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Minnesota roads are in poor condition.
But that’s not news. We’ve heard that again and again since the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed. We’ve heard that news since Minnesotans had to mess with the state constitution just to fund roads. We’ve heard that news ever since Carol Molnau was knocked out of her role as commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
However, what’s new is that Winona County is just about dead last in two key road-quality measures, and we probably won’t move up the dubious list for a long, long time. We have a lot of bad roads and not a lot of good roads. In other words, our best roads are pretty mediocre.
Now, add to that list a closed, apparently broken bridge and Minnesota’s neglect of its infrastructure becomes too hard to ignore.
MnDOT workers wear blaze orange, which doesn’t help their cause when it comes to the court of public opinion. MnDOT is an all-too-easy target.
After all, it’s easy to blame MnDOT. They are a state agency (read: bureaucrats). They’re in charge of the roads, which, around here, all seem like they’ve been strafed by Air Force bombing runs. And, with the exception of Molnau, it has no public face.
But MnDOT only has the money the state allocates to it. Fixing and repairing roads and bridges only goes so far. When the money runs out, MnDOT stops building and repairing.
While MnDOT has not done a particularly good job taking its case to the public — due in large part to Molnau’s almost cultish adherence to the Pawlenty administration’s value of spending absolutely no money on Minnesota’s infrastructure — it also has routinely publicized the timeline for its projects, many of which continued to be pushed further and further into the decade (yes, decade). It’s been no secret that MnDOT’s hands have been tied and projects keep on moving further and further away.
The real blame lies with a Legislature filled with leaders who would rather watch roads crumble than make tough decisions. They’re the ones who have decided what tax dollars go where, and from the way our roads feel, they’ve failed us. Not just those who sit in St. Paul now, but those who came before them. Roads and bridges don’t just crumble overnight. After all, the I-35W bridge was slowly deteriorating for years.
At a breakfast gathering Friday, state Sen. Sharon Erickson-Ropes, DFL-Winona, told members of the Winona Area Chamber of Commerce the Legislature was constitutionally commanded to take care of state trunk highways and education in the state. As she rightly pointed out, the Legislature isn’t doing a very good job with either.
At that same meeting, state Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Wabasha, told the same folks that state government was too big and unable to solve Minnesota’s problems.
He’s dead wrong.
We don’t need less government. Politicians like Drazkowski have always been able to scare voters into believing the myth that big government translates to bureaucrats and big brother.
But that’s boogeyman politicking.
More government means more MnDOT. It means expecting — and getting — roads that can be driven, schools that can actually compete in a global economy and health care that has accessibility so businesses can afford to offer insurance as a benefit.
We don’t need less government. We need a government big enough and smart enough to provide the infrastructure that we have come to expect and need for our health, safety and economic well being.
We still revere those of the World War II generation as the greatest, and probably rightfully so. They are the greatest because they knew what the word “sacrifice” meant. But that sacrifice didn’t stop when the peace treaties were signed. It continued on to build a highway system, invest in schools and practice community.
Hopefully, history will repeat itself.
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