Action needed
Transportation woes must be dealt with In an unusual meeting last week, House and Senate members questioned the state transportation secretary about a proposal to raise $1 billion annually in new funding. Transportation Secretary Allen Biehler said the state could raise that sum by taxing oil company profits and increasing motorist fees, but there was more than a little skepticism that legislation could pass in the fall, when most lawmakers face re-election, and Gov. Ed Rendell winds down his second term.
Putting the odds for movement at slim to none, Sen. John Wozniak, D-Cambria, said “none have left Dodge until after the election.”
Rendell said the public supports upgrading the transportation network and cautioned lawmakers that inaction would only delay the inevitable and add to its cost.
The governor wants to impose an 8 percent levy on the gross profits of oil companies, which largely are able to avoid the state’s corporate net income tax. He also would increase license, registration and vehicle fees to equal the rate of inflation since they were most recently changed – in some cases, decades ago.
“I believe quite strongly the time to act is now,” Rendell told reporters shortly before the House-Senate caucus meeting. His plan would raise driver’s license fees from $21 to $25, the cost to register a passenger vehicle from $36 to $49 and the price of a personal registration plate, generally speaking, from $20 to $51.
Rendell warned that a no-new-taxes pledge by the Republican candidate to replace him, Tom Corbett, could freeze funding for years to come. “That means this will not get done for at least five years,” Rendell said.
About $700 million of the proposed new money would be spent on roads and bridges, the rest on mass transit.
The Rendell administration says the state currently owns 5,646 structurally deficient bridges, the most in the country, and has more than 10,000 miles of roadway in need of repair. A study recently estimated it would take about $3.5 billion annually to fully fund the state’s transportation needs, and Biehler said the $1 billion figure was a reasonable start.
Republican legislative leaders, though, were less than forthcoming on their plans to deal with the transportation problem, waiting perhaps for Corbett to win the gubernatorial election this fall. Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, said his caucus preferred a comprehensive approach to a “Band-Aid” that would require revisiting the topic in coming years.
Senate Transportation Committee Chairman John Rafferty, R-Montgomery, said that the state needs a new transportation system and that he plans to conduct hearings on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the Delaware River Port Authority, the use of public-private partnerships and tolling interstate highways.”We’ll come up with a plan that meets the needs of the commonwealth today,” Rafferty said.
House Minority Leader Sam Smith, R-Jefferson, said he did not sense a consensus emerging. “I think it’s a real tough sell, and not so much because of the pre-election-year politics, but because the administration has not gone out to members, saying ‘Here’s what this means in your district,”‘ Smith said.
You have to wonder, though, what Smith was doing this summer as Rendell spent most of the past couple of months speaking out across the state about the need for action on transportation infrastructure funding.
While no one wants to pay any more in the form of increased taxes or fees, something definitely has to be done. And the Republicans are doing no one a favor by refusing to talk about their transportation plans in detail. Commonwealth residents need to hear now, not six months from now, what their plans are for dealing with the transportation funding problem.
If they’re against increased taxes or fees, then they need to come out now and spell out how that will solve the problem. It won’t go away and will only get worse in the coming months.
Right or wrong, Rendell has spelled out his plan. Republican legislative leaders must do the same so the public can see clearly which plan they favor.