Ohio has a right to increase in federal highway funding

When he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1998, George V. Voinovich often talked about how Ohio was getting short-changed by the federal government in the distribution of federal gasoline taxes. And Voinovich didn't stop talking about the issue after he went to Washington.
Indeed, in 1999, he lobbied his colleagues on Capitol Hill and was able to win changes in that year's highway bill that increased the minimum guaranteed funding level from 80 percent to 90 percent of a state's share of tax contributions to the Highway Account of the Highway Trust Fund. In 1998, he pushed for another increase and succeeded in raising the minimum to 90.5 percent.
Now, Voinovich, along with 17 other senators who represent "donor" states -- as opposed to those that take more than they give, such as Montana and North Dakota -- have introduced legislation to raise the minimum guaranteed funding level to 95 percent.
Aging highway system
As governor of Ohio for eight years, Voinovich learned first-hand how the state was being penalized by the funding formula, and what effect such shortchanging was having on government's ability to take care of the aging highway system. Thus his unwavering determination as a U.S. senator to end the funding inequity.
"Infrastructure and job creation and retention go hand-in-hand," he said this week during a news conference in Columbus to solicit public support for the legislative initiative. "We have an aging infrastructure that needs maintenance if we are to help existing companies expand and create new jobs, and we have new roads that need to be built if we are to provide for responsible growth and make new opportunities. Funding these needs means getting our fair share of our own federal gasoline funds and that's what this bill does."
Voinovich was joined by chamber of commerce leaders from across Ohio, representatives of labor organizations and the construction industry and the Ohio Department of Transportation.
If the bill with the new guarantee is adopted this year, Ohio would receive more than $300 million in federal highway funding over the next six years.
That money would enable the state to dust off many projects that have been shelved because of a lack of funds, including the long-discussed Hubbard Expressway in Youngstown. ODOT officials recently notified local governments that is was withdrawing as the project's sponsor because the cost had risen from about $50 million to $70 million and that the project would be put on hold unless some local entity stepped forward to take over sponsorship.
Development potential
We are strongly opposed to the state's turning its back on a proposed highway that would link the East Side of Youngstown to Interstate 80, thereby opening up land in the city and Hubbard for development.
It was Voinovich as governor who put the Hubbard Expressway project on ODOT's priority list, which is why his push to increase Ohio's share of federal highway funds demands local support.
Government officials, including the region's two congressmen, Tim Ryan, D-Niles, and Ted Strickland, D-Lisbon, should jump on the bandwagon, if they haven't already, and the residents of the Valley need to send letters of support to Voinovich.