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April 2004
Dayton: Large-scale investment needed to improve system, restore public trust
Senator Mark Dayton
It is imperative to develop a large-scale, statewide solution to our transportation problems—not just to improve mobility, but also to help restore public faith in government, declared U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton. He made his remarks at a transportation finance seminar held March 19 in Minneapolis, one in a series cosponsored by the University's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and CTS. Robert Johns, director of CTS, gave welcoming comments, and Humphrey Institute dean Brian Atwood introduced the senator.
The main problem, Dayton said, is that the state hasn't had enough money to keep pace with increased project costs and increasing needs for repairs, upgrades, and expansions. In recent years Minnesota coasted at basically the same level of transportation funding and used the same financing mechanisms and piecemeal approach. "But you can only coast for so long before you start to slow down," he said. Our roads are in terrible shape and getting worse, and congestion and delays have become a daily nightmare for many citizens. This older, more crowded infrastructure affects not only our quality of life but our very safety as well.
Without making significant changes very soon, conditions are guaranteed to worsen, Dayton said. He called for more highway construction projects—two or possibly three times more than at present—over the next 10 to 20 years. This would return the network to the capacity it would have had if not for the inadequacy of the last 15 years, plus allow us to handle projected population and business growth.
This kind of program will be expensive and difficult to achieve, Dayton said, "but success will be less expensive and less disruptive than failure." Local officials and citizens all over Minnesota feel the same frustration: urgent needs and no solutions. Without a long-term funding strategy, some projects seem delayed indefinitely. Meanwhile, engineering studies and design work cost more, and the environmental impact process takes longer.
What's more, when government cannot meet the public's needs, confidence in government is devastated, Dayton said. Few of today's transportation construction projects, which are generally smaller and unintegrated, offer a chance to change that perception. Instead, support is increasing for toll roads, in part because politicians believe they won't require tax dollars and citizens believe they won't be run by the current agencies that have failed them. To Dayton, however, their use adds up to a "continuation of a vicious cycle of a downward spiral." The private sector properly does what is profitable to do in its own interests, he explained; the public sector properly does what is necessary to do in the public's interests.
One way or another, whatever the approach, it is imperative to start a large-scale, statewide solution now, Dayton said. He then proposed a five-point financing plan:
- Increase federal funding significantly. The current Senate bill—with an 81 percent increase for Minnesota—is a good start, but even more federal money is needed for highways, air, and rail.
- Decouple the funding level from the Highway Trust Fund. While the Trust Fund should remain dedicated to transportation, it should not define an upper spending limit.
- Increase state spending for highway construction projects.
- Even more important, begin an aggressive use in Minnesota of highway construction bonds, which are used by 41 other states. The increased federal funds should be used to underwrite highway construction bonds, and the state-generated money used for ongoing system repairs.
- Establish a Minnesota highway construction authority. Dayton proposes a nine-member authority that would be independent of existing government entities. Members would be chosen one each by the governor as well as the speaker of the house and the minority leader, senate majority and minority leaders, the League of Cities, counties, and the township association. The authority would have three main responsibilities:
- Make an independent determination of statewide needs.
- Assess the capacity of existing financing systems and inform the governor, the legislature, and the public if increases are needed. The governor would recommend policy to the legislature based on that advice, the legislature would act accordingly, and Mn/DOT would implement projects.
- Assess whether resources were allocated properly to the established priorities.
"Minnesotans are certainly entitled to choose not to expend the resources and the effort necessary to have the best education system, the best transportation systems, and the best in other essential public services," Dayton said. "But they must understand the consequence of that collective unwillingness is mediocrity." It is imperative to act now, and all proposals that are offered should be measured by whether they are statewide and long term, and by the results they produce. Now is the time to level with the citizens of Minnesota, he concluded, and then the people should decide if mediocrity is enough.
Lee Munnich, director of the Humphrey Institute's State and Local Policy Program, then moderated a question-and-answer session. In response to a question from former state senator Carol Flynn about the use of road pricing, Dayton responded that asking taxpayers—whether individuals or businesses—to pay an additional premium may trigger them to move to an area where tolling is not used. Pricing further undermines the sense by taxpayers that if they pay their tax dollars, they are going to get quality services. "That plays right into the hands of all those who want to privatize all these functions," he said. "Privatization will be our demise."