Republicans like to point to polls showing just how unpopular the gas tax increase was. These polls have typically asked respondents whether they favor or oppose an increase in the gas tax. Predictably, majorities oppose a tax increase. Minnesota 2020 decided to try something different. Check out the question they asked in their poll:
Which is more important to you: (ROTATE) Holding the line on the price of gas by rejecting a proposed increase in the gas tax of five to ten cents a gallon OR making an additional investment into fixing traffic bottlenecks, and making road and bridge repairs to prevent tragedies like the 35W bridge collapse, by increasing the gas tax and dedicating those funds to improving the transportation infrastructure.
Predictably, the proposal got more support from the public when the question was asked this way:
Keep Gas Cost Down - 45%
Invest in Transportation - 45%
Both/Neither/Don’t Know - 10%
The take home point: DFLers can sell this transportation plan. The public is open to the argument. Those six Repubicans should be able to sell it too, provided they can survive Seifert’s moderaticide.
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Laughter…good luck with that one. If you are right, then I expect to the see the House DFL announce tax increases as part of their agenda to balance the budget.
Any bets?
I think the numbers would be even better if the price of gas wasn’t through the roof right now.
I don’t think that it will be too hard to sell this bipartisan, Chamber of Commerce-supported bill.
soyouknow-
Yeah… our liberal communist agenda that the books be balenced. Its a shame, I know.
Please. More money would not have prevented the 35W tragedy. A correct design and proper loading would have.
Bodies were still in the water and you libs were already using this as an excuse to raise taxes. The passage of time obviously has not improved your manners.
MO-
My god, how often does a simple statement need to be repeated. Infrastructure repair requires materials, and contractors. Materials are acquired with money, contractors are paid with money. If you cannot get the materials and people to do repairs, infrastructure falls apart.
This does not change, no matter how hard you pray to Ronald Reagan to come down from Heavan and make it all better. You can pray to him all you like, but roads and bridges don’t magically repair themselves at the mention of his name, you credolous fool.
It took bodies in the water for (some) Republicans to realize that we need to actually address our infrastructure. Sounds like it will take a couple of more bridge collapses to convince the rest of them.
Name calling (and misspelled at that) - who’d a thunk it from a fact-challenged lib. Once again, throwing more money at 35W would not have solved the cause of the collapse - a DESIGN FLAW that occurred more than 40 years ago and which is NOT inspected for.
In fact, it was the ongoing bridge deck repairs that actually caused the bridge to be overloaded and collapse.
Please tell me how more materials and money would have solved this problem? I’ll wait……………..
Again, using dead bodies and poor logic will not win this argument. It will just cause you to look silly.
Since you seem to be concerned with more funds for materials and labor for roads and bridges, would you be the first to step up to repeal the amendment that gives at least 40% (and possibly 100%) of auto taxes (the things that drive on bridges) for light rail and other “transit ” projects (like bike trails that my car can not drive on).
Well, MO’s car may not be able to drive a car on the bike trail, but just think how much easier it will be for MO to drive on the road when 40 percent of the motorists leave their cars at home to ride bike to work, or take the light rail.
In fact, isn’t that why other motorists are being lured off the road, so MO can be King of the Road?
Hey VS,
The Light Rail Utopia you speak of is a figment of the active imagination of the new urbanists.
Traffic has NOT improved around the Hiawatha LRT.
So few people ride it, we not only had to pay to build it, but now we subsidize it to the tune of $20-$30M per year.
The Central Corridor project will replace frequent bus service with less frequent LRT service. How many people live in the downtown of one city and commute to the other? This will be a $1B boondoogle with money (from auto taxes) that could be used to fix roads and bridges.
Please show me a major American city that has built LRT in the past 20 years that was successfully demonstrated to reduce congestion.
Bike to work during MN winters…….hmmmm….I’ll pass.
MO
I was unaware that bridge plans are set in stone, designed and then statically worshiped, never to be touched again. Of course, for flaws to be found and fixed, there have to be people to do it. And the 35W bridge was rated as unsafe twice before it collapsed, by either the feds or MN DOT (possibly both). Are you suggesting that even with that known structural danger, MN DOT would have been unable to repair it, because of sacred 40 year old plans? Or was it because they didn’t have the resources to repair it, or for that matter any of the other bridges that have been rated unsafe.
And it wasn’t the evil liberal media, riding in their commie light rail that rated them unsafe. It was inspectors… who do it for, y’know, a living. And like much of the MN GOP under Pawlenty, those were cosmetic repairs to the surface, when the structure, which was known to be unsafe, rotted away under it.
Last time. I will write slowly.
The bridge collapsed becuase it was overloaded and was underdesigned (under a DFl admin, btw). Not due to a lack of inspections or maintenance (per the NTSB)
After a bridge is built, an inspector checks the components for wear, not to see if the plans used the correct components in the first place. (When you look at your house in the spring for loose siding, peeling paint, etc, do you look to see it was built with the correct joists?)
The bridge was rated deficient, not unsafe. Yes, words have meanings and there is a difference.
Wishing it were so does not make it so. TIA.
John S - I take issue with two things 1) don’t need name calling.
2) I don’t think we should pass judgement on Ronald Reagan’s final
destination.
MO - The bridge was overloaded in the 21st century, but how can you say it was underdesigned in the early 1960’s? Secondly, while the Dems did control MN at the time, the bridge was part of the Interstate Highway System which was Ike’s baby and much of the $$ and all of the specs were federal not state. Finally, while the early suspect is focused on the gusset plates, I don’t believe the NTSB has reached any final decision yet.
dmc8301 -
Thanks for the reasonable tone.
The bridge was designed to carry a certain laod with a certain % margin of error.
When it was designed, the gusset plates used were insufficient to meet the margin of error.
At least twice since it was built there has been weight added - one was for the concrete “jersey barriers” guardrails and I forget what the other was. These were thought to be well within the margin of error for the design capacity, but since it was incorrectly designed, the added weight pushed the bridge much cloeser to it’s limit.
When the 170 tons of construction materials were added, pretty much directly over the gusset plate, the load capacity was exceeded and the bridge fell.
Last week the NTSB gave further insight into their conclusions and were no longer calling this a working theory, but pretty much fact. You are correct that the final report is not out, but I believe that it will reflect their previous position.
I added the “designed under DEM” to counteract all of the vitriol aimed at T-Paw and the current R admin. Yes, the specs might have been federal, but the whole issue is that the specs were not met. We can all agree that it was designed, built, and maintained over 40 years by a wide variety of administrations. Pointing political fingers is not helpful. And quite frankly, for once, I don’t think the pols had anything to do with this.
Let’s point the finger at who is really at fault - some engineer who goofed 40 years ago. If he is still alive, I do feel sorry for him.