Yesterday was the first day of the legislative session, and to celebrate, Roadguy took a camera crew over to St. Paul to talk to ordinary people about transportation funding. The two-minute video is here. (It’s no “Bus Pirates,” that’s for sure.)

Alert reader Froggie was one of the first people to view the video, and he quickly e-mailed Roadguy with some thoughts:

The lady who says she wants road improvements, but doesn’t want to pay for them, was almost comical except that such attitudes are partly why we’re so far behind in transportation funding to begin with. Do these people really think we can get the type of improvements we need just from existing revenue? Because, in a nutshell, we can’t.

Those who oppose the gas tax because gas prices “are too high” apparently don’t realize that high gas prices are here to stay. Sure, nobody wants to pay more in gas, but I personally would rather have the extra pennies going to MnDOT to build road improvements than to have them line some oil company executive’s pockets.

Some of the comments led me to believe that too many Minnesotans just don’t realize/understand that the state gas tax (and license tabs too) is CONSTITUTINALLY DEDICATED to the state highway fund. Perhaps if more people understood that, instead of blatantly (and incorrectly) thinking it gets siphoned off to transit, there’d be more support for a gas tax increase.

The guy who was opposed to the gas tax and sales tax on the grounds of them being “regressive” and would unfairly hurt the “working poor” has a partial point. But what he failed to consider is that the “working poor” are also being hurt by traffic congestion and lack of options, and a comprehensive transportation package will help that situation.

Whenever Roadguy does man-on-the-street (or person-in-the-skyway) interviews, he is always reminded that his alert readers are more alert than most folks. Lots of people didn’t know the Legislature was in session, or what was being proposed, or how the gas and sales tax increases (which have been proposed before) would work. He could’ve spent all afternoon just filling in people in the skyway, but that’s what the Internet is for.

It’s also for your comments — on the video, the Legislature, gas/sales taxes, Froggie’s thoughts, the whole shebang. (Strib legislative story here, MPR story here, Strib south suburban story here, Strib editorial here.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 6:05 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.