DATE: Wednesday, September 17, 1997         TAG: 9709170491

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DEBBIE MESSINA, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  101 lines

REGION'S ROADS RANK NO. 1 ON POTHOLE INDEX BUT STATE ROAD OFFICIALS SAY THE ``IDIOTIC'' REPORT USES MISLEADING, INCOMPLETE DATA.

Hampton Roads: The pothole capital of the nation?

Visions of cracked and crumbling highways and brain-rattling, teeth-clattering car rides are conjured. It's certainly not the image regional leaders want to promote.

A national report that ranks Hampton Roads at the top of a ``pothole index,'' and Richmond at number four, is bogus, state road officials contend.

As a state, Virginia ranked third worst on the index, behind Arkansas and Mississippi.

``It's an idiotic report,'' said Virginia Transportation Secretary Robert E. Martinez. ``It doesn't bear any relationship to reality.''

Compiled by the Surface Transportation Policy Project and Environmental Working Group, the ``Potholes and Politics'' report ranks states and metropolitan areas based on a comparison of how much money is spent on highway repair and the actual condition of the roads.

But only federal dollars were used in the calculation. And in Virginia, federal dollars comprise less than 20 percent of the highway budget and are not used for road maintenance.

Hank Dittmar, executive director of the STPP, defended the study, saying it's an accurate depiction of how many states are choosing not to spend federal dollars on highway maintenance. ``We're not saying you have the worst potholes,'' Dittmar said. ``. . . We're saying you've got a lot, and the state is not spending federal money to make the situation better.

``The state is making a decision to not invest in fixing the freeways in your area when there is money available to do so.''

In Virginia, federal dollars are used for new construction while state money is used for maintenance. Which is why there are big, fat goose eggs next to Hampton Roads on the index under spending for highway repair.

Martinez said that $72 million is being spent this year for highway repair in Hampton Roads - all state funds.

VDOT, in a release Tuesday, accused the STPP of using ``incomplete information and only selected federal data to torture the numbers to arrive at misleading and false conclusions on highway conditions and spending.''

Dittmar retorted that VDOT ``is depending on its own tortured rhetoric to torture me.''

Dittmar and VDOT are advocating different versions of a contentious, six-year, $145 billion federal highway funding bill now being debated in Congress.

Under current federal law, states, and to some extent localities, can choose how to spend federal highway dollars. Dittmar's group is advocating new legislation that gives more federal control over how federal transportation money is spent.

``We think road repairs should be the highest priority for federal funding,'' Dittmar said.

Virginia transportation officials also give maintenance high priority. State statute requires that road repairs be made on a scheduled basis before tax dollars are spent on new construction.

In fact, a Hampton Roads Planning District Commission report shows that maintenance spending is increasing so quickly that by 2001, it will begin eating into the construction budget.

Dwight L. Farmer, transportation director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, estimates Virginia is more likely ranked in the top 25 percent of states for potholes per highway mile. ``We're bad, but we're not that bad,'' said Farmer, who also chairs the advisory committee for the state's Commission on the Future of Transportation. ``I would be skeptical of tagging us as the pothole capital.''

State officials were also critical of the report's evaluation of Virginia's road conditions. Martinez said Virginia's standards as to what's considered deteriorated condition are more strict than most other states, and therefore the report is making unfair comparisons because it uses the states' assessments of road conditions.

Plus, the report doesn't take into account the vastness of the state's highway system. Virginia has the second-largest system of state-maintained roads - 56,000 miles.

The study examined the 38 states with more than 100 miles of urban highways and concluded that more than 26 percent of the nation's most heavily traveled roads are in need of immediate repair.

Iowa has the largest share of highways in poor or mediocre condition, 56 percent, followed by Illinois, Florida, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Thirty-one percent of Virginia's highways are substandard.

The report also found that Americans spend four times more on repairs to their cars caused by bad road conditions than state highway departments spend fixing the same roads.

The report said drivers spend $4.8 billion annually on such repairs. Meanwhile, state highway departments spend $1.2 billion fixing the roads responsible for that damage, the report said.

The average driver will spend nearly $2,000 over the life of a car on damage caused by bad roads. He will also travel the equivalent of the distance between New York and St. Louis every year on roads in poor condition, the report concluded.

The Surface Transportation Policy Project is a coalition of 175 organizations interested in transportation policy. The Environmental Working Group is an environmental research organization. ILLUSTRATION: POTHOLE INDEX

VP GRAPHIC

[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]

SOURCE: Environmental Working Group, 1997. Road condition data and

spending data compiled from U.S. Department of Transportation data

base. KEYWORDS: POTHOLES STUDY REPORT

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