AAA on NPS Not Managing Infrastructure

[jrenaut]

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Most local cyclists would agree with most criticisms of NPS maintenance work. AAA still sucks.

[PotomacCyclist]

The problem is the refusal of Congress to fund NPS properly. The same applies with transportation networks in general. Gas taxes decline in real dollars while more and more non-gas tax money is used to cover the costs of transportation maintenance and construction. This is a problem whether or not a road is under the jurisdiction of NPS, DOT or another agency.

If AAA and its backers are going to complain about this, then they need to examine their ideas and policies about transportation and infrastructure funding in general.

[mstone]

Yup, NPS can’t maintain what it has if it isn’t given the money to do so.

I’ll point out that they spend way more on the GWMP than on the MVT.

[83b]

Next federal shutdown I dearly hope that they close off every road maintained by NPS in the DC region.

Also, bloody AAA.

[sjclaeys]

More funds is not always the only solution for an agency not doing its job. Also, if you want NPS to have more funds, then find a decrease in spending in another program, preferably in the Department of Interior, and convince those who support that program that the finds should be diverted to NPS. Easy as pie.

[rcannon100]

@83(b) 118403 wrote:

Next federal shutdown I dearly hope that they close off every road maintained by NPS in the DC region.

Also, bloody AAA.

Whens my next vacatioerrrrrrr…. government shutdown????????

[mstone]

@sjclaeys 118404 wrote:

More funds is not always the only solution for an agency not doing its job.

It is when it’s a maintenance issue and the agency has a multi billion dollar maintenance backlog. The country has a serious inability to fund routine maintenance of all of its infrastructure, and that won’t be fixed by pretending that the lack of funding doesn’t exist.

[sjclaeys]

@mstone 118423 wrote:

It is when it’s a maintenance issue and the agency has a multi billion dollar maintenance backlog. The country has a serious inability to fund routine maintenance of all of its infrastructure, and that won’t be fixed by pretending that the lack of funding doesn’t exist.

That is a nice fantasy but I’m suggesting dealing with reality. Find something else to cut, get folks to go along with it and you are golden.

[PotomacCyclist]

If people want the NPS-managed infrastructure to work, they will need to deal with reality. The overhaul of Arlington Memorial Bridge will cost more than the entire national transportation budget of the NPS. People don’t like to acknowledge that roads/parkways/highways are very expensive to build and maintain. Certain people (such as those who talk about having a “laser focus on highways” instead of worrying about transit, cycling and sidewalks) also don’t understand just how much more damage cars and trucks do to those roads than pedestrians and cyclists do. (Weather and winter salting also cause damage.)

Even those small government folks think that Memorial Bridge needs to be maintained and kept open. So if that’s the case, and they don’t want all the large national parks and all the urban DC NPS parks to close, then they need to increase the funding. Perhaps the new Trust for the GWMP (which includes the MVT, as the GWMP and the MVT are not separate facilities in the NPS organization) can help with funding. The recent partial closure of Memorial Bridge is probably one of the factors that spurred the creation of the new nonprofit. This is an attempt to help solve the significant funding gap. But it’s doubtful that the nonprofit will be able to close the funding gap by itself. Congress still needs to play the major role.

As for spending cuts vs. tax increases, I thought it was interesting that the new Maryland governor cut tolls in Maryland at the same time that he is claiming that the Purple Line and the Baltimore Red Line are too expensive. But then Gov. Hogan travels to Japan and expresses interest in a high-speed rail project that would connect DC and Baltimore. That project would cost billions of dollars. Maybe $10 billion or more. ??? I find that combination of decisions, words and acts to be puzzling at best, and harmful at worst.

While the NPS/GWMP issue is a separate matter, the mindset is similar, between that of Gov. Hogan and those in Congress who fight the indexing of the gas tax to inflation and who won’t fund NPS properly. (The GWMP organizational structure also includes the Clara Barton Parkway in Maryland, so Maryland is somewhat relevant to the NPS/GWMP matter.)

