Panel backs dividing up $525,000 to push intermodal transport

The Legislature should provide $525,000 a year to the state's seven regional intermodal transportation authorities, a legislative task force recommended this week.

The Legislative Task Force on Intermodal Transportation and Commerce approved a motion by Sen. Greg Standridge, R-Russellville, to recommend $75,000 a year in state funding for each authority.

"That might be an easier sell for us to get that than trying to get it up there where each one gets $125,000," Standridge said.

The regional authorities are focused on expanding surface, air and water transportation facilities within their boundaries, according to the task force's draft report. They each have a board of directors and power to enter into contracts, borrow money and condemn property through eminent domain, but they have no taxing power.

Under Act 166 of 2015, the task force is required to study intermodal transportation and consider the creation of an Arkansas Department of Transportation that would have combined responsibility for highways, waterways and ports, rail and aeronautics.

The authorities include:

• Southeast Arkansas. Included in the authority are Bradley and Drew counties, Monticello and Warren.

• Northeast Arkansas, including Lawrence and Randolph counties and Corning, Hoxie, Pocahontas and Walnut Ridge.

• Western Arkansas, including Crawford and Sebastian counties, Fort Smith and Van Buren.

• Southwest Arkansas, including Clark, Dallas, Montgomery, Nevada and Pike counties and eight cities.

• River Valley, including Pope County and Russellville.

• Central Arkansas, including Conway and Perry counties.

• Little River County and Ashdown.

Task force member John Lipton, who is chairman of the Southeast Arkansas Regional Intermodal Transportation Authority, a former state highway commissioner and a former House speaker, said the regional intermodal transportation authorities have funding problems.

"One of the main things is needing assistance and being able to get and attract an executive director. For these things to really work, we are going to have some assistance from the state to do it," he said.

Task force member Scott Bennett, director of the state Highway and Transportation Department, said he proposed providing state total funding of $500,000 divided between four authorities each year to "really allow the four that were ready to move forward to the best-qualified for receiving that money.

"It wouldn't have the same four every year. The hope would be that as they move forward, they'll become self-sufficient with business coming in," he said.

Gene Higginbotham, executive director of the Arkansas Waterways Commission, said he proposed providing $1.2 million a year in state funding over a two-year period to split between the seven authorities, and they each would report to the Legislature on how they used that, "so any future funding would be based on success on what they have been able to do with that.

"We've got basically people who don't have office space. They are working out of their homes. We don't see professional management, and it is not serving the state the way it was intended," he said. He eventually withdrew his proposal.

Lipton said that providing state funding for only one year to a regional authority "would create havoc" and the funding should be provided for at least a two-year period.

"We are all not Little Rock Port Authority," he said. "These things are in their infancy, and it is kind of like of trying to grow a child. What we want to do is see them grow. We want to see them prosper. We want to see them very successful. Anything we can do to assist that would be of great benefit."

The draft report by the task force calls for changing the name of the Highway and Transportation Department to the Arkansas Department of Transportation and maintaining the independence and current funding streams for the Arkansas Aeronautics Commission and Arkansas Waterways Commission.

"During the course of discussions, it became clear that, for economic development purposes, the name of the department should be changed to match that of the majority of its counterparts," the task force's draft report states.

"Only three others, in addition to Arkansas, do not include 'Department of Transportation' in their name -- the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, the Nebraska Department of Roads and the Vermont Agency of Transportation," according to the task force's draft report. "This is so despite the fact that over half of the nation's transportation departments do not cover all modes of transportation.

"Having the department's name changed to the Arkansas Department of Transportation would, first and foremost, provide a known point of contact for all areas of intermodal development, and allow for expansion of the coordination of efforts with the Aeronautics and Waterways Commission," the task force's draft report states.

A task force Co-chairman, Sen. Eddie Joe Williams, R-Cabot, said the task force will meet next month to give final approval for its report and then present the report to the House and Senate transportation committees.

NW News on 11/26/2016

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