Action lags 1 year after Minneapolis bridge tragedy

It is good that the concept of an anniversary can bring this subject back into the public's view. It should never have faded. (It is sad that only one comment preceded this one and it was just a juvenile attack on the writer. ) We are setting ourselves up for disaster by ignoring the maintenance needs for our infrastructure such as bridges. We should all be concerned about this and should be pressuring our elected officials to respond. If fuel taxes have to be increased to repair dangerous bridges, so be it. Cheap gas isn't worth anybody's life.

I don't understand why this is so hard. If people use roads they should pay for them with gas taxes. If we don't have enough tax revenue then raise them. What's even another $.20 when gasoline costs $4.00 per gallon. I guess it's not politically popular.

Then why do we have gasoline taxes paying for mass transit? People who use mass transit should pay for it with higher fairs. I keep hearing about mass transit losing more money because they have more riders. What kind of business loses more money the more customers you get? Geez!

And how did they "balance" the budget in those good old Clinton days?

"I was part of balancing the federal budget in 1997. I was on the Budget Committee for 10 years. And it is a fact. We took $29 billion to help balance the budget. It came from the Highway Trust Fund."
Mr Shays - House of Representatives - July 23, 2008

To make it even worse according to an article in Associated Construction Publications, 7/23/2008

A congressional investigation says Minnesota spends barely half of the money available under a federal highway program for substandard bridges, one of the lowest rates in the U.S.
Investigators found that Minnesota spent 51 percent of its allotted bridge program dollars for bridges in the last five years, a rate that is tied with Arizona for last place. The average for all states was 89 percent from 2003 to 2007.

And now a National Bridge program?

There needs to be better cooperation between state transportation departments and metropolitan planning organizations to come up with ways to resolve these travel problems. The state-by-state federal funding mechanism fails to address these cross-border issues. You have to admit, these congestion problems are largely regional issues, not solely that of states.