Lexington Herald Leader: Highway Department [Needs] Cleanup. I Couldn't Agree More.

Highway department cleanup

According to the National Asphalt Pavement Association, the word asphalt derives from the Greek asphaltos, meaning secure.

A remarkably appropriate name for the substance that, mixed with sand and rock, has provided political security for generations of Kentucky politicians.

So when people run for office, as Steve Beshear did last year, ­saying they are going to clean up the Transportation Cabinet and take politics out of spreading asphalt, many voters simply move on to the next promise to see whether it will be more believable.

Last week, it looked like Governor Beshear may really be serious.

His Transportation Cabinet announced a plan called ”practical solutions,“ to drive road-building decisions. Hiding behind that bureaucratic label, Transportation Secretary Joe Prather seems to have a real reform effort. That became clear when Prather said the cabinet will review all 600 projects already in the works to see whether they meet the new standards.

That's serious business.

The standards are, as the name suggests, pretty commonsensical. The idea is to build the roads we need, not the roads some people want.

The cabinet's explanations focused particularly on the economics of building four-lane roads where two-lanes will do just as well. Anyone who has driven much in Kentucky has encountered four-lane expanses lost in a landscape with almost no traffic.

What most of us don't know is what they cost: $18.9 million to $23.9 million per mile. A two-lane road with good shoulders runs $5.7 million to $8.7 million per mile.

That's one example.

The cabinet says it is also ­looking at ways to attract more ­bidders. They've already opened the process to concrete contractors to provide some competition for the asphalt interests. Prather said he's talking to his counterparts in other states to find more ways to encourage competitive bidding.

Cabinet officials also say roads and bridges are sometimes designed with elements that increase cost without a comparable gain in either safety or improved traffic flow. They'll be looking for those add-ons in the existing contracts and making change orders to save money.

But they'll be much slower to grant other change orders. An $11.9 million change order on a $53.2 million project was approved in the final days of the last administration, even though it was missing the signatures of three engineers who should have signed off on it.

”That will not happen“ on his watch, Prather said.

This plan would be important even if highway money was flowing freely. But it's not. The cabinet ­expects shortfalls in state and federal funds for roads this year, making it more important than ever to spend wisely.

The state maintains 26,000 miles of roads, many of which need work. Every mile unnecessarily completed as a four-lane means another 2 or 3 miles of two-lane won't be made safer.

Few will argue with this plan — until a project in their backyard is pared down. That's when the proverbial rubber will meet the road. The governor will have to choose between his own political security and the safety of Kentuckians traveling our highways.

We wish him well, and we'll be watching to see whether he keeps this promise.