Bridge repair fund looted

From the Times-Union:

Here in New York, the state "lockbox" created to pay for rebuilding aging bridges and roads -- a fund that's augmented every time you buy gas, renew a driver's license or rent a car -- has been raided for cash by state leaders during the last decade to such an extent that it will need $3 billion in taxpayer bailouts over the next five years.

And those added billions won't fuel a massive rebuilding, but will rather simply let a state with more than 2,000 structurally deficient bridges -- more than one span in every 10 -- keep chipping away at the problem.

Some highway advocates are questioning whether the Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund, created in 1991 as a reliable source of cash, may be too depleted to handle the job.

For every dollar that the fund will spend on roads and bridges over the next five years, it will spend almost $3 to cover rising debts and help run the state Transportation and Motor Vehicle departments, according to figures in Gov. Andrew Cuomo's capital plan in the just-completed state budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year.