@meme6253
"It is actually a bogus ripoff to consumers!"
Don't jump so hastily to that conclusion, especially if you don't live in Minnesota.
Most of Minnesota is quite rural, with many of the roads in our 87 counties sorely in need of repair, due to a constant high level of agricultural traffic (tractors, combines, threshing machines, etc), as well as heavy doses of wear caused by semi-trailers ; grain, produce and livestock haulers; and agricultural engineering supply equipment.
The Minnesota Legislature regularly holds sessions in which road and bridge repairs are discussed and debated; but a large segment of the legislature is controlled by a conservative bloc, which has vigorously fought any road and bridge repairs for decades -- so nothing gets done, except in the Twin Cities metro area, where a localized "wheelage tax" was passed in 1972, only for the purpose of road repair in the counties surrounding the Twin Cities -- and this tax is paid ONLY by those particular residents.
Hopefully the new Road Improvement fee will begin to repair the roads and bridges in outstate Minnesota, that have long been ignored by our conservative legislators -- even though it is their own constituents that have been complaining for decades about the poor conditions of their rural roads and bridges -- some of which have been condemned as "dangerous" by transportation engineers.
Remember the 2007 collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, which killed 13 people and injured 145 others?
I suspect that the survivors of that disaster would not have condemned the Road Improvement Fee as a
"bogus ripoff".
