WASHINGTON -- Nearly $65 million in federal highway funds -- some of it set aside by Congress 19 years ago -- remains unspent in Western New York, an analysis of federal data shows.
The sum includes $17 million for the Peace Bridge, nearly $9 million for improvements at the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, about $6 million for Buffalo's waterfront and a similar amount for the return of cars to Main Street in downtown Buffalo.
The Sunlight Foundation, a good-
government group that conducted the study, labels the unspent federal funds "disappearmarks" -- projects that make headlines when announced but result in no shovel ever touching the ground.
Some lawmakers are beginning to think they should put those funds to better use.
"These old earmarks are a waste of taxpayer money, and cutting them just makes sense," said Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Colo., who introduced a bill last week that would rescind any such highway earmarks approved before 2005. That would cost Western New York $14.3 million.
Rep. Brian Higgins, the Buffalo Democrat who was responsible for landing the vast majority of the federal funding that remains unspent, stressed that Buffalo needs the money.
Higgins cited slow-moving bureaucracies at every level of government as the main reason for the delays in spending the money and said the public "should encourage that it gets spent for the intended purpose."
Buffalo by no means is alone in losing out on benefits from federal highway funding set aside years ago. The Sunlight Foundation's report found that nationwide, $6.5 billion in funding allotted in the 2005 highway bill still has not been turned into bricks or mortar or asphalt.
"Lawmakers get lots of press and recognition for bringing home this money, but what this study shows is that the projects don't necessarily get built," said Gabriela Schneider, communications director for the Sunlight Foundation.
Such projects, of course, include the new Peace Bridge.
Federal and state environmental issues delayed the new span for years, and only now is the Peace Bridge Authority set to pick a final design. That plan will have to win approval from the Federal Highway Administration, which raised questions about earlier designs.
One other big local earmark -- for the medical campus -- appears to be much closer to being spent.
Higgins' office said that surveyors have been on the site recently and that construction is expected to begin soon on the project, which involves making Ellicott Street two-way and installing sidewalks and street furniture on the campus.
Much more frustration has met the proposal to return cars to Main Street on the downtown pedestrian mall. Higgins said he has talked with federal officials to try to determine how a new downtown configuration could comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, but the issue has yet to be resolved.
He also stressed that the delay, like many of the others in the projects funded five years ago, is not unusual.
"Environmental laws, state and federal, are extreme in their detail," Higgins said. "It results in a lot of oversight, a lot of review and a lot of delay."
Sometimes, though, the delay can be inexplicable -- even to members of Congress. In fact, Higgins just this month wrote to the Federal Highway Administration, seeking an explanation of what can be done with $11.3 million in funding for Buffalo set aside in 1991.
About $6.2 million of those funds originally was allocated to build an outer harbor bridge on Buffalo's waterfront, but Congress later reprogrammed it to build a parking facility in the area. The rest was set aside to build an oft-discussed, never-completed highway called the Southtowns Connector.
Such long-in-the-tooth projects are at greatest risk of disappearing as Congress looks for ways to deal with the public's growing concern about the ballooning federal debt.
Markey's bills would rescind those earmarks and others Congress set aside in its 1998 highway bill, while leaving the 2005 earmarks -- including all of Higgins' -- intact.
While Markey's move to rescind $713.2 million in old earmarks is unlikely to pass in the limited amount of time Congress will spend in the capital for the rest of this year, she already has won the support of the key congressional player on transportation issues.
"At a time of rising federal budget deficits and economic hardship, it makes no sense to keep these unspent funds on the books," said Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn, chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
Higgins, a former member of Oberstar's committee, disagreed.
"I know earmarks are controversial" -- often considered wasteful indulgences that have on occasion led to scandal, Higgins acknowledged. "But for Buffalo, this money is desperately needed to reverse an economic decline that's been going on for 50 years."
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