Cowcatcher wrote:
There is a national rating list on bridges the DOT keeps and this bridge rated a 50 out of 125 points I understand. If it had rated a 49 that would have meant something like "rebuild ASAP", instead it gets a surface deck redo that is highly visible and cosmetic.
No great love of the boa guy KJPilot but I understand your legislature passed a bill recently to improve infastructure and your current gov vetoed it because he is an anti tax guy. Folks can't have it both ways. Our parents paid the taxes to build todays infrastructure, we need to pay to keep it and improve it. Some folks rather spend the money on themselves for that new Escalade instead of paying an extra 5 cent gas tax because they wouldn't get caught dead driving a 5 year old Tahoe. Now those same folks whose undamaged Escalade is parked on the bridge will expect you to buy them a brand new one plus throw in a few hundred thousand for pain a suffering. They still won't want to pay the extra 5 cent fuel tax though and they still won't support public transportation because they don't use it.
It is not lack of money. The state of MN is running a surplus. As with any piece of legislation, the core issue is usually a good idea, but everything amended to it is nothing more than pork. The bill was to increase taxes on gasoline, you are right Pawlenty would veto it, but again, we are running a surplus! He is not an anti-tax guy, he is an anti-NEW-tax guy. I don't want to start a dissertation on history & economics, but if you look at both, you'll soon find that the government's actual intake from taxes goes UP when the tax rate (percentage) on the citizen goes down. When Ventura (pink boa guy) left, we had a deficit, Pawlenty cut taxes & refused to raise them again... *poof* surplus! Same happened nationally when Bush lowered taxes; government intake went up, & the deficit is dramatically lower. In the 1980's when Regan dropped the income taxes from as high at 90% to a maximum of 28%, Government intake tripled. So no, a tax bill would not have done crap for that bridge.
Furthermore, last election cycle, the uninformed voters among us approved a transportation spending amendment to our state constitution. On it's face, it sounds great. the part everyone was told about was this: Every dollar collected in the name of transportation (like the gas tax,) would only be allowed to be used on transportation projects. That's great, right? No more politicians taking money from the transportation funds for their pet projects, cool! That is what everyone who didn't read the amendment thought. Upon a quick read though, one would find that it also capped expenditures on roads to 60% of total transportation expenditures, the other 40% HAS to be spent on mass transit... Oh, & that 40% is a floor, not a cap! In other words, the statehouse can as much as 100% of the funds on buses & trains (all located in the geographically small Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area) & that would be fine; spending 61% on roads state wide & 39% on mass transit is now unconstitutional!
We have yet another issue in our City Councils. When ever a road project is planned & funded for their city, they have to approve it. In the city of Minneapolis, if there is not a tithe to mass transit of at least 20%, they reject it! These are state & national roads & funds mind you! I've seen much needed improvements be delayed for a decade because of this politicking. The I-35 bridge is no exception.
When Ventura was pushing hard for the Hiawatha Line (his choo-choo train legacy,) opponents had mentioned that the funds would be better used for roads & bridges, & the I-35 bridge was mentioned in particular. Studies were done, by the state, who said yeah it's structurally unsound, (a 50 out of 125 on the scale you mentioned...missed it by one) but we think this 40 year old bridge will last another 20-25 years
Apparently, the state was wrong, but hey, we have a cool looking light rail train that nearly nobody uses, that has been burning up billions of tax dollars from the transportation fund ever since. But hey, as my neighbor said at the time, he "feels more metropolitan, because now we have a train like Chicago & New York".
I guarantee you that more people were on that bridge when it collapsed, than were on the train... & remember 75% of the lanes were closed, there could have been 3X as many cars on there when it dropped, but the number on the train would have been the same.
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