$2 billion road bond possible in November

RALEIGH -- North Carolina voters might be asked in November to allow the state to borrow $2 billion to speed up highway construction, bridge repair and other transportation spending.

Brad Wilson of Raleigh, who heads a statewide transportation study group, says a bond issue would help North Carolina make a quick start in meeting a number of transportation needs. The study group will make recommendations to the General Assembly in May.

"If the General Assembly would approve a highway bond [referendum] for this fall, then we could be in business during 2009 with a revenue stream," Wilson said today in a meeting with News & Observer reporters and editors. "To really make an impact on the highway infrastructure, that bond's got to be of a certain magnitude -- or it's really not worth doing."

Wilson, an insurance executive and former member of the state Board of Transportation, chairs the 21st Century Transportation Committee, a group of 24 civic, business and political leaders studying the state's road, transit, rail and other transportation needs.

He predicted the group also would recommend this year that the General Assembly:

* End the annual transfer of $172 million from the Highway Trust Fund, used to build roads, to the General Fund, where it is spent on non-transportation items.

* Approve "gap" funding to start construction on at least two toll roads in the Triangle and in Union County, to cover the difference between project costs and expected revenues from toll collections.

* Secure funds to accelerate the state's efforts to fix or replace aging road bridges. To reduce a backlog of aging bridges, the state Department of Transportation needs to quadruple its current pace of fixing about 100 bridges each year.

Longer-range recommendations will come later this year.

Wilson's group also has been charged with making some proposals for action in the so-called "short" legislative session that starts in May.

He wants to propose as much fast action as is politically feasible -- but not too much.

"We are concerned about making sure that we right-size whatever the proposals are that we come forward with," Wilson said.

"If it's too big and too amorphous for the short session, we are concerned that it will be so heavy that the General Assembly will not find themselves in a position to react to it, and it will paralyze their reaction to everything that we do. ....

"Likewise we want to be aggressive enough to ... deliver something substantive for them to react to and actually do something, and make a difference."