Conservatives’ Approach on Gas Tax is Brazenly Job Killing

[FayeforCure]

along with economically suicidal and environmentally destructive: a trifecta of stupidity!

Here in New York, where fares and transit taxes have risen steadily, the MTA projects an additional 13 percent fare rise. The last time state gas taxes went up was in the 1990s

Obama’s plan recognizes that our one-size-fits all, autos-only transportation “system” desperately needs diversification. Conservatives, apparently forgetting about skyrocketing oil prices, want to deeply cut transit and passenger rail. But road-building could also decline dramatically if Ryan gets his way. That’s because the federal gas tax, which has not been raised since 1993, only covers about half the level of current spending.

Raising the gas tax is the right way to go, urged by businesses and environmentalists alike, as long as they don’t have to face voting drivers, who apparently have concludedâ€"with Congressional collusionâ€"that their roads are free.

In my book, The Agile City, recently published by Island Press, I make the politically even more difficult case that drivers should subsidize transit because getting people off the roads is the most efficient way to reduce congestion. We need to subsidize rail freight, too, since it has enormous potential to reduce truck traffic, dramatically lower energy use, and carbon emissions. Diversifying transportation modes is becoming more urgent every year, especially when the economies with which we compete don’t whine about the costs, they recognize the need to make such investments, and harvest the benefits at our expense.

This is a guest post by James Russell, architecture columnist for Bloomberg News and author of ‘The Agile City: Building Well-being and Wealth in an Era of Climate Change.’

http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/07/07/no-higher-gas-tax-then-prepare-for-a-transportation-funding-meltdown/