El Camino group has annual Washington meeting

Published 12:00 am Sunday, August 19, 2007

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Willie Sutton, the famous bank robber of the 1930s, when asked why he robbed banks, responded, “Because that’s where the money is.”

The same might be said for a group of citizens from four states who went to Washington, D.C. a couple of weeks ago in search of federal funding for the four-laning of U.S. 84. Why Washington?

“Because Washington is where the money is and where the power is,” Janet Sullivan, president of the El Camino 5-State East-West Corridor Commission told attendees. “When I was elected president of the commission in 2005, my first order of business, along with support from the board, was to move the 2006 annual meeting from the local level to D.C. That meeting was very successful and the 2007 annual meeting had an even greater attendance. We definitely feel that meeting in Washington annually is the right way to go. This year the board decided to have a fall meeting in one of the five states comprising the commission to decide the annual meeting agenda and to update interested parties who were unable to be with us in Washington.”

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El Camino is Spanish for “The King’s Highway” and mostly follows U.S. 84 from El Paso, Texas, and across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, through Brunswick, Ga., a distance of 1,513 miles.

This year’s annual meeting was July 11 and 12. The board meeting was July 11, in a committee room reserved for us by Sen. Trent Lott on the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol. Following the board meeting, the El Camino Commission scheduled a reception at the Phoenix Park Hotel from 5:30 to 7 p.m. sponsored by interested groups. Over 100 El Camino board members, delegates and guests along with several U.S. Congressmen and their budget and transportation aides attended. This was a very successful opportunity to “meet and greet” with representatives of the other states and especially with the congressional side. This event will be a part of our future annual meetings.

On the morning of July 12, members of Congress and/or their budget and transportation staff members from four of the five states were special guests at a breakfast meeting in the Rayburn House Office Building. This meeting was heavily attended by a consortium of city and county elected officials and business representatives to promote the importance of four-laning U.S. 84 in their respective states. Presentations were delivered from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Georgia is a member of the corridor commission but was not represented.

Of the 1,513 miles included in this project, 67 percent or 1,025 miles have been four-laned or funded to be four-laned. Mississippi is in the lead as a result of Mississippi Department of Transportation’s 1987 Four-Lane Program passed by the Mississippi legislature, which includes the four-laning of 186.2 miles of U.S. 84 across the state from Natchez to the Alabama line. As administrative assistant to MDOT Transportation Commissioner Wayne Brown and in whose district U.S. 84 is located, Sullivan reported that “the last section of 84 to be four-laned in Mississippi was let to contract two months ago and the section from Waynesboro to the Alabama line will be finished in 2009. MDOT will have a huge celebration on that day.” Georgia is second, Texas third, Alabama fourth, and Louisiana fifth.

Georgia has about 25 miles to be four-laned. In Texas, approximately 190 miles out of 704 miles have not been four-laned. Of Alabama’s 235 miles of U.S. 84, nearly 96 miles are four-laned, 15 are under construction, and 42 are authorized in Alabama’s department of Transporation five-year plan. Eighty-one miles are not in any program for four-laning. Estimates are that it will take $180 million to complete the miles that are planned or authorized in Alabama and $500 million to $600 million to complete the 81 miles not in a plan. That’s a total of $700 million to $800 million and the cost keeps rising. In Louisiana, only 18 miles of its 168 miles are four-laned. Mayor Hyram Copeland of Vidalia represents Louisiana on the El Camino board. He reported that he and his contingent have been lobbying the Louisiana legislature very vigorously and have recently received a $50-plus million commitment to El Camino.

A logical question at this point would be “Why is Mississippi so involved in the El Camino Commission if we are nearing the completion of our U.S. 84 four-laning?” The answer is simple. While it is certainly advantageous for Mississippi to have a four-lane highway, wouldn’t it be even better if the states on each side of us had one also? Those of us involved with the El Camino Commission in Mississippi want to share our expertise with and give our support to our sister states to bring a better transportation system to them. We all know that time is money and the flow of traffic and goods from state to state would be so much faster. Evacuation time and routes would be so much smoother and safer because an east-west artery could help ease congestion off the north-south highways. Vacation travel would be so much more enjoyable with more time to spend at your destination rather than traveling on a two-lane road. Sullivan remarked that “I am in my car a lot in my job and especially on U.S. 84 across the district and I can tell you that being fortunate enough to travel on a four-lane shaves hours off the time I spend on the road. I am most unhappy when I have to switch to a two-lane road.”

The El Camino Commission is dedicated to completing the entire U.S. 84 corridor by 2025. When this commission was created in 1989, it was done so for three reasons: to stimulate economic development and tourism, to relieve the heavy flow of traffic off Interstate 10 and Interstate 20, and to preserve the historic significance of the corridor. Two other reasons have been added in recent years. Since Sept. 11, U.S. 84 is being used as a strategic highway for homeland security. As a result of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Ivan, Georges, and others, this highway is being used as a hurricane evacuation route. I think all of us can remember the tremendous numbers of people that fled to Natchez and other communities along Hwy. 84 because of Katrina.

The El Camino East-West Corridor Commission is making an impact in Washington and we will keep the momentum going for this extremely important and necessary project.