Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Can tolls be used for cell towers?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 18:21:53 -0500

Can tolls be used for cell towers?

By Mannix Porterfield/Register-Herald Reporter

CHARLESTON - Can tolls paid by motorists be applied to building more towers to
enhance wireless telephone coverage on the West Virginia Turnpike?

Turnpike Manager Greg Barr advised a legislative panel Sunday he intends to ask
federal highway officials about the use of such money, after cautioning them his
budget has little room to finance more towers.

Barr ran through a litany of figures showing how the Parkways, Economic
Development and Tourism Authority's budget offers scant leeway to spend money.

Of its $55.3 million in operating revenue, he told Select Committee C, some
$30.5 million is pledged to expenses, another $3.4 million is targeted for
renewal and replacement, and $10.8 million is earmarked for debt service.
That leaves some $10.4 million for highway and bridge projects, Barr told
lawmakers.
"It doesn't take long to eat up $10 million to maintain the turnpike," he said.

Next spring, for instance, the 88-mile toll road plans to re-pave the north at
an estimated $9.5 million.

Wireless coverage became an issue two years ago when Sen. Shirley Love,
D-Fayette, sought legislation aimed at compelling the authority to erect more
towers to cover so-called dead zones where service vanishes.
Motorists could become stranded with no way to call for help in an emergency.

And, the senator also speculated in arguing for his measure on the prospects of
terrorists overwhelming police with ordinary citizens helpless to fetch them
assistance. While the bill was killed, the Legislature agreed to appoint a
special committee to study wireless communication.

At the behest of its chairman, Delegate Richard Brow-ning, D-Wyoming, the panel
agreed to ask the Joint Committee on Government and Finance for money to assist
studies for enhancing cellular service.

"We've beat this horse long enough," Browning told fellow panelists. "We have to
appropriate some money."
Crown Castle International, based in Pittsburgh with an office in Charleston, is
conducting a study to see how many towers are needed to blanket the
Charleston-to-Princeton road to eliminate dead zones, field specialist William
Lopez said afterward. When West Virginia expanded the turnpike into a divided,
four-lane highway, it agreed to restrict the use of revenues to off-road
projects as a condition to get $650 million in federal money, Barr pointed out.
The state put up $83 million.
If toll money cannot be spent on towers, the only other source would be in
economic development dollars, generated by concessions at Tamarack and rest
stops, Barr said, but this offers little.

That budget has only $350,000 available capital, and $250,000 of that is tied up
in a nine-year commitment to the Hatfield-McCoy Trail, which failed to meet
federal criteria for toll money spending.

"So barring any increase in revenues, we've got $100,000 to play with," Browning
observed.

The question of providing $12 million to Cabela's in Ohio County often surfaces,
but Barr again pointed out the money was simply reinvested in the Triple-A rated
Housing Development Authority, which, in turn, was allowed to make money
available to the outdoor gear giant. Cabela's was a major beneficiary of money
dished out by the Economic Grant Development Committee.

Barr agreed with Sen. Russ Weeks, R-Raleigh, that the emphasis on homeland
security could be a selling point in getting federal authority to spend money
for off-turnpike projects like cell towers.

However, the manager pointed out that a myriad of questions come into play
involving rights of way and access - specifically, how far off the turnpike
would cellular firms need to go to put up towers, and just who owns the
property.  Sen. Anita Caldwell, D-Mercer, urged Barr to consider posting
changeable, electronic signs at turnpike entrances to warn motorists of
delay-causing crises, such as overturned trucks.

Otherwise, she said, many drivers get on assuming a brief ride, only to be stuck
in traffic for hours.
In her own experience, the frequent turnpike user said she was held up four
hours, unable to reach a person caring for her mother via cell phone because she
was in a dead zone.

"I'm still not over it," Caldwell told Barr. "I never will be. We need to make
the turnpike more consumer friendly."
Barr said the authority has discussed overhead warning signs at entrances to
used when delays are inevitable.
"It would be money well spent," Love said.
- E-mail:

[email-masked]
http://www.register-herald.com/articles/2003/11/16/news/btowers17.txt

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