The long-term cost of overhauling Memorial Bridge (which I believe is part of the GWMP organization) could be $250 million. If the nonprofit fundraising doesn’t cover the costs, I would propose a slowdown in a high-end defense program. Some of the military equipment orders have been politically driven, as a jobs program (even though some of those people scream about WMATA and civilian gov’t operations sometimes being jobs programs). The Pentagon said that they did not need more tanks, but Congress approved a large purchase anyway. It wasn’t necessary according to the military leaders, but Congress spent the money all the same. So I would cut something like that. If the military doesn’t need it, why do we need to spend billions of dollars on it? Why do we have to underfund NPS when we are spending so much money on something that the DOD doesn’t want?

[NickBull]

@sjclaeys 118430 wrote:

That is a nice fantasy but I’m suggesting dealing with reality. Find something else to cut, get folks to go along with it and you are golden.

If wishes were horses then beggars would ride.

It’s easy to find something else to cut. E.g., I most likely won’t be driving on any NPS roads in California anytime soon, so I nominate those as the place to cut back. Getting folks to go along with it is the sticking point. Californians are probably pretty happy to nominate the Parkway &/or MVT as good places to cut.

[sjclaeys]

@NickBull 118482 wrote:

If wishes were horses then beggars would ride.

It’s easy to find something else to cut. E.g., I most likely won’t be driving on any NPS roads in California anytime soon, so I nominate those as the place to cut back. Getting folks to go along with it is the sticking point. Californians are probably pretty happy to nominate the Parkway &/or MVT as good places to cut.

Yep, that’s my point. It is easy to just say spend more money, it is hard to make it happen.

[PotomacCyclist]

@NickBull 118482 wrote:

If wishes were horses then beggars would ride.

It’s easy to find something else to cut. E.g., I most likely won’t be driving on any NPS roads in California anytime soon, so I nominate those as the place to cut back. Getting folks to go along with it is the sticking point. Californians are probably pretty happy to nominate the Parkway &/or MVT as good places to cut.

But in this case, the Parkway/Memorial Bridge (which is part of the GWMP unit) directly affects these Congressional reps. The bridge closure affects their commutes if they live in Northern Virginia. Even if they don’t use the bridge, the traffic will be worse on the other DC/Arlington bridges. Some of their key staffers may also be NoVa residents and also affected by the bridge closure, if they don’t use Metro or bike. I’m sure they will be griping about it to their bosses. There’s no way Congress is going to let Memorial Bridge just sit by and get closed to traffic. It’s easy to ignore something far off, a thousand miles away or farther. But this bridge affects many of them during every commute when they are staying in the DC area.

[dbb]

Would you suppose there would be enough maintenance funding if we treated the GWMP like the National Park it is and put an entrance station (toll booth) at the various access points? There might be an opportunity to use the EZ Pass system so the people wouldn’t be delayed too long in their search for a scenic drive in the country.

[mstone]

@dbb 118498 wrote:

Would you suppose there would be enough maintenance funding if we treated the GWMP like the National Park it is and put an entrance station (toll booth) at the various access points?

Probably not. Roads with that volume of traffic are tremendously expensive. Raise the toll high enough to actually pay for it and you’ll displace the traffic onto one of the non tolled bridges (no net savings). If we tolled all the bridges there’d be a revolution.

[NickBull]

@dbb 118498 wrote:

Would you suppose there would be enough maintenance funding if we treated the GWMP like the National Park it is and put an entrance station (toll booth) at the various access points? There might be an opportunity to use the EZ Pass system so the people wouldn’t be delayed too long in their search for a scenic drive in the country.

Hah, funny dbb: “scenic drive in the country”

I’ve always wondered how the GWMP fits in with the park service’s mission. Why is it their mission to fund a commuter road? What if the park service exchanged the GWMP (but not the actual parkland adjoining it) to Virginia in return for actual parkland somewhere? For that matter, Arlington is doing a better job on its bike trails than the park service does with the MVT, so maybe they could cede that to Arlington.

On a different topic: The traffic cones at the Jefferson are a disaster, particularly the ones at the easternmost entrance.

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