Don’t squander highway funding

When the federal government is telling you that you’re working too slowly, then you know you’ve got a problem. The issue is that finding the solution will require serious attention, and a commitment to direct more staff with the expertise to cut through the entanglements.

Commuters who are weary of the bumper-to-bumper nightmares on the highways — and these days, that includes neighbor islanders, too — were dismayed to learn over the weekend about the severity of logjams of the bureaucratic kind in the state transportation offices.

And this is the kind of congestion that could well cause the state to lose the money it needs to upgrade Hawaii’s outdated and under-maintained highway system.

According to documents the Star-Advertiser acquired through the Freedom of Information Act, Federal Highway Administration officials are warning the state Department of Transportation (DOT) that its delays in progress on major projects could put millions of federal project dollars at risk.

That dims the state’s prospects for ever bringing its crushing backlog of critical infrastructure improvements under control. The backlog hit its high point in 2010, when the list totaled nearly $1 billion in federal funds still to be spent on the work.

Gov. David Ige has put his own reputation on the line by assuring the FHA the Hawaii would correct its project foot-dragging. That’s a commitment that must be met, and there are several strategies the state should pursue. The federal agency last year dispatched troubleshooters to the state to diagnose the problem and found a number of roadblocks:

» Resolving the ongoing delays with meeting federal cultural- and historic-preservation requirements causes the longest delays.

A solution means the state has to overcome its chronic staffing shortage in this area both within DOT and the state Historic Preservation Division. DOT has hired a staff archaeologist, but the other needed position is an architecture historian.

» Staffing is also the core issue to reduce the delays in conducting a permit review required under the federal Clean Water Act. Two positions have been funded here.

» Challenges to bid awards hold up projects as well. Although a thorough procurement process is ultimately in the public interest, there should be ways to eliminate unnecessary steps, such as the extra approval required of the governor on contract awards. The sign-off by the DOT director, who represents the governor, suffices.

State lawmakers should change any statutes that produce an unwarranted delay in publishing the winning bid, because such delays have been bogging down the process. And if the losing bidder could be required to bear some of the cost of an unsuccessful bid protest, that could deter frivolous contract challenges, too.

Further, DOT, like virtually every agency throughout state government, is hobbled by the outdated information technology system. The federal officials urged more automation in the department’s fiscal functions that are now handled manually.

This is just one more example of how the state’s lagging IT improvements have had real, costly consequences. Legislators should heed the FHA’s warnings when considering funds for technological upgrades.

The state DOT has turned to the low-hanging fruit of spending its federal funds on lesser projects, but this is not a long-term strategy. Several worthy projects, such as the Queen Kaahumanu Highway widening on Hawaii island and the Kapaa Relief Route on Kauai, are meant to bring Hawaii’s road networks up to the capacity needed to handle anticipated traffic in 2015.

For decades, DOT has lacked the sense of urgency about such projects, a bureaucratic culture that must be changed. If pressure from the federal government is being brought to bear on this shortcoming, so much the better. The taxpayers who provided the money for these projects — and particularly those stuck in gridlock regularly — should get the transportation improvements they bought.