The leader of group focused on road needs in West Virginia says better roads are going to come with a cost. But Joe Denault with West Virginians for Better Transportation says it's a cost that comes with guaranteed returns.
"We pay a lot in taxes but get a lot of service from that. We get our entire road network taken care of by those taxes, the road user taxes that are being paid." And Denault says it will take more of that investment in the coming years.
State lawmakers opted to continue a five-cent a gallon tax on gasoline during this year's regular legislative session, part of the funding for the $50 million spent every year in West Virginia to maintain roads. But Denault says maintaining that amount, which has held steady since 1994, is not enough.
"The cost of asphalt, the cost of concrete, the cost of steel have skyrocketed in the last (few) years, particularly as third world countries are developing," says Denault. He says the development in other countries affects the global market, driving up the cost of the materials need for roads around the world.
Right now, Denault says the roads in West Virginia are being paved on a 22 year cycle, a length of time that he says most road materials cannot sustain. He says an additional $200 million is needed to reduce the paving cycle to a more manageable eleven-year term.
No solutions for where to come up with that funding came out of this year's regular legislative session. Denault says the investment will have to come from somewhere. "If you think about what economic development can occur if we have a modern road system, that's where the jobs are going to come from, that's where other tax revenues are going to come from but, if we don't have that road system in place, we can't have that kind of economic vitality that it's going to take to do that."
Denault was a guest on Wednesday's MetroNews Talkline.