News 14 Carolina - Political Connections

Transportation commission coming soon...

Dan Gerlach, one of Gov. Easley's right hand men, said today he expects a transportation commission to be announced in the next two weeks.

You'll recall there was talk of a special session to find new ways to fund transportation but that never happened. Gov. Easley then said he and legislative leaders were working on a commission.

Gerlach made the comments at an NC Policy Watch forum this afternoon.

Gerlach also made some interesting comments about transportation in general. He talked about the need to fund maintenance as much if not more than building new roads. He also discussed the highway trust fund and said there are discussions about transferring less but finding a way to fund other projects that count on that money (i.e. education) remains a challenge.

There was also a tone of local governments getting more responsibility when it comes to funding roads. The question is does that mean counties will get stuck with more funding, particularly because the counties won the Medicaid funding debate recently?

More on this when I get a chance to listen to the tape a little closer..