Minnesota tends to fund roads, bridges and mass transit in one of two ways: taxing a little bit from everyone, or taking more from just those people who use transportation — such as the gasoline tax, transit fares or vehicle license fees.

But a third method of transportation funding could be a big part of Minnesota’s future, as politicians debate how to pay for the state’s infrastructure.

Saddled with the unwieldy name “value capture,” its principle is basic: pay for transportation by taxing the people who benefit from new roads, train stations, interchanges and other projects.

A new highway, for example, might be the incentive a developer needs to turn farmland into an office park or subdivision now that the highway can take people to or from work. Under value capture, the developer would have to pay for some of the cost of the road — returning some of the value he gained from the highway to the government that built it.

Or a new light-rail line might raise property values around its stations. A special taxing district could capture some of that and use it to offset the cost of the line.

Even the plan to build a lid over Interstate 35W in Minneapolis could be a candidate for value capture. The interstate lid would provide new space to build homes or businesses, and the state could pay for part of that project by selling the right to this valuable new real estate.

“The people who are getting all of the benefits, or many of the benefits, from the infrastructure are adjacent landowners,” said David Levinson, a professor at the University of Minnesota who has studied value capture.

“The people who pay for the infrastructure are not generally those people. So there’s a mismatch.”

Value capture, he said, “is a way of essentially trying to close the feedback loop so people who are benefitting … help pay for it.”

The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce latched on to value capture, too, not just for what it is, but for what it’s not: a gasoline tax increase, as many politicians and interest groups are pushing for this legislative session.

“We think that there’s an opportunity, as we think about how to invest additional dollars into the transportation system … to figure out how we can broaden the base of financial support for the system,” said Bentley Graves, the chamber’s director of health care and transportation policy.

Not everyone likes value capture — particularly not the people whose value is being captured. Certain ways of implementing it have proven to be unpopular, such as special assessment districts.

Another form of value capture, the Tax Increment Financing district, is popular among local governments but alienates school districts and other local governments who don’t share in the captured value.

It also could take more bureaucracy to run. A gasoline tax creates a general pool of money policymakers can distribute to any projects that arise. Negotiating a fee from a developer or creating a new tax district takes work to set up, and might need to be done again with every new project.

Gov. Mark Dayton is among the detractors. He has heaped scorn on value capture on several occasions since the Chamber of Commerce endorsed it as an alternative to his $10.7 billion, 10-year transportation plan.

“‘Value capture’ is another phrase used,” Dayton said Monday. “I don’t even know what that means, but it’s not going to generate the kind of revenues that are needed.”

How much revenue value capture can generate is unclear. Taken to the extreme, it could probably squeeze out enough money to pay for most or all of Minnesota’s transportation projects.

“Assuming that (a transportation project) is creating more value than it costs to build, there should be enough (from value capture) to build as much as we want, to the point where transportation stops creating value,” Levinson said.

Practically, Levinson said, it’s politics and not economics that limits the revenue from value capture.

Graves said the chamber doesn’t want value capture to replace existing modes of transportation funding, just take up some of the burden.

“It’s most certainly not a silver bullet that itself will fix whatever ails the state’s transportation system from a funding perspective,” Graves said. “We definitely see it as a tool in the toolbox.”

A 2014 Minnesota Department of Transportation study looking at the Minnesota 610 corridor in Maple Grove concluded that value capture could raise between $12 million and $37 million toward the cost of an $80 million project.

Besides the Minnesota 610 project, MnDOT looked at whether value capture could help pay for the St. Croix River bridge. However, the department concluded value capture wasn’t a good fit for the project.

Some aspects of value capture, such as TIF districts, have been used extensively in Minnesota. Others are relatively unknown here but have been tried elsewhere in the world, including land value taxes in Pennsylvania, “transportation utility fees” in Oregon and “joint development” in Asia, Levinson said.

Though value capture might please people trying to avoid gas tax hikes, it’s not a free lunch — in the end, someone has to pay for the cost of new roads or rails.

The “best” way to fund transportation projects, Levinson joked, is to “get somebody else to pay for it.” But barring that, he said Minnesota could fund part of its transportation needs by getting beneficiaries to pay.

“If the choice is between you pay for it and you get it, or you don’t pay for it and don’t get it, some people will choose to pay for it and get it,” he said.

David Montgomery can be reached at 651-224-5064. Follow him at twitter.com/dhmontgomery.

WHAT IS VALUE CAPTURE?

Value capture is a series of methods of getting people who benefit from transportation projects to pay for them. A 2009 report to the Minnesota Legislature identified eight major different forms:

Land value tax: A general tax on land, excluding the value of property on it. Land tax revenue rises when transportation projects make a lot more valuable, but not if it’s developed.

Tax Increment Financing: Increased property taxes from a development are redirected to pay for the development’s cost.

Special assessments: Nearby landowners are assessed a tax to pay for a new transportation project.

Transportation utility fees: Homes and businesses are charged a fee for accessing transportation networks, just as they pay a fee for access to water or electricity.

Development impact fees: One-time fees paid by developers to offset the costs to government of infrastructure to serve their development.

Negotiated exactions: Similar to development impact fees, but negotiated on a case-by-case basis instead of applied using a formula.

Joint development: A government works with private business to build both transportation infrastructure and a development, and to share the cost.