Is now the time to propose HOT alternatives

No one's a fan of paying more in taxes, but transit users in D.C. already pay the highest percentage outside of New York of their transit system. It's time for car users to pay their fair share for improvements – road and transit alike – in the form of some kind of higher gas tax. One idea has been to index the cents-per-gallon for inflation by making the tax cents-per-dollar instead. This would be one way to ease people into paying more taxes and serve as a stop-gap to ensure tax revenue during times when gas prices are higher and people drive less. Still, more money is going to be needed if we are going to build the new roads people are clamoring for, maintain our existing infrastructure AND build the transit lines that are desperately needed in our region's transportation system.

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Originally posted by raymond
[br]Well omaryak, you have been granted your wish: gas tax IS a cents-per-dollar tax (%) based on gas purchases. As dickboyd points out Virginia’s gas tax is 17.5 cents per gallon, a user tax, which means that as use increases and people buy more gas, more revenue will be generated. Individually, users only pay more tax if their use increases. Collectively, as more people register vehicles and buy gas for those vehicles it generates more tax revenues. I do not support higher transit fares, but that also is "user-fee" based. Those who use it pay the fees. In theory, if more people rode transit, the cost (and fee) per rider should decrease, which is what you have in cities where there is a high usage rate and mass transit is successful. This is as it should be: the users of the service pay taxes to support it.

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At face value, Raymond's comments are true. Remember we are dealing with transit math. Transit fares? Maybe 25% of operating costs and none of the capital costs come from the fare box. The bad part is that fedeal monies are used to fill in the capital costs and the other 75% of operating costs. That means the people in Indianapolis and Keokuk and Kalamazoo are paying part of the commuting costs of DC commuters.

At $0.175 per gallon Virginia tax and 20 MPG, less than a penny a mile is collected in Virginia fuel taxes. A really busy road will carry about 30,000 vehicles per day per lane. Roughly $300 per day per lane mile. The going price for a lane mile is between $1 million and $10 million. At $1 million per lane mile, it takes ten years of fuel taxes to pay for the road. At $10 million per lane mile, it takes 100 years. Life of a road is about 15 years. Some roads carry 10,000 or fewer vehicles per day. Too many numbers, my head hurts, I have to go lay down and rest.

dickboyd@aol.com

Governor Warner and Gov Elect Kaine apparently have plans for spending the surplus on non-transportation items. (see below) This is REALLY bad when we are in a transportation crisis. This shows the extent to which the privatization mindset has altered everything in Richmond. We have been sold to the developers and it happened several years ago before anyone knew it. This is not just to bash the Dems. I know most Repubs are also for privatization including HOT.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/07/AR2005120702406.html

Boy, that JoanA is a real show stopper!