Day: Fixing Rockland’s roads, bridges a top priority

The simplest thing for elected officials to do is neglect infrastructure, Rockland County Executive Ed Day says.

“You could ignore it and it could crumble and it’s the next guy’s problem,” he said.

But Day said government can’t wait to any longer to fix its crumbling roads and bridges.

He said it’s not only the right thing to do for residents — “The least you should deserve as a taxpayer is a road to drive on that isn’t going to take your teeth out” — but improving them will create jobs and could attract businesses to come to Rockland, especially with a new Tappan Zee Bridge imminent.

Repairing roads and bridges under local control will be among Day’s major themes in his State of the County address next month.

“We need to invest in infrastructure because if we don’t, it’s going to get so bad we’ll never be able to catch up,” Day told The Journal News.

As luck would have it, the state is sitting on a $5.1 billion pile of cash from various settlements with banks that Day is hoping to tap.

He and Rockland Highway Department Superintendent Charles “Skip” Vezzetti said some of that windfall should make its way to counties, towns and villages that are responsible for maintaining the majority of roads in New York.

“Nothing is a bigger shot in the arm than road projects and bridge projects,” Vezzetti said. “Everybody benefits.”

The county already has funding in place this year to rebuild the Orangeburg Road bridge in Orangetown and Samsondale Road bridge in Haverstraw, among other road projects, but said with fresh cash it could move up work for West Washington Avenue in Pearl River and Congers Road in New City.

Competing for dollars

Vezzetti later this month will travel to Albany with his fellow executive board members of the New York State County Highway Superintendents Association to make their case that at least $1.2 billion should come back to local communities. The group will follow up in March when 500 highway superintendents from around the state meet with their local lawmakers as part of its annual lobbying effort.

Jeff Zupan, a senior transportation fellow with the Regional Plan Association, said transportation projects can expect stiff competition.

Day and Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino have already called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers to use nearly $2 billion from the bank settlement to keep tolls down on the $3.9 billion Tappan Zee replacement project.

There’s no shortage of projects that have nothing to do with transportation vying for the funds.

“While it’s a good place to be in, it’s going to cause (Cuomo) a huge political headache,” Zupan said.

On the other hand, he said fixing roads may be appealing to state lawmakers who can each point to something they did for their constituents.

“There’s certainly political appeal so everyone can say they got something out it. But none of those things are game-changers,” said Zupan, adding that those types of small-scale projects would not make that much of an impact on the state economy other than creating local construction jobs.

Besides chasing those dollars, Day plans to pursue transportation grants from federal and state agencies and push state and federal elected officials representing Rockland to step up funding for local roads. And there’s also the possibility that he will look to add more money to the highway department’s budget given that the county’s long-term debt, as opposed to its $138 million deficit, is “not that overwhelming.”

Day and Vezzetti recently toured the recently rebuilt Oak Tree Road bridge in Tappan, celebrating that the $2.5 million project finished a month ahead of schedule and came in nearly $450,000 under budget. To them, it was not only an example of a job well done but hopefully a sign to the road ahead.

Twitter: @ksaeed1