Where is Carol Molnau? As head of transportation surely she should show up for the occasion.
Spot-
unless someone can show me a degree in engineering, you all need to shut the hell up about who is to blame. Could we please have the decency to wait until the bodies are recovered until we start pointing fingers?
No degree is necessary. Bridges don't just fall.
That is all. End of story.
Seems to me that the last time we gave our "leaders" the benefit of the doubt we ended up dropping a trillon bucks to ship Americans to Iraq and ship a lot of them right home in boxes- for nothing but vanity, as it turned out.
No no, this time around feet are going to be held to the fire- and it's only the citizenry who can do it.
I'll just say the same thing to you that a piece of wingnut filth said to me after the election in '04- "fit or git."
Seems to me that this might be less about gross funding and more about how the funding was allocated -- in our drive to build more roads, have we neglected to maintain the ones we have?
Molnau is returning from China. She was in Beijing studying urban planning. This is her third trip - in 2006 she led a business delegation (Lieutenant Governor role?) in 2004 she was there to discuss Minnesota's intelligent transportation systems. This is kind of interesting....
Anyway...Minnesota has neglected to fund road repair and new road construction adequately - I believe the figure legislators on BOTH sides of the aisle put forward this past session was a $3 billion dollar shortfall. Attempts to fund this shortfall failed and was the biggest disappointment of the 2007 session....a session that could be dubbed everything but transportation.
It would be interesting to know how many other states have Lieutenant Governors who also function as the Transportation Commissioners. If there are other States with this condition are the Lieutenant Governors/Transportation Commissioners serving Governors who rank transportation fairly low on their list of priorities.
Could people at MNDOT work with Molnau well? Was she able to compartmentalize her two roles. This seems impossible as Lieutenant Governor she no doubt had to support or not challenge the governors position that Minnesota doesn't need to raise taxes in order to increase revenue for transit (even though there isn't a spare $3 billion in the general fund). It is true that the Governor selects commissioners - but given the dual responsibilities could she responsibly serve as Transportation Commissioner?
In one of the reports I read today, some guy said it would take $188 billion and a generation to address all the nation's bridges in similar condition. Costofwar.com has the current Iraq bill at around $449 billion. Let's see, where would I rather spend that money.
Hammer has it exactly right. It's not just about more transportation dollars - it's about making sure those dollars go towards maintenance rather than new projects.
Right on Spotty!
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