Road fund neglected

Talk about it

WORTHINGTON — The 2008 Transportation Funding Bill, also known as Chapter 152, is not a perfect bill — but it is a good starting point to look toward the future of transportation in Minnesota, said attendees at the 2008 Regional Transportation Meeting and candidate forum.

Mayor Alan Oberloh opened the meeting Thursday by welcoming transportation officials and politicians from around the state before MnDOT District 7 Engineer Jim Swanson updated the crowd on current projects, saying the new MnDOT building being constructed in Mankato could serve the district for the next 50 years. He also gave an update on construction of the Highway 60 four-lane bypass project around Bigelow. A ribbon cutting ceremony on Oct. 21 will celebrate the project’s completion.

Also underway are a number of safety enhancements on the stretch of Highway 60 that runs between Windom and St. James.

Margaret Donahoe, executive director of The Transportation Alliance, which hosted the meeting, spoke next, talking about the importance of a solid transportation infrastructure, both for quality of life and safety reasons.

“We see over 500 people every year killed in traffic crashes and the majority of those happen on rural two-lane highways,” she said, adding that funding for transportation has been neglected since the late ’80s, creating a nearly $2 billion estimated funding gap for every year between 2008 and 2020.

“We went 20 years without an increase in the gas tax and that is the main funding source for highways and bridges,” she said.

Donahoe described key tenets of the bill: a five-cent increase in the gas tax, the last three cents of which will be implemented Wednesday; a 3.5 cent surcharge on gas tax for trunk highway bond debt to be phased in from fiscal years 2009 to 2013; $1.8 billion in trunk highway bonds during the next 10 years, with $300 million dedicated to a new bridge account in 2009 and 2010; eliminating caps on license tab fees (fees do not increase for vehicles already registered in Minnesota); dedicating 50 percent of sales tax on leased vehicles in the state to greater Minnesota transit and local roads and, most notably for rural Minnesotans, authorizing counties in Greater Minnesota to levy a sales tax of up to one-half percent for transportation purposes.

The bill will also channel an additional $9.5 million into Nobles County during the next 10 years, and an additional $1.1 million per year to Worthington during the same period.

“That puts less pressure on local property taxes to fund roads and bridges,” explained Donahoe. She admitted Chapter 152 wouldn’t solve all the problems facing the transportation industry in Minnesota, but said it was the only bill that had a chance to become law, providing additional funding for local governments where before there was none.

Donahoe said the measures will allow planned projects to be completed at an accelerated rate, and should only place a modest financial burden on Minnesota families — costing a family with two vehicles an extra $100 annually. She also addressed concerns that tax money from rural Minnesota is being funneled into metropolitan areas.

“There’s a lot of concern that money from this bill provides a lot of money for Metro Transit — the only money for Metro Transit comes from the metro sales tax, so nobody in greater Minnesota is paying for that,” she said.

“Don’t put rural Minnesotans against the metro. I have children who live in the metro. We need to work as one big state,” added Sen. Jim Vickerman.

Still, commented Rep. Doug Magnus, rural Minnesotans are paying more than those in the metro area. He cited numbers indicating that southwest Minnesotans will pay an estimated $216 per capita in gasoline and special fuel taxes by 2011, while the Twin Cities metropolitan area faces $147 per capita for the same year.

A seven-member panel of politicians and candidates said they were grateful to be taking the first steps in the form of Chapter 152, but emphasized the importance of finding more funding for the state’s infrastructure.

“When my family moved here in 1957 all the roads in Iowa were narrow and the roads in Minnesota were wide,” said Al Kruse, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in District 21A, “In the last 50 years everyone else has moved ahead and Minnesota has remained stagnant. Our infrastructure is falling farther and farther behind. (Fixing infrastructure is) important for our economic survival. That’s just to survive. To thrive we need four-lanes. You see what happens around a four-lane highway — there’s economic development there.”

Donahoe asked them if they would vote to repeal any parts of Chapter 152 — for example, allowing tax monies on leased vehicles in the state to be channeled back into the general fund. They all answered no, saying that would only result in less money for needed infrastructure.

“It’s been a tough year but if I had to do it all over again I would,” said Rep. Rod Hamilton in reference to his push to get Minnesota 60 completed, “I didn’t take my lumps for nothing.”

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