How Should We Pay for Transportation in Missouri?
Today’s Southeast Missourian asks the above question about Missouri transportation funding in an editorial (link via a certain Mr. Combest). They leave it as an open-ended question, asked as a follow-up to a presentation by the Missouri Transportation Alliance at a recent forum in Cape Girardeau.
This is one question for which the Show-Me Institute has some answers. And, yes, those answers might have to include a gas tax increase. They should also include a dramatic expansion of tolling — and, if that tolling is done via public-private partnership (PPP), then it wouldn’t first be necessary to amend the state’s Constitution (at least, according to MoDOT’s opinion). The important thing, in my opinion, is to keep any tax increases as analogous as possible to user fees, like the gas tax, and away from general taxes that move in the wrong direction by externalizing internal costs. We should be striving to internalize costs to the greatest practical degree, such as through gas taxes, tolling, and license fees, not the other way around.
For more information, read the op-ed I wrote on the subject of private financing for Missouri transportation, the related testimony I provided, and our primary studies of tolling, PPPs, etc.
As a daily user of mass transit for over 25 years, I believe it would be great if the region here had the same type of service. Unfortunately local power politics have doomed this optimistic wish. Obviously some benefit from this arrangement: http://www.studlife.com/forum/2010/02/26/wu-support-of-prop-a-shows-school’s-callousness-toward-the-poor/
The Extension was built in a manner that makes it a poor substitute to auto driving and even cycling. The Extension stations are well hidden and are too close together for efficient travel. Too bad Metro bet its future on this debacle. We have highways that represent the most popular routes but organizations like CMT are against using them.
Instead of more subsidies and more taxes, we need to end the subsidies that cause such a poor allocation of limited resources. Higher gas taxes, electronic tolls on the FREEways inside of 270, toll bridges, and higher taxes for undervalued parking lots are needed first steps. Only after paying for what they use will consumers start to demand for a more efficient and integrated transportation system.
Comment by Jack — March 1, 2010 @ 12:51 p.m.