Title
Supporting the authority of the City of Saint Paul to impose a local sales tax to fund special capital improvements providing regional benefit, to establish the duration of the tax and the revenue to be raised by the tax, and to authorize the City to issue bonds supported by the sales tax revenue.
Body
WHEREAS, the Saint Paul City Council has identified two current capital improvement projects for local option sales tax spending consideration, briefly described as follows:
1. Rebuilding and improving regionally significant transportation infrastructure ($738,000,000)
Saint Paul’s regionally significant arterial/collector roadway and trail system is critical to the economic vitality of the state and region. This system must provide efficient travel and connections for commercial freight, mass transit, personal vehicles, carsharing, non-motorized vehicles, and pedestrians. According to US Census data, 136,148 jobs located in Saint Paul are held by people that live outside of Saint Paul. Those employees require a reliable transportation network to get from their homes to their places of employment in Saint Paul.
In 2019, the City of Saint Paul Department of Public Works conducted an analysis of Pavement Condition Index (PCI, on a scale of 1-100) for the City’s arterial/collector streets. The City’s 2022 analysis concluded that as currently funded, the average pavement condition for arterial/collector streets will drop from 49 (“fair to poor” condition) to (“very poor to serious” condition) within 20 years, an unacceptable outcome for our region. Sales tax revenue would be used to reconstruct or rehabilitate arterial/collector streets in the City’s Five-Year Capital Improvement Program in order to attain an average PCI at or above 70. A PCI of 70 represents a “satisfactory” rating for pavement condition and is an industry standard that governmental agencies strive to achieve. These investments would improve safety for all users.
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