Railroading has been part of Altoona, PA, since the town’s very birth.

In fact, the official history of the central Pennsylvania community notes the role the Pennsylvania Rail Road played in developing the town in 1849.

So it’s only natural that when the town looked to preserve a piece of its history, it was something linked to the iron horse – a place now known as The Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum.

Today, that era is the past, and the city is but one more town along Interstate 99, a north-south route, about halfway between where that road crosses I-80 and its crossing with the state’s turnpike.

Just as the town sits at the center of those two highways, and at the center of the state, its museum sits dead center of an issue related to those roads – the spending of highway funds on non-highway projects.

Riding the gravy train

Federal funds helped develop the railroaders museum into what visitors see today.

Back in 1993, the museum received $1.78 million of federal highway funds. That amount was combined with nearly $450,000 of state and local funds, giving the museum a total of $2.2 million of funding.

The money was used to restore a historic rail building, giving the museum a home.

The grant was on a list provided by The National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse. A fact sheet on the organization’s Web site says this:

“In the 1990s, the local Railroaders Heritage Corporation received $1.78 million in Transportation Enhancement Funds to create a new museum in the 1882 master mechanics building on the Pennsylvania RailRoad Yard. The Railroaders Museum preserves the legacy of the PRR, and celebrates the lives of those who built, maintained and operated the railroad.”

Elsewhere on the enhancements clearinghouse web site, documents indicate the museum was approved in 2002 to receive $1.28 million more in federal highway money, plus $320,000 in state funds – a total of $1.6 million.

The Altoona Mirror, a local newspaper, reported back in May of 2007 that the $1.6 million helped pay in part to aide the restoration of the historic K-4 1361 steam locomotive, and also for work in the rail yard, such as a quarter roundhouse to shelter the engine and rolling stock.

One of the supporters of that project is state Rep. Richard Geist – chairman of the Pennsylvania House Transportation Committee.

The lawmaker is a member of the museum’s board of directors, and back in 2002, Geist noted in a press release his part in acquiring grants for the museum.

His office declared in a statement that the grants were approved by the State Transportation Commission. And his office further noted that as chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Geist is a member of that commission.

According to Geist’s Web site, the representative and the rest of the committee passed out over $45 million to 153 projects in that round of funding – just one round of many in that transportation bill, and just in that one state.

Geist not only gushed in his release over the spending statewide – a year later, he joined another state lawmaker in sending a letter to the state’s congressional delegation, imploring them to oppose an effort to cut off the use of highway funds for such projects.

Railroading the governor

Back in May of this year, Governor Ed Rendell was in Altoona for a meeting to discuss transportation funding issues – including fiscal deficits faced by a mass transit system in that area.

Geist extended an invitation to the governor, a suggestion that while the governor was there – to discuss a shortfall in transportation funding – that he should take a look at the Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum.

The purpose: To convince the governor to spend more money on the facility.

Here’s what Geist said in a statement on his own Web site:

 “While the governor is in town discussing transportation funding issues with me, I’d like him to take a short walk across the tracks to see the tremendous work that is being done at the Railroaders Memorial Museum as we prepare to house a majestic symbol of railroading in Pennsylvania – the K-4 1361 steam locomotive.”

During a recent interview, Geist made no apologies for the use of transportation enhancement funds for non-highway projects in his district – quite the opposite.

“If Congress appropriates money to the state of PA for enhancements, and that money is in a pool of money, I’m going to be a junk yard dog trying to get a piece of that for my district,” he said.

However, that was not – in any way – an admission that the governor’s visit involved those highway funds.

In fact, Geist says his request for a visit by the governor to the museum was not to discuss highway funds at all.

“The governor made a commitment to the Railroaders’ Memorial Museum, when housing the the official house of the state official steam locomotive,” Geist said. “And that commitment was made quite a while back, and they were capital monies, not liquid fuels monies, that he was talking about.”

Nonetheless, highway trust fund dollars were spent at the museum.

That may not sound so unusual – a state lawmaker asking the governor to support a project in his district.

