Governor Corbett Signs on to Significant Transportation Funding - A Positive Development

In an increasingly ungovernable and dysfunctional political system, it is easy to throw up one's hands and conclude that it does not matter who we elect or whether and how we lobby our public officials to do what is right.  Once in a while, though, public input, pressure, and reason can deliver a just result, and such would appear to be the case vis-a-vis transportation funding within the Commonwealth.

In the period following his ascension to the office of Governor, Tom Corbett was reluctant to support any legislation which would increase driver license or registration fees or the gasoline tax in order to address our crumbling infrastructure and the need of public transit systems to maintain service.  He initially ignored the recommendations of a blue-ribbon panel that he appointed to study the issue and find a solution.

Governor Corbett justified his hesitation to address the matter on the basis that these are tough economic times (which they are), and went so far as to ask an inappropriate question of the members of a group he was addressing, "How many of you would like to pay a higher gasoline tax?"

Today, the governor has come full circle, willing to embrace an ambitious State Senate plan to appropriate an additional $2.5 billion in annual revenue to roads, bridges, and transit and urging that significant transportation funding legislation be adopted.  Two years ago, one could not have expected him to stand at the Liberty Bridge as he did recently in order to bring to the attention of the public its poor condition and to plead for funding legislation to pay for repairs.

I appreciate the governor's consistent anti-tax increase stance.  I do not like taxes and fees any more than he does, but public safety is not an option regardless of the economic times.  We should not have to impose weight limits on crumbling bridges or have to worry that we and our families might plunge off of an antiquated structure whose renovation or replacement we have delayed in order to be penny-wise and pound-foolish.  The State House must quickly reach an agreement on a plan which is identical to or close to the Senate bill that has passed so that it can be signed into law this month and quickly implemented.  The issue of public safety will not be one which devolves into partisan wrangling, will it?