Local state representative and lieutenant governor candidate Scott Conklin is one of several Pennsylvania leaders speaking out in favor of patching up the state’s transportation funding.
Concerns about ailing roads, bridges and other public transportation systems dominated a Monday press conference held by Conklin, D-Centre, in State College, said Tor Michaels, Conklin’s chief of staff.
“Rep. Conklin believes that the No. 1 safety issue facing our residents now is our transportation infrastructure needs,” Michaels said. “And we need to come up with a bipartisan plan to address this critical funding issue.”
Conklin’s stance echoes that of Gov. Ed Rendell, who just last week gave a call to arms in front of the Pennsylvania Senate Transportation Committee urging its members to enact a “real and lasting transportation funding solution.”
Pennsylvania is first in the nation for structurally deficient bridges — the 5,646 cases in the state outnumber those in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, and Maryland combined, according to the Pennsylvania Department Of Transportation (PennDOT) “Transportation Funding Crisis” website.
Eighteen highway and bridge improvement projects in Centre County will go unfixed until additional funding is available, according to PennDOT.
Public transportation projects for the Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA), including 16 bus replacements, will also be delayed until more funding is available, according to PennDOT.
In order to foot the bill for these and other projects, Michaels said legislators should explore solutions such as imposing a Marcellus Shale gas tax or cutting corporate income taxes by 21 percent.
“All options should be on the table,” he said.
Penn State College Democrats President Rob Ghormoz agreed that transportation problems warrant cooperation across the aisle.
“When it comes to something like safety, it’s not a politics issue anymore,” Ghormoz (senior-political science) said. “You need bipartisan agreement that’s keeping citizens safe.”
Ghormoz also said he thinks the Marcellus Shale tax should be explored as a potential source of transportation funding.
But Samuel Settle, chairman of the Penn State Young Americans for Freedom, said a tax on Marcellus shale drilling could deter future development on the resource. He also said it could cause the burden for a problem that’s concentrated in two major urban areas to fall upon those throughout the rest of the state.
“There’s the same problem with education or any major state initiative — the state has kind of a weird, dichotomous relationship between big cities and rural areas like State College,” Settle (junior-political science) said. “[Funds] almost always get allocated to the two places who have largest voices and who can cry the loudest.”