opinion

Bangert: Whiff of Romney in Pence’s $1B plan

No one here is trying to tell anyone what to do in Romney, the unintentional pit stop and the fall guy for driver frustration during this summer’s Interstate 65 bridge failure and detour. That town went through enough.

But smart money says: Keep those port-a-johns. You know, the ones planted at Indiana 28 and U.S. 231 to keep the bumper-to-bumper waves of bathroom-break drivers from overloading septic systems in the tiny Tippecanoe County town in August and September.

The traffic’s coming back. This time, though, it will be carrying film crews from political campaigns hoping to make Gov. Mike Pence pay for road maintenance problems that have been stacking up so much that even the governor’s office can’t ignore it anymore.

On Tuesday, Pence laid out a $1 billion road plan proposal. Scheduled over the next four years, Pence’s plan is built in part on the state’s surplus. It also counts on new money and new borrowing that will need the General Assembly’s blessing to get through. As he did it, he defended his administration’s past spending on the state’s highways and made the case that he fully understands that good roads mean good jobs and a good economy.

“I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: If you say you’re the Crossroads of America,” Pence said, “you better have the roads to back it up.”

Pence, under increased pressure from critics, also made the case that making a priority out of Indiana’s road maintenance woes have been on his mind for a long time.

Well … for months, at least.

“It seems like some of the political dialogue is starting a little early, with an election more than a year away, but that’s all right,” Pence said Tuesday, referencing a constant barrage of references to crumbling roads that have made for easy campaign picking. “As you may recall, I think I was out at the State Fair when I said we were looking at roads in the short session (of the 2016 General Assembly).”

If that was Pence trying to shake the late-to-the-party allegations being tossed around lately, the governor wasn’t mentioning this: By the time he hit the Indiana State Fair, the I-65 bridge over the Wildcat Creek near Lafayette was into its second closure.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that neglect incapacitated that bridge in early August — construction meant to expand lanes and correct known problems compromised the structure. But the detour that resulted on one of Indiana’s busiest highways galvanized bigger questions.

The slow-rolling detour took the abstract about Indiana’s roads — arguments about how much had been spent and should have been spent on highways and bridges graded a D-plus by the American Society of Civil Engineers — and made it all-too real in terms of traffic overload, crashes (a few fatal) and even a town struggling to keep up with plumbing when the unexpected throngs motored through.

Fairly or unfairly, it exposed Pence as he heads into a re-election bid.

The reaction to his plan was muted this week — and not just the predictable, opposition party sort of muted. (And, yes, the Indiana Democratic Party and governor candidate John Gregg continued taking potshots at Pence on Tuesday afternoon.)

Rep. Tim Brown, a Crawfordsville Republican and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, sounded tentative, questioning taking on “any debt against the state’s ongoing expenses.” Kevin Brinegar, CEO of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, wondered about “a nearly $1 billion gap annually in required road and bridge maintenance — not to mention funding for new construction.”

“Future needs, however, have been well documented,” Brinegar said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Pence boasted that none of this would be done with additional taxes on hardworking Hoosiers. (Though he did allow that maybe it was time to look at the sales tax added to gasoline purchases and whether some of that money should be pinned to road repairs.)

But you don’t have to do much distilling of Brinegar’s comments to arrive here: How much longer can Indiana keep up with repairs without a more sustaining plan? There are only so many Indiana Toll Road deals Indiana can pull off — that one done by former Gov. Mitch Daniels — to pay for a mass wave of construction.

And you didn’t have to do much distilling this summer when the Indiana Department of Transportation talked about fighting an uphill battle.

As INDOT and contractors tried to figure out what to do with the sinking bridge over Wildcat Creek, an INDOT spokesman was outlining how many of INDOT-maintained bridges were rated “poor” in the most recent state inspections — 6.4 percent of 5,600. At that moment, with bridges deteriorating faster than money was being put to them, INDOT was predicting that percentage of poor-rated bridges to grow to 12 percent. And that was assuming that $274 million would be spent on bridge repair and maintenance each year.

Meanwhile, Indiana’s 18-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax hasn’t budged since 2003. The purchasing power of gas tax revenues dwindle, too, as cars have become more fuel efficient. Ask city and county highway departments how that is working out for them.

It’s not a pretty picture, probably one suited for one of those port-a-pots that sprung up at Indiana 28 and U.S. 231 in August.

Pence can’t avoid the hints and allegations that I-65 forced his hand. He’ll have help, you have to hope, among the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly to sort out a long-range plan that thinks beyond this summer’s debacle and the next four years.

At the same time, Gregg needs to lay out what he’d do. Is he open to a beefier state gas tax to maintain Hoosier roads? Or will he lean back on the loan-heavy plan he carried when he campaigned for governor in 2012?

If we’re going to talk about roads, now’s the time.

Romney is ready for its close-up.

Bangert is a columnist with the Journal & Courier. Contact him at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.