And it may not be unusual that a lawmaker would – at some point – ask to have highway dollars committed to such a project. Many lawmakers in Pennsylvania have done just that.

What is unusual is that state Rep. Rick Geist is also an ardent supporter of using highway privatization to fund transportation in the state.

And his support for highway privatization is based on his assertion that the state is rapidly running out of funds to fix its roads.

‘Privatization across the board’

Mike Joyce is a native of Pennsylvania, and a member of the staff at OOIDA’s Washington, DC, office. He says Geist has long been involved in efforts to toll and privatize highways in the state – and entangled in organizations that support those efforts.

“He’s very involved,” Joyce said. “On his web site, his first couple of press releases are all about public private partnerships. He gives a speech on his web site with the backdrop is the commonwealth foundation. And you see these backdrops behind politicians that promote different organizations.

“They are an outgrowth of what is called the Reason Foundation in Washington, DC, which really is promoting privatization of everything across the board. Let the private sector handle everything, let the highway system devolve, let the federal role in the highway system devolve, and so he’s promoting that.”

While Geist has allied himself with groups who want tolls and privatization for ideological reasons, once again, the lawmaker himself lists budgetary concerns as the basis for his own, personal call for privately operated highways.

Only a short time ago, in late October, Geist made a statement at a House Republican Policy Committee meeting.

“It’s impossible to fund the needs of Pennsylvania using conventional financing methods of the last 50 years,” the legislator said. “The federal highway trust fund is going to go into deficit, we have an absolute responsibility as state representatives and the governor of Pennsylvania to fix our crumbling infrastructure and find the means to do it.

“Public Private Partnership is a wonderful tool to do that, and it must be explored and used in Pennsylvania.”

It was hardly the first time Geist had decried the lack of funding for road work in the state, or the first time he had touted highway privatization as the means to achieve it.

Late in 2006, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell expressed interest in leasing the turnpike to a private operator – even going as far as to solicit proposals from companies interested in the road.

He carried that interest forward in his 2007-2008 executive budget address, which he delivered Feb. 6, 2007. In that speech, the governor touted the reaction of private companies to his proposal, and the potential benefits to the state government of leasing the turnpike.

“PennDOT received nearly 50 responses from private firms,” Rendell said. “Without exception, these firms told us that the private sector would offer significant value for the right to lease the Turnpike, with estimates averaging between $10 and $12 billion and some as high as $16 billion.

“At this level, the Commonwealth could invest this sum to provide an annual income stream that could meet our funding target for roads and bridges of $965 million per year.”

Shortly after the governor’s initial announcement in December 2006, Rep. Geist posted a statement on his Web site, lending his support to the governor and his plan.

“I think it’s wonderful the governor has finally stepped forward to analyze just one part of public private partnerships, that being the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the income that it can generate for all transportation projects in the state of Pennsylvania,” Geist said. “Public private partnerships and the leasing of the turnpike would give us an additional source of revenue that would offset any kind of tax that you would have to go after the general public for.

“It’s a very, very positive economic thing for the restoration and renewal of Pennsylvania’s roads and mass transit systems. I was one of two Republicans on the governor’s funding and reform commission, and our legislation has already been drafted, which will create the opportunity for public private partnerships to exist in Pennsylvania.”

It was only a few short months later, in April of this year, that Rep. Geist put his money – or more precisely, highway users’ money – where his mouth was.

He introduced House Bill 555 – a bill that would allow privatization of the turnpike or other toll roads in the state.

In an April statement, Geist described the potentially sweeping nature of the bill:

“House Bill 555 is the framework for all public private partnerships in the state of Pennsylvania,” he said. “Currently, the spin is mostly on the turnpike, but there are many, many projects in Pennsylvania that would qualify. This is a pretty exciting step forward in the process of us funding mass transit and highways.”

That act has not yet made it into law. However, Rep. Geist still strongly believes in the use of highway privatization – which he refers to as public private partnerships, or 3Ps – as a solution to the state’s highway funding problems.

