Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf is putting his stadium demands on hold until 2009 in the wake of the I-35 bridge disaster, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune:
[T]he state Department of Transportation estimates that “taxpayers will have to spend a minimum of $1.4 billion over the next two decades to repair or replace the metro area’s aging bridges.” … There had been conjecture before the bridge tragedy that the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, which owns Metropolitan Stadium, would take the drawings for the new stadium on a statewide tour this fall to harness taxpayer interest. But the response now, when some state bridges are labeled structurally deficient, would have been unsettling.
Next fall, now that’s a different story. Because who remembers the lessons of disasters a year later, anyway?
What a great piece from FAIR. So true as well.
Money to fix bridges and other non-transportation activities rarely commingle. Mostly the money comes from gas taxes and registration taxes. Some states do kick in sales taxes, like California, and some states tax part of the sale of cars to get money for infrastructure but I don’t understand how the connection between bridge maintenance and sports complexes has been made with any honesty at all. Sports complexes do vacuum money away from quality of life categories of local spending but it is a big leap to propose that a sports stadium prevents bridges from being built or maintained.