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Cheaper gas? Why not a free T?
By adamg on Thu, 05/11/2006 - 8:36am
Kerry Healey wants to eliminate the state gas tax this summer. Shai Sachs has another idea:
... [I]f we've got enough money to suspend the gasoline tax for the summer, why not encourage smart transportation alternatives and make the T, buses, and commuter rail totally free? And run the commuter rail lines more frequently in the morning. That would make it possible for plenty of people to commute to work affordably and it would decrease our dependency on oil. ...
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Comments
Forget that
If people insist on buying big a@@ed cars which get bad gas milage than let them pay for it. I shouldn't have to subsidize, more then I already do, other people's desire to waste energy. Compared to the rest of the world the US has the lowest gasoline taxes. Increase the tax on gasoline! That will promote use of public transportation and the development of energy saving technologies.
And public transportation should be free
People keep whining about subsidizing public transportation without realizing that alot more money is being spent to support everyones desire to drive thier car to work. It costs a lot of money to keep all these highways in good shape and to keep the price of gasoline artifically low. Use more gasoline, which uses more oil, which gives some people an excuse to invading countrys which happen to have lots of oil. Yada, yada, yada.
gasoline availability
By are telling people not to waste energy it's as if the theories that I expect you have been supporting, and have been around for 40 or so years, are criditable. Look at the bowsers, look at the oil fields- THERE IS STILL PLENTY OF OIL and it's 26 years past 1980 when it was supposed to run out. You'd think you would be ducking for cover. What you have been supporting has been world class nonsense, and you are still trying to push it onto SUV users even though it has shown to be wrong.
Of course you will say that they found more oil. Well, if it had run out it wouldn't have been possible to find more oil. All you can rest on is ambiguity and self-righteous piety, and will keep on doing that until there is another handy theory to support.
(Not the greenhouse effect, because Ehrich has been predicting that since 1960, and there is still no trend. The beaches are still there! Does it make you feel bad to have been this wrong??)
Ha!
They just let anyone onto the internet these days.
I love this idea!
It's so simple, but ingenious. I mean, part of it kind of falls apart when you think about it logically, but only part of it.
Definitely they should do this. I'm serious. It would be a win-win-win all around.
Reducing the gas tax is just stupid, stupid, stupid.
wait a minute
I know that Boston is the Hub of the Universe and all, but please don't forget that it only comprises a small area of Massachusetts. Most of the state doesn't have public transportation in any meaningful or large-scale sense, and it's really not fair to ask everyone else to sit in their houses all summer. I like my bike and all, but it'd be a 30-mile bike ride for me to work each day, each way. Many of my colleagues too, and we all come from different directions.
A lot of this state is wide open roads and space and stuff.
Who do you think is buying all the SUV's?
All the paranoid white people who ran away from the cities in the 60's and now have giant expeditions and hummers to protect them from all that black on black crime. Just in case they have to drive into the city.
Yeah, right....
...people buy the cars most likely to be carjacked to protect them from crime.
You're So Right
You're so right. People buy those cars that are as big as tanks and you have to step up to get into because they're most likely to be carjacked.
Here's a story from today about one of those Honda Civic SUV's http://www.itv.com/news/britain_1732045.html
Um, I drive a small sedan
Um, I drive a small sedan that gets decent milage and live in a rural area (there's a big ole farm down the road that provides all kinds of produce to you city types in the summer).
SUVs suck.
And that isn't a racist comment ... because why?
Who drives SUVs? Everyone, like everyone.
I live in Roxbury and see lots of SUVs, so no reason to start making gross generalizations.
I saw a SUV the other day with a license plate which indicated the owner was a veterian who had earned a medal of some sort. The bummer sticker said they were in the Iraq "war". So every drives them.
Not really racist
stereotyping but not racist
Who buys SUVs?
People who prefer SUVs, market research has shown, tend to be self-centered and insecure, and view the world as a dangerous place.
I'd gladly use the commuter
I'd gladly use the commuter rail to get to my suburban job, if the schedule was less screwed up and the timing worked out.
I would too, if it went
I would too, if it went there.
Psst, the commuter rail doesn't cover all of Massachusetts...
How dare you...
...live and work in places not easily reachable by taking a taxpayer-subsidized choo-choo ride. How surprising that the Cambridge types' favored solution would only help people situated along the T.
Hey, politicians, here's an idea: how about putting the freaking tax rate back to 5%, you bunch of lying sacks of you-know-what. The supposed fiscal emergency of 1989 that led to the Dukakoids™ "temporarily" ratcheting up the tax rate is long gone.
Also... put the windmills up. Our Senators can frolic in their yachts on the other side of the islands if they find them so unsightly.
Of course, we're not talking
Of course, we're not talking about the income tax rate, we're talking about tranportation. A minor detail, but relevant. I'm even with you on the windmill thing, but again, not what we're discussing.
I think that Shai is right AND that public transit isn't adequate for the entire state. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Making the T--and other public transit systems like PVTA--more affordable, or even free, would certainly create far more long-term environmental good than a decrease in the gas tax. And it would probably do more for people's pocketbooks on the whole--suspension of the 21 cent gas tax doesn't do that much when gas is still at record prices.
But yes--much of the state isn't served by any public transit. What about suspending the gas tax for those who live in areas not served by public transit, while also creating incentives for those who do live in transit-served areas to get on the train or bus?