MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 6, 2007 — In the past two years, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota twice vetoed legislation to raise the state’s gas tax to pay for transportation needs.Now, with at least five people dead in the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge here, Mr. Pawlenty, a Republican, appears to have had a change of heart.“He’s open to that,” Brian McClung, a spokesman for the governor, said Monday of a higher gas tax. “He believes we need to do everything we can to address this situation and the extraordinary costs.” Even as the cause of the bridge disaster here remains under investigation, the collapse is changing a lot of minds about spending priorities. It has focused national attention on the crumbling condition of America’s roadways and bridges — and on the financial and political neglect they have received in Washington and many state capitals.“The bottom line,” Mr. Schumer said, “is that routine but important things like maintenance always get shortchanged because it’s nice for somebody to cut a ribbon for a new structure.” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/us/07highway.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0What I remember of this incident is an interview of a woman who had lost her husband and a child in this bridge collapse. Apparently there had been a bond measure on the ballet a few years before the bridge collapsed. She was a republican. She said she voted against the bond measure a vote that she regretted. This has always haunted me.
MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 6, 2007 — In the past two years, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota twice vetoed legislation to raise the state’s gas tax to pay for transportation needs.Now, with at least five people dead in the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge here, Mr. Pawlenty, a Republican, appears to have had a change of heart.“He’s open to that,” Brian McClung, a spokesman for the governor, said Monday of a higher gas tax. “He believes we need to do everything we can to address this situation and the extraordinary costs.” Even as the cause of the bridge disaster here remains under investigation, the collapse is changing a lot of minds about spending priorities. It has focused national attention on the crumbling condition of America’s roadways and bridges — and on the financial and political neglect they have received in Washington and many state capitals.“The bottom line,” Mr. Schumer said, “is that routine but important things like maintenance always get shortchanged because it’s nice for somebody to cut a ribbon for a new structure.” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/us/07highway.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0What I remember of this incident is an interview of a woman who had lost her husband and a child in this bridge collapse. Apparently there had been a bond measure on the ballet a few years before the bridge collapsed. She was a republican. She said she voted against the bond measure a vote that she regretted. This has always haunted me.