The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Editorials

February 23, 2008

Our View: Road bill veto will be expensive

If you think raising the state’s gas tax to fix roads and relieve congestion will cost you a lot of money, think again. Failing to raise the gas tax will likely cost you more, up to $1,000 a year more, according to transportation experts.

That is the estimated cost of wasted time in traffic, burning more fuel, and fixing repairs to your car more often. It’s an estimate by the Texas Transportation Institute, a highly regarded transportation research organization.

That’s why you see business groups, like the Minnesota Chamber, backing the gas tax proposal. The proposal also is a compromise that included the governor’s desire to use bonds and borrowing to pay for some projects. The Democrats also compromised on a Republican idea when they removed the automatic indexing of the tax, something the chamber also opposed.

The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, not exactly a tax-and-spend liberal organization, has backed the common sense road funding proposal the governor vetoed Friday. That’s because the chamber thinks of its policy position as a smart businessperson would. It has come to this conclusion: a 5 cent gas tax makes sense for business, for everyone, because costs of not doing anything about roads will cost business more, much more.

One Twin Cities business owner reported that even a $1 per gallon gas tax, much less a 5 cent a gallon tax, would be cheaper for his business because of the time spent waiting in Twin Cities congestion.

The Texas Transportation Institute, a nationally respected research organization whose studies are used at the state and national level, has studied Minnesota congestion and has determined every person who commutes in the Twin Cities loses $700 a year in time and fuel and another $300 a year in repairs going over sub-standard roads.

By contrast, estimates for the 5 cent gas tax come in at about $30 a year for a person driving 11,000 miles a year in a car that gets 20 miles per gallon. Add in the new car license tab fee in the bill, and the average Minnesota family with two cars being replaced every five years would probably pay less than $200 a year for the gas tax and fee.

What they will get for that is lower costs of maintaining and operating their vehicle, safer roads for drivers and better maintenance of bridges. So from a practical point of view, killing this transportation bill will cost the average family about $800. That’s a tax increase much higher than the one coming through a gas tax.

So you say you don’t drive to the cities, so it doesn’t cost you? Think again. Transportation and county groups have estimated that counties levy $1 billion a year in property taxes to pay for state roads. That’s $200 for every Minnesotan, almost $300 a year per licensed driver. Still not a good deal.

Clearly, this transportation bill will be less costly than doing nothing. Unfortunately, the governor has lost sight of this.

Democrats and at least six Republican legislators have a chance this week to save the taxpayers money by voting for road investments in the gas tax bill. They should do so by overriding the governor’s veto.

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