It’s Easy to Wonder Why the MTA Needs an $11.4 Million HQ

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The directors of the Maine Turnpike Authority can show you a consulting engineer’s report proving that spending $11.4 million on a new headquarters building is justified. And since the Maine Department of Transportation has signed off on the plan, it looks like it will now be constructed.

The report says a new building would save $22 million over 20 years when compared to the cost of continuing to rent space, including the loss of equity that renting represents.

But $11.4 million is one whopping heap of cash. It is more than 8 percent of the cost of the five-year project that widened 30 miles of the turnpike.

And one whopping heap of cash is what state officials say needs to be spent to clear up a huge backlog of highway problems all over the state.

The turnpike, which is maintained and expanded by toll revenues, not highway trust fund income, is in good shape. The MTA had revenues of $83.4 million in 2006. It once had to share that money with the state, but that ended in the King administration.

Some question the office expense, especially since proposals to merge the MTA with MDOT have resurfaced with Gov. Baldacci’s interest.

Meanwhile, Maine’s current transportation plan calls for replacing or repairing only 14 of the 300 state bridges in need of fixing over the next decade, at a cost for the current biennium of $133 million. Thus, the average cost of replacing one bridge is very close to the $11.4 million the authority wants to spend on its new headquarters.

So, when people hear the MTA is spending money from road-related revenues on a huge non-road project, it’s easy to forget turnpike tolls don’t mix with Maine’s highway trust fund.

The MTA’s rationale may satisfy actuaries, but Maine motorists can’t be blamed for questioning it. This is, after all, one whopping heap of cash.

(c) 2007 Portland Press Herald. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.