "Instead of paving 100 miles, for example, we're paving 80 miles. We're trying to prioritize the roads as best we can and looking at what we can do to prolong the life of the roads we can't repave."

Limited options

The reduced paving will be felt on shock absorbers in every county. Unlike many states, where localities share in the repair and construction costs for state roads, North Carolina handles all that work through the Department of Transportation, maintaining more miles of road than any state government except Texas.

North Carolina spent $278 million on repaving last year.

It's difficult to say how many fewer miles of road will be paved, because the cost differs depending on the size and type of the road. An interstate highway is not only wider than a two-lane road, but the asphalt is also poured deeper.

Here's one way to think of it:

In December, it cost about $53,000 to pave one mile of a 20-foot wide road. Now it costs about $64,000.

North Carolina's gas tax was intended to help compensate for the increase in oil prices. Until two years ago, the tax was adjusted twice a year and rose with the price of gas. The idea was that if gas prices were up, so were asphalt prices, and the state would need more money to pay for it.

But in 2006, the legislature capped the tax at 29.9 cents a gallon under pressure from an anti-gas-tax campaign led by Salisbury lawyer Bill Graham.

Another revenue source, the 3 percent highway use tax that is applied to each new car purchase, has flatlined along with auto sales.

Even the cost of getting the asphalt to the road has jumped, because everything involved in road paving is trucked to the site.

Contracts affected

The Triangle likely won't see the full effect of the cuts until next year, said Bowman, the division engineer. He's completing the repaving contracts awarded for this year, but he's siphoning money from next year's budget to do it. He compared the road-paving pinch to how higher gas prices are eating a larger share of household budgets.

"Do you cut back on Christmas? Do you cut back on vacation?" Bowman said. "With us, you cut back on the miles you're going to repave next year."

Barry Moose, the division engineer in the Charlotte area, is juggling the same problem.

"For every million dollars in contract work I had to do [this year], I'm now budgeting $1.2 million," Moose said. "When I do that, I'll have less money available for next year's contract."

The department's repaving contracts allow for a fluctuation in asphalt prices. That avoids paying a premium on the contract, but it means the state pays more when asphalt prices go up.

In the first four months of the year, the state already had paid $4 million more than its contracts originally called for because of asphalt prices, and the paving season didn't really begin until March.

The state paid $35.7 million over the original contract costs in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina pushed up oil and gas prices.

"We're on pace to beat our number in 2006, which is kind of scary," said Wiley Jones, payment construction engineer for the DOT.

Moose, in the Charlotte area, said he'll be doing more patching and repairing to make roads last longer instead of repaving. The danger is that the roads deteriorate and will need more repairs when they're finally repaved.

"The longer you wait to repave, the more it costs you to repair," Moose said, "and so you can't repave as much."