Trey Garrison has this today:
The best hope from this story? The “new plan is too ambitious and, perhaps worse, too complicated to pass the Legislature.” Which is nice. Because as hard as it may be for the backers of mass transit schemes to believe, we might need those hundreds of millions a year more than they do. If your idea is so great, you pay for it. Don’t force the rest of us to.
And not just because Gary Fickes was reelected:
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) on Friday announced the creation of a new office whose primary goal will be to lobby state governments to convert their freeways into toll roads. While some congressional leaders expressed hope that the change represented by FHWA’s new Office of Innovative Program Delivery would be reversed by the next administration, there is reason to believe that the incoming administration will continue supporting public private partnership (PPP) initiatives. For now, the toll road promotion office sits at the top of FHWA’s organizational chart to emphasize its primary place within the federal transportation department
From the Ft. Worth Business Press:
Area leaders have come up with a list of suggested new revenue sources for North Texas transit projects.
Among the types of funding suggested are a vehicle registration fee, a motor fuels tax, a mileage fee, a property tax, a drivers license fee and a new resident impact fee.
Ok, nothing new there right, just wait, it gets better
The reason voters are being asked to take up new fees and taxes is because the state’s gas tax, the main fund for transit projects, is losing money. The fund is losing money because fewer people are driving and vehicles now get better gas mileage than when the tax was created, said Fort Worth City Council member Jungus Jordan.
Also, funds from the gas tax are intended for highway projects, not public transportation projects, Jordan said.
So the author quoted a Ft. Worth City Councilman that has no idea what he’s talking about. The Federal Gas Tax mostly goes to highways, but the state tax is used for all roads. It gets better. (edit: I looked at the councilman’s bio, he’s a financial adviser for goodness sakes, shouldn’t he know the basics of TxDot Funding?)
“The gas tax is really not keeping pace with the need to maintain the interstate highways that we built, but it’s also going in the reverse, the infrastructure funds in the U.S. are broke,” Jordan said. “We’re not getting enough money. If you stop and think, the gas tax is based on miles per gallon, and we’re creating cars that go farther on a gallon of gasoline so you have fewer returns and fewer people driving. In a sense we have a greater demand for mobility, but we have less income to build roads.”
Uh, have you seen the amount of SUV’s and Pickup Trucks on the road? Better gas millage? Please.
High gas prices also have created a demand for more public transportation, Jordan said.
Oh, I see where this is going.
For Rail North Texas specifically, the operation costs and debt expenses associated with building the 251 rail miles in the project comes up to about $450 million per year, said Vic Suhm, executive director of the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition.
That’s $450 million PER YEAR. That is a hundred dollars for every man, woman and child in D/FW…PER YEAR.
Most of the funding options are transportation-related in order to put the fee or tax on those who use area highways, said Michael Morris, the director of transportation for the North Central Texas Council of Governments. The only fee that is not directly related is a property tax that would come up to no more than 5 cents per $100 of appraised value.
Got that, not only are they going to raise your gas tax, they are going to raise your property taxes to pay for roads and their rail projects.
The vehicle registration fee would come up to no more than $150 per vehicle per year and a driver’s license fee would be capped at a $50 fee when a resident renews their license.
Another possibility is a new resident impact fee on vehicle registration for anyone who moves to the area from out of state. The fee would be no more than $100 per year.
You see, we aren’t raising taxes, but rather fees. Rick Perry’s favorite scheme of doing things.
One funding source on the list is a mileage fee of no more than 1 cent per mile driven per car, which is an idea for the future, Suhm said.
The mileage fee is intended to tax road usage on cars developed in the future that are fueled on alternative energy.
The miles driven would be calculated when a driver stopped to refuel or when a driver had their vehicle inspected, Morris said.
The GPS tax is coming our way. These ideas will be great for promoting business growth in the metromess.
The Senior Economics Writer for the Wall Street Journal, Stephen Moore, writes about the authoritarian climate surrounding recycling in his op-ed “Gang Green” (a very appropriate title on several levels).
Excerpt from the article:
Do-gooders also once wanted to “celebrate diversity,” but total conformity seems to be the aim of those in Seattle these days, where the city has started putting green tags on garbage cans of homeowners who don’t recycle. Enthusiasts boast that there is a very positive “Scarlet Letter” effect to subjecting non-compliers to public scorn. So you can almost hear the kitchen conversations: “Jimmy, I don’t want you playing with the Williams boys anymore; their family doesn’t recycle.”
