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Sans Souci Blues: Potholes, patching and years until the next big fix

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Ed Lewis: A lifetime of memories on the Sans Souci

<p>Saying he was borrowing a phrase from the Michigan governor, Luzerne County Councilman Stephen A. Urban last week repeatedly called for Pennsylvania to &#8220;just fix the damn roads.&#8221;</p><p>State Rep. Mike Carroll, D-Avoca, the minority chair of the state House Transportation Committee, said significant work has been completed, but the problem boils down to insufficient funding to cover the state&#8217;s vast road network.</p><p>Urban raised the issue during council&#8217;s discussion about county Manager C. David Pedri&#8217;s request to hire a lobbyist firm to help obtain more funding, which prompted a debate about the effectiveness of legislators.</p><p>Zeroing in on Carroll due to his role on the transportation committee, Urban said state Route 115 and other state roads are &#8220;just full of potholes&#8221; while Pennsylvania has the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/02/05/gas-tax-state-what-costs-fill-up-your-car-across-country/38908491/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">highest gas tax </a>in the country at 58 cents per gallon.</p><p>&#8220;There shouldn&#8217;t be a pothole in this county. This county should be paved with gold. You should be able to reach out to Mike and say, &#8220;Mike, we need some more money out of Harrisburg. You&#8217;re the Democratic chair of the committee. Help us out,&#8217;&#8221; Urban said.</p><p>PennDOT spokesman James May told the Times Leader that paving and patching work on Route 115 could start as early as this week, once asphalt plants are open. Also, he said a larger project is in the works.</p><p>In response to Urban&#8217;s comments, Carroll said Urban has never reached out to him expressing concerns about roads, and he and the state transportation department have been &#8220;thoroughly responsive&#8221; to problems brought to their attention.</p><p>He also said this region has been &#8220;wildly successful&#8221; obtaining transportation funding the last few years, despite fierce competition.</p><p>Carroll rattled off highway infrastructure earmarks in the Luzerne County portion of his district this year to date alone: $1.6 million to improve the intersection of Main and McAlpine streets in Avoca, $151,236 to replace and expand the Collins Creek Bridge in Dupont and funding for two projects in Pittston Township &#8212; $603,847 for roadway and drainage improvements in the area of Baker and Chapel roads and $624,484 to reconstruct Enterprise Way in the CenterPoint Commerce &amp; Trade Park.</p><p>&#8220;The list of successes is numerous,&#8221; Carroll said, advising Urban to visit Main Street in Pittston to experience transportation enhancements there.</p><p>While he &#8220;makes the best of&#8221; his post on the state transportation committee, Carroll said he is a &#8220;minority voice,&#8221; which he said should hit home with Urban as a councilman often in the minority.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sure there are many things Mr. Urban would like to do that he cannot because he is not in the majority,&#8221; Carroll said.</p><p><strong>Broader issue</strong></p><p>Funding isn&#8217;t available for all needed road repairs because Pennsylvania owns a more than 40,000-mile road network that &#8220;far exceeds almost every other state,&#8221; Carroll said.</p><p>&#8220;The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has more miles of state-owned roads than New York, New Jersey and the New England states combined,&#8221; he said.</p><p>While many are familiar with major highways maintained by the state &#8212; such as the interstates and Routes 11, 309 and 115 &#8212; many don&#8217;t realize the state is responsible for hundreds of four-digit routes that &#8220;by any measure in any other state would be local roads,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Like the county, the state has largely unsuccessfully encouraged municipalities to take over roads in their jurisdictions, Carroll said.</p><p>&#8220;Local governments don&#8217;t want to plow and maintain them and would rather have PennDOT do that for them,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Using the Bear Creek area as an example, he said the state owns Meadow Run and Suscon roads in addition to 115.</p><p>In the small borough of Hughestown, the main thoroughfares &#8212; Rock and Center streets &#8212; are both state highways, and both York Avenue and McAlpine Street in his hometown of Avoca are state-owned, Carroll said.</p><p>One state route &#8212; Old Boston Road in Jenkins Township &#8212; is a dead-end, he noted.</p><p>&#8220;Every community in Luzerne County has examples like those I just cited,&#8221; Carroll said, adding that the state also owns more bridges due to its hilly and mountainous terrain crossed with an abundance of waterways.</p><p>As a result, measuring Pennsylvania&#8217;s gas tax against those in other states is unfair because it is an &#8220;apples to orange comparison,&#8221; Carroll maintained.