The commission's name is longer than your commute: National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. It was convened well before the collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis to come up with policy recommendations to Congress for repairing our nation's faltering infrastructure. Its final report was released last month. And guess what? No matter how you view it, driving is going to get more expensive.
Among its hard-to-swallow recommendations is a hike in the gas tax by 25- to 40-cents a gallon over the next five years. This is surprising, given that Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters (who has turned the NHTSA Web site into her personal MySpace page) has ardently towed the Bush line against any increase in taxes. In all likelihood, she knows that the recommendation doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of being adopted during an election season when gasoline is hanging stubbornly at $3 a gallon.
The report includes other recommendations as well: public-private partnerships, tolls, charges for vehicle miles traveled, congestion pricing and a hike in diesel fuel taxes. In all, the commissions urges Congress and private sources to spend $225 billion annually over the next 50 years to upgrade the nation’s highway, transit and rail systems. At a time of soaring deficits and an interminable war, where is this money going to come from? You can bet that drivers will bear the brunt of these costs.
Source: Las Vegas Sun
