| Sen. Jack Donahue Wants Progress Report from TIMED Program Highway Improvement Projects |
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| Thursday, February 05 2009 - 11:06 am |
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From the Times-Picayune, February 4, 2009
"A special five-member Senate committee is expected to grill state transportation department officials Wednesday about the progress and costs of the Transportation Infrastructure Model for Economic Development, or TIMED, program. Sen. Jack Donahue, R-Covington, chairman of the TIMED Program Senate Study Committee and author of the legislation creating the panel, said the program started almost 20 years ago as a way to improve highways along 11 corridors, build or widen three bridges and improve the airport and port in New Orleans -- all for a cost of $1.1 billion financed by 4 cents of the state's 20-cent gasoline tax. Now, he said, the program is costing more than $5 billion and two projects have not yet started: a highway improvement project in St. Tammany and the construction of a new Florida Avenue bridge in New Orleans. "I want to see where they are," Donahue said. "It is not a witch hunt." He said he wants to know when the other projects will get started, when the entire program will be finished and the revised costs of the unfinished or unstarted projects. Department of Transportation and Development Secretary William Ankner said last year that some of the 16 cents now used for non-TIMED road projects may have to be redirected to the special program to finance its completion. Donahue's legislation requires the committee to make a written report of its findings and recommendations for possible legislation to the full Senate no later than April 6." |
