MORE: CHANGING STATE OF STATES TRANSPORTATION FUNDING

MORE: CHANGING STATE OF STATES TRANSPORTATION FUNDING

     …..applying the Massachusetts general fund transport projects principle to Vermont

The Boston Globe reported the announcement last week by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick of likely first set of transportation investments since his Legislature the first yearly shift of $800 million from general fund revenue for transportation projects.

The $800 shift from general fund revenues to transportation--about half of what Gov. Deval Patrick sought from his Legislature--goes primarily to many years overdue replacement of the subway fleets on two Boston lines, statewide electric tolling and straightening a Turnpike section, and very possibly new commuter rail service to he “South Coast” with services to long economically depressed Cities of Fall River and New Bedford.  Final details of Gov. Patrick’s transportation project list will be released by Thanksgiving.  Gov. Patrick says funding emphasis will be placed on improved transportation outside of Greater Boston.

Massachusetts and Virginia this year were the first states to disconnect highway, gasoline, and car-related taxes from their past singular role in transportation finance at the state levels.   Translating $800 million a year to Vermont—with a tenth of the population of Massachusetts—leads an $80 million a year equivalent as a minimum starting point.  And, $80 million in Vermont in just two years would enable, for examples: (1) capital and some operating support for commuter rail from Burlington to Montpelier, Middlebury and St. Albans; (2) additional intercity rail service along a circular corridor from Burlington-White River Junction-Bellows Falls-Rutland-Burlington; and (3) a light rail service from the Burlington waterfront to Fletcher Allen Health Care and University of Vermont campus via the Church Street Marketplace.   As important, Vermont could begin the critically needed investments to make downtowns, urban neighborhoods and town centers walkable and bikable for the first time though investments in cycle track (protected bike lanes) and at key intersections pathed roundabouts designed to serve both the walking and bicycle modes. 

At some point, a major gasoline tax at the federal level—in dollars not the nickels and dimes of the past—must be imposed (phased in over several years) to provide the kind of resources to states enabling the U.S. to join the first tier of nations whose transportation systems which are defined by either high-speed rail networks and/or walkable and bikable urban areas.  (Most Western European nations qualify on both criteria.)  Consider the fact that nations like Taiwan, South Korea and China already nations boast a basic network of high-speed rail countrywide.  In the United States and Canada there is not a single walkable or bikable urban area—investing in infrastructure to achieve walkable and bikable urban nodes, corridors and areas poses the greatest urban transportation challenge today.   (A tip of the hat though to Canada where both Montreal and Toronto extensive underground areas and corridors remain the only ones in North America and two of the few of such extensive enclosed car-free environments worldwide.)

VERMONT TRANSPORTATION NEW DEAL

THE “VERMONT TRANSPORTATION NEW DEAL"

Why not a "Vermont New Deal" to match the "Massachusetts New Deal" now on the plate there?  James Roosevelt, Jr. (FDR’s grandson) compares the Bay State’s Governor Deval Patrick proposal funding needed and ongoing transportation, pre-school and innovation as the state level equivalent of the New Deal his grandfather accomplished nationally in the 1930s.

The January “Massachusetts New Deal” $1.9 revenue annual increase divorces transportation funding from the ever declining car tax revenue stream and boosts transportation by about $1 billion and human service needs by another $900 million.  Virginia this year abolished the gas tax and switched transportation funding to a broad base sales tax.  Instead of the regressive sales tax, Governor Deval Patrick’s Massachusetts legislation calls for progressive income tax increases. 

The Boston Sunday Globe outlines in great detail in two articles and a half-page editorial the Patrick proposals—and today a major Globe editorial goes over the investment needs of Massachusetts transportation and Governor Patrick’s budgeted investments. 

Using the rule of 10—Massachusetts being ten times the population of Vermont—a Vermont New Deal amounts to $190 million a year, $100 million for transportation and $90 million for human service needs ranging from Gov. Shumlin’s proposal for university pre-K education to funds for health care reform and environmental/energy conservation measures so critical for the Vermont economy and quality of life.

