We want even more cars on the road
Another Urban Places and Spaces blog article where I really have to wounder if Dr Gridlock wants to see even more gridlock.:
I like Dr. Gridlock, but
Robert Thomson is the commuting-mobility columnist for the Washington Post. Most of his writings are quite good, but he persists in neglecting to put much attention on the fact that driving is subsidized to the tune of many dollars per gallon--the reality is that taxes, tolls, and fees typically pay no more than 50% of the cost of roads, the rest comes from general funds.
------------
Recognize that we are hardest on those that we love. I am hard on Dr. Gridlock because I like what he does and I have high and ever increasing expectations for the quality of his work. I am hard on the Post generally, and of course, on DC and DC Government specifically. That's the role of a critic...
------------
His "colleague" Neal Peirce, who writes a column that is distributed by the Washington Post Writers Syndicate, but whose column is never published in the Post proper, wrote about this in 2003. See "GAS TAX HIKES: NEEDED BUT POLITICALLY PERILOUS" (5/11/03).
Dr. Gridlock persists in making the point that transit is subsidized, while neglecting in fairness to mention, ever, that roads are subsidized, for example, at the start of his column feature on the Metro budget, he writes:
Every ride we take on Metro is subsidized by many people who never use the transit system and many more who will never see it. Those people are sending Metro riders a holiday gift that should amount to $300 million for the next year. It will take the form of a federal subsidy with matching funds from the local jurisdictions that support Metro.
Where's the "fairness" and "balance" here?
Every gallon of gas gets a subsidy of close to $5 for road use and military protection of oil supplies, plus other spending on the health and environmental impacts.