Transportation projects may stall after 2013

The Columbian:

The [Washington] state Department of Transportation expects another busy construction season in Southwest Washington this year, to the tune of a $182 million construction budget in 2012.

But as transportation planners gear up for a big slate of projects in 2012 — even 2013, based on continuing work already underway — the future is less certain, said WSDOT regional administrator Don Wagner. A large spike in public funding is about to dry up if nothing emerges in its place, he said, both statewide and locally.

... But transportation officials intentionally front-loaded the work schedule funded by those packages, Wagner said, with borrowing costs to be paid off long-term by gas tax collections. Construction activity is now reaching a peak, and could soon come back down, he said.

“We’ll be done with that work in 2014,” Wagner said. “We’re going to pay for that work for the next 30 years … It was not a pay-as-you-go system.”

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