Just take half the Massachusetts equivalent, $50 million a year , for the Vermont Transportation New Deal and see what one gets for this annual investment.  In just 24-months the Vermont Transportation New Deal completes the investments necessary for Amtrak extension from Rutland to Burlington’s Union Station plus commuter rail services along all three corridors from Burlington to Washington County (the State House), Franklin County (St. Albans) and Addison County (Middlebury).  Still another $15 million remains to fund the first efforts to provide bicycle “cycle track” in Vermont town and city centers to begin to make them truly bikable—and also a roundabout or two to continue moving to the kind of walkability now in place in Manchester Center where the first corridor of roundabouts came into being last November.

Start year three of the Vermont Transportation New Deal with the rail passenger commuter services in operation plus Amtrak to Burlington, both with operating support.  Then expand to those major towns without passenger service--intercity rail service to Bennington and Newport/Derby Line, Bellows Falls connected to Rutland, and a circuit train service—Burlingon-White River Junction-Bellows Falls-Rutland-Burlington—initiated.  Meanwhile, investments increase in city and town centers for bikability and walkability.

Remarkably not a single dime of federal transportation funds is assumed in the forgoing description of the Vermont Transportation New Deal.  Clearly considerable federal funding can be obtained for various elements of the Vermont Transportation New Deal thereby increasing the speed and reach of the program outlined above.

When one considers that going from $3.00 gas to $4.00 gas costs Vermont consumers over $300 million a year or that $50 million equals about a 15-cent gas tax—the Vermont Transportation New Deal seems like a no regrets investment with tremendous benefits to consumers, commuters and business.

STATES SING "SAYONARA GAS TAX"

NATIONS’ CAR DRIVERS AND PASSENGERS DUMP CARS, GAS TAXES FLOUNDER EVERYWHERE, AND NOW TWO STATES MOVE TOWARDS BROAD BASE TAXES FOR TRANSPORTION BUDGETS WITH ONE, VIRGINIA, ALREADY ACROSS THE FINISH LINE WITH ITS ABOLISHING IT’S 17.5 CENT GAS TAX LAST WEEK

                   …more shocks and tremors from the “transportation tectonic shift”

The realm of transporting people from place to place in America changes now before our very eyes. 

The century’s first decade brought a drop in car travel for every age group, flattening or even decline in vehicle miles of travel in most states, and since 1995 a 20 percent drop in the proportion of the under-30 driver licensing with their car travel down even more 22 percent. 

States and the federal government this century continue experience an even greater drop in motor fuel and car-related taxes from more fuel-efficient vehicles and driving cutbacks by consumers. Now in 2013 comes a revolution in state finance of all transportation led by Virginia and Massachusetts January proposals looking to fund needed transportation programs and projects with broad base taxes, quitting the practice of about a century of funding highways and most other transportation needs from motor-vehicle related taxes and fees.

  

Less than two months after Virginia Governor Bob McDonell proposed it, the financing plan passed by large margins in the House and Senate last week.  The new law abolishes the 17.5 cent Virginia gasoline tax and moves to a sales tax on motor fuels along with a dedicated  transportation 0.8% sales tax on top of the current 5% for all goods and services except food.  The new approach raises over $3 billion in the first five years versus under the old regime.

Meanwhile in Massachusetts, the plan put forth by Gov. Deval Patrick raises $1.9 million in new revenue yearly, mostly from the income tax, with both all transportation modes and education getting needed funding—particularly the MBTA, a backlog of highway and bridge projects, and expansion of passenger rail service statewide.

Governor Patrick’s plan includes some tax reform, such as reduction in the sales tax by a penny, sets gasoline and motor vehicle taxes and fees into an automatic increase schedule in line with changes of inflation.

With Virginia and Massachusetts in the lead—one with a Republican governor and legislature and the other Democratic—can the rest of the nation be far behind?