5.5. SR 03-24-2003 - Laserfiche WebLink

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spending on construction and reconstruction on its MSA system. ("Construction and reconstruction" was defined in the survey as including design and engineering costs, grading, signing, curb and gutter, storm sewer and sidewalks.) The survey found that the 32 cities spent a total of about $28.5 million per year between 1997 and 2001 to construct and reconstruct the MSA system. Since the total MSA mileage of the 32 responding cities is 1,158.7 miles and the average per mileage cost for construction and reconstruction is estimated at $1.3 million, the estimated cost to reconstruct the mileage of the 32 responding cities is $1.506 billion. Dividing that total need by the average annual investment over the last five years of $28.5 million means that the estimated number of years it would take to reconstruct the system is about 52.8 years. Policy Options 1. Increase the level of funding to the Municipal State Aid program. As described in Section 2 of this report, the Municipal State Aid program provides a total of roughly $120 million annually to the 130 Minnesota cities with populations over 5,000 to support about 2,800 miles of city roadways. While this amount has certainly been helpful to cities in their efforts to construct and maintain these eligible road systems, recent reports by Mn/DOT's State Aid for Local Transportation and other reports indicate that the MSA roadway surfaces continue to age and deteriorate. There are essentially just three options to increase revenues to MSA eligible cities by increasing revenue to the Highway User Tax Distribution Fund. They are: 1. Increase the gas tax from the 20 cents per gallon that was last increased 14 years ago in 1988. 2. Increase vehicle registration fees. 3. Provide other revenue growth to the Highway User Tax Distribution Fund, e.g. dedicate funds currently deposited into the General Fund, i.e. the Motor Vehicle Sales Tax. (See Section 5, recommendation #7, page 44) 38