Federal oversight lacking on most state highway projects
http://dervishcom.blogspot.com/2011/12/federal-oversight-lacking-on-most-state.html
WASHINGTON – The federal government spends $40 billion a year on highway construction but does not track how many projects are over budget, how much goes toward overruns or whether the record is getting better or worse.
The result is a patchwork pattern of planning lapses and design errors that sends some states back for more money again and again, an investigation by 22 Gannett newspapers shows.
The government stepped up scrutiny of major projects over $500 million after Boston's disastrous Big Dig highway-tunnel project. Completed in 2007 after two decades, it ran $12 billion over budget.
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INTERACTIVE: Big digs in the U.S. map
Most projects, however, aren't subject to the tighter rules. Of 136,000 federally funded projects in the pipeline, 87 were defined as major and accounted for $1.6 billion in fiscal 2011, according to Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) documents.
Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez says his agency monitors highway programs through offices in each state. State transportation departments (DOTs) are responsible for managing highway and interstate projects, which are usually at least 80% federally funded. "The buck stops with the state DOT," Mendez said.
Kenneth Mead, former Transportation Department inspector general, wants states' performance tracked and posted online. "Ultimately, if the feds are writing these checks, what comes with that is the responsibility to report on what use that money is being put to," Mead said.
Gannett obtained construction costs for 21 federally funded highway projects through Freedom of Information Act requests. About half finished within 5% of the original contract, but the others had significant overruns:
•Reconstruction of Interstate 287 in New York is two years late and $78 million, or 14.4%, over budget. The work has cost taxpayers $72 million a mile.
•In Louisiana, 8 miles of an I-49 extension north from Shreveport have cost $96 million, 9% over budget. Overruns include a $2.5 million mistake calculating how much dirt to remove. .
•Two projects to redo 18 miles of I-295 in South Jersey are a combined $22 million over budget — 15%.
From 2001 to 2010, more than half of state contracts ran over budget and 45% finished late, according to an analysis by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, a non-profit group that advocates for improved transportation. Mendez said the report is "misleading" because it examined tracking processes, not cost and schedule information.
By law, the FHWA can't or withhold money from poor performers.
House Transportation Committee Democrats want to tie federal highway funding to good project management and to publicize states' performance . House Highways and Transit Subcommittee Chairman John Duncan, R-Tenn., is interested.
"I like things like that — giving people more money for doing things better or faster and penalizing people if something goes wrong, or if a project runs late or over budget in some way," Duncan said.
The result is a patchwork pattern of planning lapses and design errors that sends some states back for more money again and again, an investigation by 22 Gannett newspapers shows.
The government stepped up scrutiny of major projects over $500 million after Boston's disastrous Big Dig highway-tunnel project. Completed in 2007 after two decades, it ran $12 billion over budget.
*
INTERACTIVE: Big digs in the U.S. map
Most projects, however, aren't subject to the tighter rules. Of 136,000 federally funded projects in the pipeline, 87 were defined as major and accounted for $1.6 billion in fiscal 2011, according to Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) documents.
Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez says his agency monitors highway programs through offices in each state. State transportation departments (DOTs) are responsible for managing highway and interstate projects, which are usually at least 80% federally funded. "The buck stops with the state DOT," Mendez said.
Kenneth Mead, former Transportation Department inspector general, wants states' performance tracked and posted online. "Ultimately, if the feds are writing these checks, what comes with that is the responsibility to report on what use that money is being put to," Mead said.
Gannett obtained construction costs for 21 federally funded highway projects through Freedom of Information Act requests. About half finished within 5% of the original contract, but the others had significant overruns:
•Reconstruction of Interstate 287 in New York is two years late and $78 million, or 14.4%, over budget. The work has cost taxpayers $72 million a mile.
•In Louisiana, 8 miles of an I-49 extension north from Shreveport have cost $96 million, 9% over budget. Overruns include a $2.5 million mistake calculating how much dirt to remove. .
•Two projects to redo 18 miles of I-295 in South Jersey are a combined $22 million over budget — 15%.
From 2001 to 2010, more than half of state contracts ran over budget and 45% finished late, according to an analysis by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, a non-profit group that advocates for improved transportation. Mendez said the report is "misleading" because it examined tracking processes, not cost and schedule information.
By law, the FHWA can't or withhold money from poor performers.
House Transportation Committee Democrats want to tie federal highway funding to good project management and to publicize states' performance . House Highways and Transit Subcommittee Chairman John Duncan, R-Tenn., is interested.
"I like things like that — giving people more money for doing things better or faster and penalizing people if something goes wrong, or if a project runs late or over budget in some way," Duncan said.
