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Idaho legislators close session with funding bill for roads
"The fact is we are driving on the infrastructure that was designed and
built for our grandparents."
April 14, 2015
"Like other states, Idaho faces a crisis – the result of long-term underinvestment in our aging roads and bridges. The fact is we are driving on the infrastructure that was designed and built for our grandparents." So says the AAA Better Roads, Fair Funding project.

Much has been made in recent years of the gradual and ongoing deterioration of Idaho roads and bridges, due to maintenance funding falling behind what is required to even maintain roads and bridges at their design standards.

Locally, failing roadways can be seen right here in Boundary COunty. Take a drive up or down Bonners Ferry's South Hill, for example, and see if you can complete that short drive without hitting any cracks, patches, rough spots, or pot holes in the pavement surface.

According to Idaho Governor Butch Otter's Task Force on transportation funding, State and local agencies would have to do preservation and restoration work on 500 lane miles of paved roads each year beyond what is currently programmed just to keep Idaho's roads from aging beyond their design life.

Along those same lines, the Task Force found that 250,000 square feet of bridge deck preservation and restoration work would need to be done each year beyond current maintenance levels to keep bridges from aging beyond their design life.

The Task Force projected Idaho would require an average of $262 million each year in additional funding to do this required road work. (see Governor’s Task Force On Modernizing Transportation Funding In Idaho, Final Report, issued January 2011).

As the Idaho state legislature convened in January of this year, how lawmakers would deal with this issue became a widely anticipated issue.

The bottom line is, at nearly 1:30 a.m. on the last day of the legislative session, lawmakers approved a transportation bill that would raise $94.1 million toward Idaho roads and bridges. That falls far short of the $262 million needed just to keep Idaho roads and bridges up to standards.

The legislative wrangling in the legislature just to come up with the $94.1 million was an arduous process. At the end of March, the Idaho House of Representatives approved and sent to the Idaho Senate a bill that aimed to make major reforms in taxing and funding in the state. The House bill proposed to add 7 cents per gallon to the state's already existing gasoline tax to provide funding for Idaho road and bridge maintenance. Additional provisions of the House bill would lower some income tax rates, and eliminate sales tax on groceries and eliminate also the grocery tax credit.

The Senate responded to the House bill by rejecting it, and put together their own legislation that would raise an estimated $127 million for roads funding by raising vehicle registration fees, creating a user fee for electric and hybrid vehicles, and gradually raising the gasoline tax up to 10 cents per gallon. The Senate's offering was then rejected by the House.

A conference committee between the two legislative bodies, after two days of negotiations, came up with compromise legislation that was eventually passed by both the House and the Senate. The compromise starts with raising the gasoline tax by 7 cents per gallon (bringing the gasoline tax total to 32 cents per gallon). This provision of the bill would raise $63.2 million. The bill would also raise vehicle registration fees, including an increase of $25 for trucks, a $21 increase for most other vehicles, and increases fees for motorcycles, hybrid, and electric vehicles. The bill also allocates some general funds toward roads projects for the next two years.

That all adds up to the total funding of $94.1 million for Idaho's roads and bridges, only about one third of what the Task Force estimated would be needed each year just to keep Idaho's roads and bridges up to standards.
 
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