Transportation funding doesn’t fill their plate
Thursday, May 31st, 2007
By Chris Fitzsimon
Bruce Siceloff, Ryan Teague Beckwith and Barbara Barrett, Staff Writers Transportation boosters didn’t get a penny of the new money they had hoped for in the House and Senate budget proposals, but they invited legislators to breakfast anyway.
N.C. Go, a lobbying arm for transit agencies, construction businesses and civic groups, made a final pitch for more money Wednesday in testimony before a House committee
Earlier that morning, over eggs and jelly biscuits, the co-leaders of the legislature’s Joint Transportation Oversight Committee told the group there was no agreement on what the state needs for road and transit improvements — and little appetite for new transportation taxes.
Sen. Clark Jenkins, a Tarboro Democrat, noted that Gov. Mike Easley rejected a prediction from his own Department of Transportation that the state would fall $65 billion short of its transportation needs in the next 25 years.
Rep. Nelson Cole, a Reidsville Democrat, said drivers can expect to see plenty of toll-financed projects in coming years.
"We’ve got to go to toll roads in a bigger way than we’ve ever anticipated," Cole said. "It’s unfortunate, but we do." (more…)
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