Pavement Power

But what about 'dedicated' funds?

There's broad and bipartisan support in Raleigh for Gov. Mike Easley's plan for wide-ranging improvements to North Carolina highways. Easley wants to use about $700 million in unspent bond money from the Highway Trust Fund to resurface roads, add turn lanes on two-lane highways, replace bridges and widen shoulders. About $70 million of it would be spent on public transportation. 

Since the money would likely flow to every one of the state's 100 counties, it's clear why it's getting quick and easy support. Who doesn't want better, safer roads? And is there a politician in Raleigh who doesn't understand the proven relationship between big road building programs and re-election?

There's only one fly backstroking in the ointment. The trust fund is a "dedicated fund," created in 1989, and its primary purpose is building urban loops, although it also embraces widening two-lane highways and paving rural dirt roads. That was the purpose of the bonds, which were approved by voters in 1996 but never sold. A few legislators pointed out that this "N.C. Moving Ahead" project isn't exactly what the fund or the bond issue specified. But the lure of easy money, and easy votes, drowned the opposition quickly. 

The state's bond lawyers gave the governor an out. As Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett put it, "This is really not changing the focus. This is modernizing the 1989 trust fund law." And besides, he said, "How are you going to go back home and say you are against improving highway safety?"
We're not going to say that. And we'll welcome the additional improvements in our region's highways.

But we'll do it with a nagging concern about the continuing ease with which state government moves "dedicated" money around to suit the needs and political expediencies of the day.