WASHINGTON DC – Although a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) spokesman says his agency has taken a “middle of the road” approach to posting signs that show on which highways federal stimulus money is being spent, other states’ willingness to spend liberally on such roadside markers is generating public controversy.
Contractors pour concrete on eastbound U.S. 422 near Royersford as part of repairs there paid for by federal economic stimulus funds.
PennDOT so far has spent about $60,000 of the U.S. government’s recovery cash, or about $2,000 per highway, to post signs on 30 road repair and construction projects across the Commonwealth that are being paid for by money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, The (Allentown PA) Morning Call newspaper reported Friday (July 17, 2009).
Nationwide, however, millions of dollars are being spent to produce those same signs.
PennDOT’s Steve Chizmar told Morning Call reporter Josh Drobnyk the state was attempting to be selective in where Recovery Act signage was placed, even though the federal Highway Administration strongly urged that every project receiving an economic jump start be signed. PennDOT signs are in locations that were of highest visibility, Chizmar said.
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Another PennDOT source, Eric Waters, agreed. He told The (Pittsburgh PA) Tribune-Review that 242 state highway projects so far have been named to receive more than $1 billion in stimulus funding. “Not all … will have signs,” Waters said.
As a move intended to reap positive publicity, the signs aren’t getting the reception supporters might have hoped.
In New York, a state senator on Wednesday (July 15, 2009) called the idea “a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.” In New Hampshire, one of its two U.S. senators openly wondered what jobs, if any, the signage created. A Massachusetts newspaper complained, tongue in cheek, that the signs amounted to false advertising.
“I thought the idea behind the stimulus money was to get people back to work, not promote government. These signs are simply a shameless plug that wastes the public’s money,” New York legislator James L. Seward told his hometown newspaper, The (Little Falls NY) Evening Times.
Recovery Act logo.
“To spend taxpayer dollars on signs touting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act at each and every project does nothing for households who are struggling to get by or for those who’ve lost their jobs during the economic downturn,” added U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. He’s already filed legislation that would prohibit the signs.
In Massachusetts, The (New Andover MA) Eagle-Tribune newspaper opined the signs could be more truthful. “We like the suggestion,” it said, “of one of our Web commenters that the signs should read: ‘This project paid for by your unborn grandchildren’.”
At least two states, Virginia and Texas, have decided against erecting any signs at all.
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