In his victory speech last week, President-elect Donald Trump made a commitment.
“We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. We’re gonna rebuild our infrastructure, which will become second-to-none,” he promised.
Louisiana’s House Transportation chair, Republican Kenny Havard, is excited about this, as he told fellow members of the Transportation Infrastructure Investment Task Force.
“We have tremendous needs. Now is the time we need to think bold, think big, and look at every option.”
Havard, who was part of the hard-line group of House members opposing tax hikes in the special sessions earlier this year, urged this task force not to go all-in on raising the gasoline tax.
“I’m just asking that we don’t lock ourselves in to one particular gas tax,” the representative from East Feliciana Parish said. “Let’s throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.”
He added, “The political reality of it is, let’s all have open minds and try to figure out how to do it together.”
The task force, instituted by Gov. John Bel Edwards to look for ways of whittling down the $13.1-billion dollar backlog of state transportation construction and repairs, is scheduled to submit its report by January first. Task force chair, DOTD Secretary Shawn Wilson, says they have agreed on two recommendations thus far.
“Resolution one recommends the use of tolling to supplement new sources of recurring revenue.”
The second recommendation is to explore public-private partnerships for certain major projects.
“Those projects are: Mississippi River Bridge inclusive of the 415 connector, I-10 at Calcasieu, the 5-11 which is the Jimmy Davis Bridge, segments of I-49 South, and a new bridge in Ouachita.”
The task force meets again December 1.