When last we saw Team Trans, we were waiting on the mother of all transportation plans, the one that would save our roads, our bridges, and our mass transit from a fate worse than…our current fate.
Instead, Team Trans delivers not the plan we’ve given up waiting for, but a proposal for a gas tax increase of as much as 29 cents — part of the plan, as it were.
Now boys and girls, pay close attention. There is nothing wrong with a gas tax increase, given the scope of the state’s transportation needs and debt carried by the MBTA and the Turnpike Authority.
The Transportation Finance Commission recommended an 11.5 cent increase in the gas tax, indexed to inflation, in 2007. MetroFuture called for a 15-cent increase, also indexed to inflation, last year.
However, a gas tax proposal accompanied by the phrase “would be the highest gas tax in country” is a good way to torpedo the whole enterprise in recessionary times.
Big problems call for bold solutions. But how about big, bold, coordinated solutions? Proposing what would be the highest gas tax in the country, then failing to give the House and Senate leadership the 411 on it? Well, minds continue to be boggled by the political acumen of Team Trans.
Chicopee Democrat Joseph Wagner, who has co-chaired the joint transportation committee, told the State House News Service (subscription required) that there are two ways to look at this latest development:
The first is that it’s a trial balloon, and if it’s not that then the information was leaked for some reason. And it clearly is representative of some thought or plan by the administration, and I just don’t know that I think it’s the most productive way of getting about the business of transportation reform.
Perhaps this proposal is a stratagem designed to make a lower figure more palatable? We’ll find out after still more time is consumed debating the merits of a nearly 30-cent increase, rather than just announcing a comprehensive transportation reform…oh, never mind.
Way to go, Team Trans.