Do you favor a $29,725,000 bond issue for natural resource, agricultural and transportation infrastructure that will leverage $29,780,000 in other funds?

Early last year, the Legislature approved a two-part bond package to help the Department of Transportation catch up with road and bridge work. The second part of that two-part plan goes before voters June 10. Borrowing the $23 million for road, bridge, rail, ferry, port and other transportation improvements, though not ideal, is essential to keeping Maine’s economy viable. The bond, which also includes $6.7 million for non-transportation concerns, deserves to be approved by voters.

Last June, by a 3-1 ratio, voters approved borrowing $113 million to leverage $161 million in federal transportation funds and $13 million in private funds. The borrowing was critical, DOT officials argued, because rising petroleum and steel prices had increased road and bridge construction costs by 35 percent since 2003. In addition, the state’s highway fund, which relied heavily on the per-gallon gasoline tax, has produced less revenue as people drive less or use more fuel-efficient vehicles.

In the two years leading up to the June 2007 bond vote, $200 million in road and bridge work was deferred or canceled because of those costs. The same conditions that put DOT behind then remain today, so borrowing to catch up on transportation infrastructure is critical.

The bond would distribute transportation funds as follows: $10 million for highway and bridges; $9.6 million for passenger and freight rail improvements; $1 million for transit and bus improvements; $950,000 for pedestrian and bicycle trails; $700,000 for reconstruction of a bulkhead and wharf at the former U.S. Coast Guard facility in Portland; and $500,000 for ferry and port improvements in several locations.

The bond referendum also seeks to borrow funds for the Department of Environmental Protection: $2 million for investigating and cleaning hazardous substances sites; $1 million to replace malfunctioning septic systems; $800,000 to municipalities for landfill remediation; $300,000 for industrial landfill remediation; and $300,000 to replace air quality monitoring equipment. The bond also would assist the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife with $2 million for fish hatcheries and $300,000 for repairing dams.

As is typical, the bond would bring in an equal amount of funding from other sources.

The additional funding requests should have been included in a separate question. State officials have worked hard to impress upon voters the dire nature of transportation infrastructure, and to persuade them of the extraordinary nature of the bond requests. Bundling spending undermines that point.

Still, approval of the bond referendum will help Maine support two key industries: tourism and forest products, as well as keep our roads and bridges safe.