Wednesday Afternoon Commute - But the Springfield Interchange is an orphan

Good afternoon

• Bike Party tonight. 
• Success has a thousand fathers. In CaBi's case, GGW tries to name them all. 
• Drivers might soon be paying less for transportation, but complaints about freeloading cyclists are expected to remain flat. "Under the plan, Virginia’s 17.5 cents-per-gallon gas tax — one of the lowest in the United States — would be eliminated, and the sales tax would be raised by 0.8 percent, with more sales tax revenue going towards transportation." This is truly an idiotic idea. I'll put it out there again. Charge a VMT to pay for roads and to mitigate their environmental impact; a congestion tax to pay for transit, biking and walking; and a tax on gasoline to pay for gasoline-related pollution. Americans for Tax Reform and I are united in our opposition. That is a rarity. Contrast this with Massachusetts. "Revenue from the parking tax would provide a steady stream of funding that could then be invested in the public transportation system as well as bicycle and pedestrian pathway improvements."
• M-NCPPC staff will be presenting the preliminary plans for the Little Paint Branch Trail Extension at a public meeting on Thursday, January 24^th, 2013 at 7:00 PM at the Beltsville Community Center. Somewhere there is a flyer on this, but I can't find it. Here is some older information though. 

Comments

[Kolohe]

I don't see McDonnell's proposal happening as is. Just as Boomers are hitting an age where they're driving less and more sensitive to sales taxes, we're going to switch up the tax incidence? Not if they have anything to say about it (and they do).

[duffmanrb]

I saw the headline on the Examiner on my way to the Metro this morning and assumed it meant a sales tax on gas, which would have made a lot more sense. I guess I shouldn't have expected that. It's nice of them to replace the already-regressive gas tax with one of the only taxes that is actually MORE regressive. Maybe the next round of transportation funding should come from cigarette taxes and lottery tickets?

Also worth noting that the GAO came out with a report today (or maybe yesterday) asking Congress to fund a study into the feasibility of VMTs as an alternative to the gas tax. Nowhere in the 80 page report did I find mention of using sales taxes as an alternative . . .

[duffmanrb]

Also, the $100 charge on hybrids makes absolutely no sense in this context. As stated in the article, charging fees for high-mileage or electric vehicles only makes sense as a means to make up for shortfalls in gas tax collected from these drivers. But if VA has no gas tax, then there is no reason to impose this cost and disincentivize what is otherwise behavior that government should be encouraging, if anything. Given that the fee is supposed to be earmarked for transit, a gas-guzzler tax would have made a lot more sense. At the very least, I would think VA's conservative lawmakers wouldn't want to do anything that would distort the free market.

Like you said, truly idiotic.