“Well right now, if you take a look at the deficit that Pennsylvania has in maintenance on bridges and highways alone, and you look at the terrible problem we have with capacity, interstates that need to be rebuilt, you’ll never get it at the pump,” the lawmaker said. “There’s not enough there to raise.

“And the other thing is the cost of the projects, and then time waiting to raise enough money to do them. Then project costs run completely away from you.

“So when you’ve got an identifiable problem of $2 billion on deficient bridges and roads, and you have to bring those up to speed, and we’re not talking about increasing capacity one bit, you’ve got to find a way to do that. You have to have a tool in the toolbox that’s going to work.

“Right now, interstates 81, 78, 83, parts of 80 east, we’ve got a terrible problem with them, they’re over capacity and they need to be rebuilt,” Geist added. “And we don’t have a nickel in the state of Pennsylvania to do it.”

Geist’s privatization plan still sits in the state legislature. However, another bill has passed – and become law. HB 1590 was signed by the governor on July 18. It is now known as Act 44.

That law would pay for transportation projects throughout the state. And it not only allowed borrowing against tolls collected on the Turnpike – it also authorized placing tolls on Interstate 80.

Ironically, Geist, among the chief architects of highway privatization proposals in the state, made statements opposing Act 44 when it moved through the legislature. And he said his opposition was based on the measure’s authorization of tolling I-80.

Some might be confused by the lawmaker’s support of one plan simultaneous to his opposition to another.

Geist explains it this way:

“What you need to do is to keep the free lanes free and then the hot lanes tolled – much like Virginia’s done with I-95 and with the beltway around Washington.”

Despite Geist’s statements opposing the I-80 plan, OOIDA’s Mike Joyce says the lawmaker’s involvement with the push for privatization should be no surprise to anyone who’s followed his work at the statehouse.

“He’s masquerading behind saying he’s opposing tolls on I-80, but in reality, he would love to see tolls on I-80, he always has,” Joyce said. “He would love to see truck traffic that traverses the state of Pennsylvania to be captured by tolls. … He likes bike paths, he likes transportation enhancements, he likes rail museums.”

Joyce adds that both Geist and his supporters in the Commonwealth Foundation have publicly stated their opposition to tolling I-80. But he contends that is strictly a smokescreen – a ruse to pave the way for their real goal.

“The reality is they’re simply using that as a ploy – their opposition to that – to gain support for selling the turnpike in Pennsylvania,” Joyce said.

OK, class, what have we learned?

It may enrage truckers to hear a state lawmaker playing both sides of the fence – or in this case, both sides of a street in Altoona, PA – publicly saying we have no highway money, and at the same time touting the expenditure of highway money the state does have on a museum.

However, Mike Joyce says it’s not that unusual at all.

“You know, I’m sure it’s a common practice in Pennsylvania, to ask for multiple things when you’ve got a governor present, and to do your dog and pony show to show off different parts of your district,” Joyce said. “But I think it’s inappropriate to ask for money for transit and then go ask for money for a museum at the same time.

“We’ve got limited resources, people need to step up to the plate, make the hard decisions, the right decisions.”

And in fact, Joyce says, lawmakers like Geist are a fundamental part of the problem.

“This gentleman, if I ever should give him that, has diverted money away from highways, he has been chairman of key committees in Harrisburg, PA, that could have made difficult, tough decisions to fund projects the right way,” Joyce said.

“He terms things ‘heavy lifting’; he hasn’t done a whole lot of heavy lifting himself. And he is part of the reason why Pennsylvania is in the backward problem that they’re in, and (why) they’re having problems funding highways and bridges and the like.

“He’s part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

Geist himself continues to be a strong proponent of private operation of highways.

He recently announced on his Web site that he had been invited back to the White House by U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters for another highway funding conference.

And the title of one of the discussions planned for the conference: “The Changing Economics, Technology and Politics of Pricing and Tolling."

--By Mark H. Reddig, host, “Land Line Now”
mark_reddig@landlinemag.com

Originally aired on: December 19, 2007