Southern District Transportation Commissioner Tom King gets a lot of the same questions as he travels these days and most deal with funding for roads and bridges.
The former state lawmaker spoke at the monthly meeting of the Marion County Republican Women Tuesday night. Many are concerned with federal bridge inspections that are forcing closures of wood-pile bridges on county roads across the state.
King admitted the projects were overwhelming.
“We’ve got hundreds of bridges that need repairs,” he said. “We have two bridges on highways that are on the replacement list.”
Marion County Board of Supervisors President Randy Dyess asked King about support for local bridges. In Marion County, 53 wood-pile bridges are being inspected and several have already been closed.
“Do you see the need for additional funding for roads and bridges that have already been closed due to federal inspections?” he asked. “If so, do you support appropriations going to the counties? Do you support returning the responsibility for inspecting timber bridges back to the counties and their engineers in 2019? The last question is how do you think a Trump federal infrastructure program could benefit the counties?
King said the state could receive a large amount of federal funding under President Trump’s infrastructure plan.
“It’s definitely needed,” he said. “To get that money, we’ve got to go by the federal government’s rules. The wooden bridges all need replacing. It’s a nightmare. Some of these bridges look really good on the top side and you go underneath and you think, ‘I’m not riding on this thing anymore.’ You may have to close some, but it is safe. The feds asked us to help and told us if we didn’t help, they’d hold the money. That’s just the way it is. If you take any federal money, you go under their guidelines.”
King said local projects include overlaying Mississippi 13 North and 35 North and plans to replace the Pearl River Bridge in four or five years, pending funding.
King mentioned proposals of an additional fuel tax. Mississippi’s 18.4-cent-per-gallon gas tax has not increased since 1987, which means funding has been flat while inflation has gone up. The tax generates about $400 million less per year than is needed to maintain state highways.
“A penny (more) would mean $20 million and 10 cents would mean $200 million,” King said. “We may not get the $400 million we need, but we’ll take what we can get and use it the best we can. We don’t have any new construction planned. We don’t have the money to maintain the roads and bridges that we have.”
