In a stunning 103-98 vote that teetered between passage and defeat until the last moment of the roll call, lawmakers shot down an amendment to fix thousands of substandard bridges, repave hundreds of miles of crumbling roads, and pump hundreds of millions into modernizing mass transit systems across the state.
To pay for the improvements, the bill would have lifted the cap on the oil-franchise tax - which could increase prices at the gas pump by roughly 27 cents a gallon. The measure also would have increased driver's-license and vehicle-registration fees beginning in 2015, and put a surcharge on speeders and others who violate traffic laws.
Of the $2.3 billion to be raised by 2017-18, approximately $1.65 billion would have been dedicated to highways and bridges, and $476 million to $497 million to mass transit.
The proposed amendment also contained a controversial change to prevailing-wage laws, increasing the threshold on projects that require a set rate for contractors.
