AUBURN - Mayor Michael Quill pleaded for help from the federal government dealing with transportation infrastructure at a hearing Monday.

And he had plenty of company.

U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri met with officials from Tompkins, Seneca, Cortland, Ontario and Cayuga counties, in addition to private business leaders from those places, during a public session discuss the region's transportation issues Monday.

Arcuri said the information he gathered from the meeting would help him prepare for a field hearing in Utica on July 28, which will address the region's transportation needs. The meeting comes on the eve of a congressional vote which will allocate funds for various transportation initiatives across the nation.

Quill said some of the important issues for the city were overweight trucks using local routes, harsh winters that have eroded roads and a lack of funding for repairs.

“Our roads are in such disrepair that we can only Band-Aid them for so long,” Quill said. “We need help.”

Seneca Meadows District Manager Don Gentilcore said he believed the increased state Thruway tolls were forcing trucks to use rural roads in an effort to save money, especially in light of the nations current economic crisis.

In a move to alleviate pressure on the states roads, Gentilcore said the Seneca Meadows landfill would like to invest into a railroad facility to transport waste across the state. The system would remove nearly 60,000 trucks from the region's roads a year, but would require state or federal funding to make the construction economically feasible for the business.

But first the state would have to revamp its railroad infrastructure before cargo could be moved from the trucks to the trains, Arcuri said. Funding for such a project could come from the federal government.

“There is so much freight that there is already rail congestion,” Arcuri said. “There have been talks about do we want to add another line across the state ... or do we want to just add another line in certain places. It would be like a two lane highway where it's expanded to four lanes. You don't need four lanes the whole way, just where traffic gets congested.”

Another issue that was brought up was creating a new standard to determine what roads will get funding for repairs. Representatives from Tompkins and Seneca counties said the current system, which gives more weight to the volume of traffic than to a road's condition or economic need, puts smaller counties at a disadvantage when it comes to acquiring funding for repairs.

And with asphalt expected to reach nearly $700 a ton by the end of the month, state and federal funding becomes crucial to help counties and municipalities stretch their budgets to in order to complete their projects.

“We got a $1.4 million grant for upkeep of local roads,” Quill said. “But with our harsh winter weather, plus the condition of our roads, we need more help from the federal and state government. We cannot do it alone.”

Staff writer Nate Robson can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 248 or nathan.robson@lee.net