Transportation Commission

     Shelby and Bibb County are two of Alabama’s greatest treasures.  People are moving into our area for good reason- it has a wonderful quality of life.  The wonderful homes and warm hometown atmosphere are enough to make people day dream about getting off work and back to their home.  Of course the problem is the real dream would be getting home within a decent time as opposed to the current crawling pace it takes on highways 261, 52 and interstate 65 or getting home safely down the narrow roads of highway 5 and 82. 
 

      The incredible residential growth over the last ten years in Helena, and Pelham has pushed our road capacity to handle traffic to the breaking point.  Throughout Bibb County roads are improved only after a fatality has occurred. Unfortunately in Alabama, politics and not priority dictates where roads are built. It has always been said “whatever party controls the governor’s office, controls where road money is spent.” This saying couldn’t be more true for Shelby and Bibb County. For every dollar we send to Montgomery in gasoline taxes we get back less than 30 cents in road improvements.
 

      This “practice” of building roads and upgrading and resurfacing existing roadways in exchange for political favors is wrong and must be ended regardless of what party controls the governor’s office.  As taxpayers, we should not tolerate the delays for those who travel on congested roadways because of the outcome of inside-Montgomery political deals.
 

      Three years ago the State of Alabama spent nearly $1.6 billion on transportation. Unfortunately, less that $600 million was let to contract, for infrastructure improvements. The rest of the money was spent primarily on consulting contracts. Every year Congress appropriates more and more money to the State of Alabama for transportation, but Shelby and Bibb County continue to be neglected when it comes to widening our roads.
 

      The time has come to take politics out of Alabama’s infrastructure system by establishing an independent transportation commission to determine where roads and bridges are built and improved. Members of the commission would be appointed by the governor. The commission members should serve staggered six year terms and create a strict formula for assessing where road and bridge projects are most needed as opposed to who has political power. This legislation has been passed by the House for three years in a row only to die at the hands of powerbrokers in the Senate who do not want to see this needed reform.
 

      Under this proposal, commission members will be required to have the professional knowledge and engineering background necessary to develop a comprehensive state transportation plan.  Further, the Director of the Department of Transportation would be appointed by the commission, thereby preventing political control of the governor’s office or the legislature from dictating the future of transportation needs in our state.
 

      Shelby and Bibb County’s continued and future economic vitality depends on an adequate road system for its residents. For too long the state’s transportation planning has served political whims with no uniform policy instead of serving the actual needs of local communities. An independent commission for transportation is the first step in keeping politics from stopping the growth of a community. Shelby and Bibb County have desperate road improvement needs and addressing those needs should be our top priority.