Gas Tax

So I haven't been doing a great job making posts here, but I'll try and do a better job going forward.

If you pay attention to MA news at all, by now you've probably heard about Governor Deval Patrick's proposed gas tax and statewide transportation reform. You can read an article summarizing it here. The proposal would raise the current gas tax by 19 cents per gallon, making the highest in the country. This additional revenue would be used to improve roads and bridges as well as expand the rails and other public transit. In addition, the transit agencies would all be brought under one roof, bringing further cost savings through efficiencies and reform.

I am optimistically in favor of this proposal. After all, I am comfortable calling myself an envrionmentalist and I strongly support efforts to incentivize sustainable, public transit oriented growth. I feel this is the best way to improve our quality of life and limit the effects of global warming and other pollution. However, do I think he went too far by giving us the highest gas tax in the country and indexing it to the cost of inflation? Probably. Will negotiations with the legislature bring this amount down? Hopefully.

Here's why. A gas tax in itself is not the best way to battle climate change or promote sustainable growth. It only affects one sector of our energy usage. Also, the people who will proportionately be affected most by it are precisely the people who can least afford it. Much of Massachusetts' poor live in areas poorly serviced by public transportation, not to mention small business owners who rely on their vehicles for their livelihood. A carbon cap and trade system would be much more effective at driving sustainable growth and could spread the costs more across society and efficiently towards the worst polluters. If we just need to generate the additional revenue (and we do!), I would propose a smaller inflation indexed gas tax hike combined with a broadening of the sales tax. There is a lot of room to close loopholes in the sales tax or even increase it by a percentage point or two. This would generate at least as steady a revenue source as a gas tax and would broaden the base of people paying into it.

Finally, I think the Patrick administration is missing another opportunity to make some serious transportation reform by ignoring the addition of new tolls on highways leading in and out of Boston. This would generate revenue from the drivers who actually benefit from the improved roadways and give people a more direct choice if they want to commute into the city. Since most of the MBTA commuter rail lines follow a major highway, people could either choose to pay the fare to ride the train and support public transit, or pay the toll to drive in on the highway. Obviously there would be costs associated with operating tolls, but they would certianly pay for themselves and then some. Also, carpool lanes should be expanded on 93 and 90, maybe even Rtes 1 and 2. The current system of lanes is a joke. Traveling into the city on 93 from the north you get maybe 3 miles of carpool lane that restrict you from getting off at certain exits. If we were to make one lane in each direction inside 128 carpool only, it would provide a real incentive for people to carpool. In addition, it might allow express buses to get you into the city faster than traveling alone, providing another incentive to leave your car at home.

I'm generally in favor of the Patrick administration's proposed gas tax, but I think more comprehensive reform is possible and would do more to achieve Deval's stated goals.