If Friday’s highway bill is what our lawmakers do when they’re on the job, the taxpayers would be better off if the Congress extended its August recess by a few weeks. The $286 billion bill includes something for everyone, and a special something extra for New York and the other 19 states that are net “winners” that will get more from Washington than they pay in fuel taxes. Our delegation is already crowing about their legislative prowess in securing such a big payday. They won’t be mentioning, however, just how dearly bought that windfall has been.

Empire State highways will enjoy a 19% bump in federal funding over previous levels, to $10.7 billion. Our mass transit system will enjoy a 30% boost, to $6.5 billion. Among the biggest local “victories” is the $100 million Rep. Jerrold Nadler has snagged to study and design the Cross Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel, a project to shift freight off the roads and onto train tracks burrowing from Brooklyn to New Jersey. Although we would prefer that the private sector take on this project, at least it is not unreasonable to claim that such a tunnel would serve a legitimate interstate commerce function.

The bigger problem is all the chaff that’s mixed in with the “wheat,” even in New York. For example, Oswego will receive $1 million for a waterfront walkway. Lyons has $480,000 coming its way to renovate a historic warehouse. Residents of the West Side can look forward to $18 million to build a pedestrian walkway on the unused High Line rail right-of-way. The list goes on and on. Some or all of these projects may be a good idea if privately funded or undertaken with local tax dollars. But what any of them has to do with interstate commerce is a mystery.

It may seem like manna from heaven, but this money isn’t free, no matter how our senators and representatives try to spin it. Calculating the true cost for the state’s earmarks must include the price tag for all the projects in other states that had to be included to make passage of the bill politically possible. Some of those are even more egregious than the ways New York will be spending its highway money.

Virginia will get $1.2 million for the Rocky Knob Heritage Center. Our Nutmeg State neighbors have $1.6 million coming for the Blue Ridge Music Center. It’s hard to say what either has to do with highways. We hear Primm, Nev., a Las Vegas suburb, is lovely this time of year, and New Yorkers might soon be able to visit it from Sin City via a $20 million magnetic levitation transportation system. Those wanting the “maglev” experience closer to home will have to wait for an equally expensive companion project at an as-yet-undetermined location somewhere east of the Mississippi River. And don’t forget the $2.95 million authorized for an “Infrastructure Awareness Program.” The program consists of a single documentary film about infrastructure advancements in Alaska.

All the highway pork, even for “winning” New Yorkers, is funded by higher taxes, including the 18.4 cents-a-gallon federal gas tax. Are projects like the rail freight tunnel worth all the tax-inflating dross in this bill, both instate and out-of-state? Some lawmakers think not, most notably Senator McCain of Arizona, from whose trenchant analysis of the bill many of the examples above are taken. Unfortunately, such voices of reason were in the minority, and were not joined by any members of the New York delegation. That’s something to ponder on the drive up to Oswego to enjoy that new waterfront walkway.