An Examination of the Costs and Benefits of State Highway Turnback Programs

Abstract

During the past 15 years, Pennsylvania's highway transfer (tumback) program has transferred slightly more than 4,200 miles of state highways to local governments. A pooled time-series analysis of the period 1984 to 1994 indicates that (a) turnback rates in a majority of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) maintenance districts were not affected by a county's representation on the state legislature's transportation or appropriations committees, (b) PennDOTexhibited a preference for maximizing turnback miles via the selection of roadways that required the least costly repairs, (c) the preference 's impact was modulated by formulas that allocatedfunds on the basis of average road conditions, and (d) local participation was affected by the provision of adequate incentives, which was dependent on the establishment of an earmarked source offunding.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Chicoine, D. L. , & Walzer, N. (1986). Financing rural roads in the midwest. In D. L. Chicoine & N. Walzer (Eds.), Financing local infrastructure in nonmetropolitan areas (pp. 33-51). New York: Praeger.

Colby, M. (1990). Special report: Public works. City and State, 7, 11-14.

Daniels, A. (1996). The turnpike experiment. Governing, 9,31-32.

Greene, W. (1993). Econometric analysis (2nd ed.). New York: MacMillen.

Havens, H. S. (1994). Public and private sector roles in the construction of highways: An overview of United States experience. In New ways of managing infrastructure provision, Public Management Occasional Papers No. 6. Paris: Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development.

Kahn, S. (1992). Anew kind of partnership. Global Finance, 6, 42-46.

Lockwood, S. C. (1995). Public-private partnerships in U.S. highway finance: ISTEA and beyond. Transportation Quarterly, 49(1), 5-26.

Moulder, E. R. (1993). Local government infrastructure financing, special data issue. Washington, DC: International City/County Management Association.

New Jersey General Assembly, Transportation Authorities, Telecommunications and Technology Committee . (1991). The proposed sale of state highways to the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. Trenton, NJ: Author.

10.

Pennsylvania Act 1981, Pub. L. No. 81, Laws of Pennsylvania 1.

11.

Pennsylvania Act 1983, Pub. L. No. 32, Laws of Pennsylvania 9203, 9205, 9501.

12.

Pennsylvania Act 1984, Pub. L. No. 148, Laws of Pennsylvania.

13.

Pennsylvania Department of Transportation . (1996). Transfer of state highways (road turnback) program: Policies and procedures manual. Harrisburg: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

14.

Pennsylvania Senate Legislative Journal. (1983). Harrisburg: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

15.

Roth, G. (1996). Roads in a market economy. Brookfield, WI: Avebury Technical.

16.

TenEyck, T. E. , & Lebo, D. E. (1986). Pennsylvania's agricultural access study. In D. L. Chicoine & N. Walzer (Eds.), Financing local infrastructure in nonmetropolitan areas (pp. 159-166). New York: Praeger.

17.

Wildavsky, A. (1988). The new politics of the budgetary process. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.