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Transportation officials: Illinois gas tax increase is needed

Bamby

New member
Just a few days after Illinois marked 200 years of statehood, state officials and experts attempted to sketch out its future on three crucial topics.

At an event sponsored by the Better Government Association and The State Journal-Register in Springfield, experts on transportation, technology and gender equity shared their thoughts on where the state needs to go in the future.

Transportation

With nearly a decade having passed since lawmakers approved Illinois' last major capital program, billions of dollars worth of deferred maintenance has racked up.

To give an idea, about three-fourths of all bridges in the state are in need of repair.

And according to a panel of transportation experts, the problem will only get worse in the future unless the state begins to better fund investments in its transportation system.

"We're behind, to be perfectly frank," said IDOT Secretary Randy Blankenhorn, one of the panelists. "We are not funding transportation as well as some of our neighbors and as our competitors. ... I spend $250 a month on my phone. I spend $50 a month for water. This is the infrastructure of my life. It's what I need to make things happen. And we're spending 50 cents a day on transportation. And, honestly, it's inadequate."

To help fix the chronic funding problem, an increase in the state gas tax, which has not been raised since 1990, and vehicle registration fees will be inevitable, Blankenhorn said.

Blankenhorn said such an increase would provide "revenue necessary to maintain, enhance, modernize our system. That's the conversation that we need to have."

While voters in 2016 overwhelmingly approved a "lockbox" amendment, which prohibits the use of state transportation funds for any other purpose, Blankenhorn called it a "distraction" from the need to adequately fund transportation.

"My boss, the governor (Bruce Rauner), said, 'OK, so how much money are we going to get out of the lockbox?' And the answer was none," Blankenhorn said. "Legislators said, 'So you don't need any new revenue because you have the lockbox.' Not true."

Lindsay Hollander, a senior policy analyst for the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, agreed, saying that the gas tax should be raised at least 15 cents.

Such an increase would give Illinois, which currently has the 10th-highest state gas tax rate, the third-highest rate in the country.

"Our funding system has not really kept pace with some of the evolving trends, even past trends in the transportation system, and we need to make sure that it's not only going to be brought up to modern times, but we really need to look at the future and see how we can construct a funding system," Hollander said.

Blankenhorn, Hollander and Imad Al-Qadi, the director of the Illinois Center on Transportation, also discussed the future of driverless vehicles in the state.

"Driverless vehicles are going to come, whether we want them to or not," Blankenhorn said. "And we can stick our head in the sand and pretend it isn't going to happen, or we can do it the right way."

Rep. Jaime Andrade, D-Chicago, chair of House Cybersecurity, Data Analytics & IT committee, believes that "data is the next natural resource" and has the potential to revolutionize an antiquated state government.

"We had in the state of Illinois over 2,500 different applications," Andrade said. "We had some systems that were built in 1974 that were still being run."

The problem is, he said, getting his colleagues to comprehend what technology is coming and why it's a good idea for the state to invest in that future.

Source


With the exception of California and New York Illinois seems to be the most frantic state to attempt to run off both citizens and businesses though taxation.
 
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