</p><p>The primary revenue stream for state roads is the Motor License Fund, which comes from the gasoline tax and most driver&#8217;s license and vehicle registration and title fees, Carroll said.</p><p>However, about $700 million is diverted from this pot annually to fund state police, including coverage in communities that don&#8217;t have their own municipal police departments or contribute toward state police protection, Carroll said.</p><p>Each penny of the gas tax generates about $60 million, which means approximately 12 cents of the tax goes to state police instead of fixing infrastructure, Carroll said.</p><p>Federal funding to maintain interstate highway systems also has been declining for years, Carroll said.</p><p>&#8220;We rely increasingly on state money for maintenance of interstates. I wish our federal partners would be more supportive of the need to maintain the interstate highway network,&#8221; Carroll said.</p><p>In summary, Carroll said the issue is resources are not available to fully deal with the state&#8217;s responsibility, which is greater than that in many other states.</p><p>&#8220;There are lots of nuances and complexities, and it&#8217;s really easy to sit at a meeting and complain about PennDOT and Mike Carroll without taking time to learn about it,&#8221; the state representative said.</p><p><strong>Supporting Carroll</strong></p><p>Some came to Carroll&#8217;s defense during last week&#8217;s council meeting.</p><p>Pedri said Carroll immediately resolved an issue the county recently encountered with the state transportation department. Councilman Robert Schnee said Carroll and some other legislators are the &#8220;voice of labor&#8221; and constantly battle in Harrisburg for &#8220;the normal person that goes with a lunch can&#8221; to work. Councilwoman Sheila Saidman said Urban is a no-show member of council&#8217;s legislative committee and should get involved because his voice &#8220;would be a help.&#8221;</p><p>Urban questioned the effectiveness of council&#8217;s legislative committee but said he would personally tell Carroll &#8220;to his face&#8221; the state roads are &#8220;in terrible shape&#8221; and that &#8220;people deserve better,&#8221; including those who have been forced to fix flat tires at their own expense.</p><p>His &#8220;just fix the damn roads&#8221; reference came from Michigan&#8217;s Governor Gretchen Whitmer&#8217;s campaign theme.</p><p>The county has its own &#8220;incredible undertaking&#8221; trying to fix and maintain its 125 miles of roads and 300 bridges scattered throughout the county, primarily in rural areas &#8212; infrastructure largely placed in county ownership during the Great Depression, Pedri told council last week.</p><p>A major project this year will be the $1.4 million reconstruction of Chase Road in Jackson Township, which is scheduled to start this spring, Pedri said. The state is funding 80 percent of that work.</p><p>Another major 2019 project will be the full-depth reclamation of a county-owned road that includes Foothills Drive in Butler Township and continues through Conyngham borough and Sugarloaf Township, which is estimated at more than $2 million, Pedri said. The county has tentative agreements with all three municipalities to assume ownership of the infrastructure when it is completed as part of the goal to shed county-owned infrastructure, he said.</p><p>The county&#8217;s new $5 vehicle registration fee, which took effect earlier this year, is expected to generate $1.4 million annually for road and bridge upkeep, not including a state match of up to $2 million the first year. Council added a provision to automatically end the fee if the state is no longer providing a funding match.</p><p>The county has earmarked $1.675 million in community development funding to construct a new Division Street bridge, also over Solomon Creek, in Hanover Township and Wilkes-Barre, with plans to complete the project within two years, Pedri has said.</p><p>Councilwoman Jane Walsh Waitkus commended the administration for projects that are now underway to replace the county-owned Blytheburn Road Bridge in Rice Township and the Bridge Road bridge in Hollenback Township.</p><p>Walsh Waitkus said citizens have expressed appreciation for these projects and county pothole patching in progress.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just so exciting to park nearby, get out of the car and just watch construction going on,&#8221; Walsh Waitkus said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Carroll </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/web1_Mike-Carroll.jpg</photo0><caption0>Carroll </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/web1_countycouncil02-1-.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Urban </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/web1_countycouncil02-1-.jpg</photo1><caption1>Urban </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jennifer Learn-Andes</p><p>jandes@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

‘Fix the damn roads,’ Luzerne County Councilman says