PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER EDITORIAL: Perhaps it would take a naïf to expect Pennsylvania’s legislators to pass a transportation bill just because it’s, you know, their job. And there aren’t many innocents left in Harrisburg. So to get the bill passed, the legislature revived its reviled tradition of allowing its members to distribute some of the spoils, a practice previously known by the charming term “walking-around money.”
Tens of millions of dollars a year was apparently the price the rest of us paid to persuade some of our already well-compensated representatives to fund work on roads, bridges, and mass-transit systems – that is, to keep “walking around” from becoming the commonwealth’s last safe mode of transportation.
After much dithering and cajoling, the legislature has passed a bill enabling $2.3 billion a year in additional transportation funding. Generated by higher gas taxes, licensing fees, and traffic fines, most of the money can be expected to go to sorely needed maintenance of the state’s transportation network, as identified by professionals in the state Department of Transportation and local agencies. But lawmakers also reserved up to about $60 million a year to be distributed by more dubious means – namely, themselves… (more)
