Taxing Drivers By The Mile 1748

Matthew Russotto the November

How so? Presenting voters with a specific list of projects and a specific finance plan to pay for them in a specific time frame? What is more straighforward than this?

and taxes; government, them

Not likely. You're watching too many movies. Many things get voted down.

Nope. That's not how it works. Traditional user-paid funding like HUTF already is stretched to the limit and cannot even cover the *major* projects we're looking for. We're looking for sources of funding to augment, not replace. Regions with special taxes for roads are not replacing HUTF money with it, they're *adding* to it to cover the shortfall. These things don't occur after hours with some bureaucrat walking off with millions in road funding to spend on his mistress' diamond ring. I mean, get real. Highway money is pledged to transportation. As I documented before, the subsidy goes the other wqay *toward* roads and transit, from general funds and sources, not out.

All you're doing by disputing this clear truth is creating a false impression that transportation funding is in good shape if we could only keep from spending it on non-transportation things. Nothing could be further from the truth, and that is harmful to efforts to secure adequate funding for highways, IMO.

E.g., in its recent 2030 Vision Plan, CDOT estimated $178 billion in transportation needs (state and local levels including highways, transit and aviation, based on input from all the state's MPOs and TPRs) through the next 25 years, but with only $75 billion in identifiable resources from the traditional revenue streams *you* seem to believe are adequate. That's a *58 percent* shortfall, or $103 billion in unmet needs, which means things have to be cut, scaled back or deferred, or additional funding must be identified and agreed upon by voters.

Your approach will promote a public misimpression that all is fine, nothing more is needed, and will result in hampering future transportation improvements because no one will accept the idea that more must be done. Well, more must be done, and it seems to me that packaging specific projects with specific funding and construction strategies is in fact a more upfront and honest way to go, just the opposite from what you're suggesting.