The Democrats have come with another fabulous idea to improve our transportation infrastructure…tax people by the miles they drive. They believe this will accomplish two goals, rebuilding America’s crumbling bridges and roads and encourage commuters to ride public transportation.
This is liberal standard-operating-procedure, tell the public that this will help reduce traffic and push the masses to public transit while in reality knowing most of us have no choice but to drive. This will create a new steady stream of available cash to be spent on anything but infrastructure upgrades. If you don’t think it will be misspent Google “Social Security Lock-box”.
I, as most Americans should, have some serious heartburn with this proposal. Those promoting this, along with those pushing for higher fuel taxes seem to forget that the vast majority of us have no access to mass transit of any sort. These moronic pointy heads in Washington forget that the United States is a vast, mostly rural landscape with the inhabitants working for small businesses that make even car-pooling difficult. Smaller cities that manage to subsidize a bus system have them stop every half-block making them impractical for one’s daily commute. I tried in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia and my 20 minute drive became a three hour nightmare!
Portland, Maine provides a perfect example of the situation. It is a city with few large employers and those making average wages unable to afford to living in town; one must be well off or on the government dime to there. Workers are forced upwards of an hour away to afford housing. Should we punish them for wanting the American dream? Portland has a transit system but infrequent buses and restrictive hours make it little more than subsidized transportation for illegal immigrants or the cities masses of substance-abusers (which further reduces its attractiveness to the commuter).
I love mass transit, really I do, when I lived in Boston I rode the “T” daily and in Europe I didn’t even own a car, I could rent the few times I actually needed one. Many cities that manage to subsidize a bus system have them stop every half-block making their use impractical for one’s daily commute. I tried in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia and my 20 minute drive became a three hour nightmare! In all fairness they have added a few express routes since then are slowly installing light rail.
I love mass transit, really I do, when I lived in Boston I rode the “T” daily and in Europe I didn’t even own a car, I could rent the few times I actually needed one. Many cities that manage to subsidize a bus system have them stop every half-block making their use impractical for one’s daily commute. I tried in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia and my 20 minute drive became a three hour nightmare! In all fairness they have added a few express routes since then are slowly installing light rail.
The number one reason our roads, bridges and tunnels are in such a sorry state is that our fuel taxes (up to a third of the per gallon cost) are not spent on maintenance and construction as intended but instead go into the general fund to be squandered elsewhere. Do you really think this new cash-cow will be any different?
Now that I’ve alienated my liberal friends let me do the same to my conservative ones. I support the president’s desire to invest in high-speed rail; I think we need competition in inter-city travel and I would also support London-style congestion taxes in cities with viable transit systems that are underutilized. I would also support a law requiring fuel taxes being spent only on transportation projects with a portion set aside to build new or improve existing light rail systems. But for that to happen we also need to revamp the contracting system to limit the investors or government’s liability for cost over-runs – think Boston’s “Big Dig” or Norfolk’s light rail project. I support clamping down on traffic scofflaws as a funding stream for cash-strapped states. Bad driving burn more fuel and makes the highways more dangerous for all of us. I already hear the cries of intrusive government abuse by those on the right, we’re always for law and order, you know the death-penalty for murderers and long sentences for drug users, but our own crimes should somehow not be enforced. More Americans are killed on the highway than by murderers and drug-abusers combined.
We are not as compact as Europe and will never have the transit system that they have but there are things we can do to improve transit in this country. We must also understand there are some who will always need to drive themselves who should not be punished for not having a choice in the matter.
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