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Infrastructures * USA - Want heavier trucks? Fully fund highways
Pawlenty transportation system won't support behemoths
Minneapolis,MN,USA -The Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription) -April 15, 2007: -- Business interests are back in St. Paul this year arguing in support of a Pawlenty administration proposal to allow heavier trucks on Minnesota highways. The Legislature's answer should be simple and direct: Put your proposal away until Minnesota's highways and bridges are fully, adequately funded to handle existing commercial traffic... Minnesota currently restricts most truck weights to 80,000 pounds (the same as the federal limit on freeways), and Gov. Tim Pawlenty's administration proposes raising that to 100,000 pounds. Opponents (including railroads, naturally) argue against the change, citing worries about road wear and tear, and the safety risks that heavier vehicles would entail... There are economic benefits that would accrue from allowing the heavier vehicles, however, and the concerns could be answered -- were Minnesota's roads, and especially its bridges, in top shape. The critical factor for road wear, for example, isn't the overall weight of a truck, but the number of axles on which that weight is distributed, provided that roads and bridges are in good shape... The problem is that Minnesota's roads and bridges are in deplorable shape, and the same administration that is proposing heavier trucks is determined to keep them that way -- by pledging to veto the Legislature's 10-cent gas-tax increase, the first for Minnesota since 1988, and half-cent metro sales tax for transit...
Labels: infra...structures?..
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