Many studies have shown that the environmental benefits from household recycling are minimal or at least highly exaggerated (because it uses a lot of energy and those recycling trucks emit a lot of greenhouse gases). America is not in danger of ever running out of landfill to store our garbage. For example, a study by Daniel Benjamin, an economist at Clemson, finds that we could store all of America’s garbage for the next century within the property of Ted Turner’s ranch in Montana, with 50,000 acres undisturbed for the horse and bison.
In reality, household recycling is mostly about absolving the guilt of Lexus liberals who just hate themselves for enjoying an affluent 21st-century lifestyle. The aim seems to be less saving nature than building self-esteem.
And it has worked. Too well. I can barely tolerate the proud recyclers, hybrid-car owners and “save the polar bear” button-wearers who smother us with their self-righteousness. A few weeks ago I was at the house of some friends, and I accidentally tossed a plastic Gatorade bottle into the glass recycling bin. You would have thought that I had made a pass at their daughter.
Fred Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute notes with rich irony that “we now live in a society where Sunday church attendance is down, but people wouldn’t dream of missing their weekly trek to the altar of the recycling center.” These facilities, by the way, are increasingly called “redemption centers.” Which is fine except that now the greens want to make redemption mandatory. Oh, for a return to the days when someone stood up for the separation of church and state.
I recently became a Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP). A key tenet of systems engineering is that the system must be optimized, not just one or two parts. Has anybody ever done a pollution, energy and economics life cycle study of curb side recycling? Or do we think just feeling good about massive diesel trucks picking up bits of paper, glass and plastic in front of our homes each week is all it takes to ‘be green?’ Why not shut down household recycling if we’re concerned about air pollution in Dallas-Fort Worth? Or is it only productive enterprises that must be penalized to meet an overreaching 2010 ozone standard (e.g., when you can fill your gas tank, use drive-through windows or operate off-road construction equipment?)
Related:
Latest: House Republicans oil protest to resume August 4.
I was pleased to see that our U.S. Congressman, Dr. Michael Burgess, joined the revolt on Friday afternoon, 01Aug08, against the draconian tactics of Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi wishes to replicate the failed energy policies of California on a national level. Democrats have even shut down the normal budget procedures to prevent Republicans from offering amendments to appropriation bills that would open a debate and a vote on drilling for more oil in our country. Reducing the price of gas, putting people to work and sending less money overseas to tyrannical governments for a resource on our own shores is not even worth considering in the mind of a Democrat. Everything is subjugated to the green religion and the global warming superstition. Amazing.
The actions of Rep. Burgess and others on the darkened House floor (Democrats turned off the lights and the microphones) reminded me of several short patriotic featurettes from the late 1930s I recently viewed. In these three color shorts (all available via Netflix), John Litel plays Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. He galvanizes his fellow countrymen to action against a tyrannical government in 1775-1776. These inspiring featurettes would add value to a KISD history class.
Kudos to Rep. Michael Burgess and others that support drilling for oil. They need to keep up the pressure and open our shores and ANWR to oil drilling. Hurricane Katrina took out Gulf oil platforms and we never heard about big oil spills. This, and the Audubon Society drilling on nature preserves, is proof that drilling is environmentally sound.
House GOP revolts over gas prices, 01Aug08
In total, 48 Republicans spoke on the floor Friday, offering remarks ranging from the impassioned to the plainly partisan. Michigan Rep. Thaddeus G. McCotter declared, “This is the People’s House. This is not Pelosi’s Politburo.” He later pretended to be a Democrat, walking to their side of the floor to announce all the votes they had prevented. . .
The NCTCOG wishes to expand their land-use planning into the equivalent of another five counties according to the Star-Telegram on 07Jan08:
“The Metroplex is adding about 1 million residents every seven years, according to the North Central Texas Council of Governments. The region’s population has surpassed that of greater Philadelphia, Detroit and Boston. . . .
“The growth has prompted the council of governments to start thinking seriously about expanding its reach. The agency, the congressionally recognized official planning body for the region, will hold hearings this month on a proposal to extend the metropolitan planning area into all of Wise, Hood and Hunt counties and into previously untouched portions of Johnson, Parker and other counties.
“Regional planners want to influence land-use decisions in those rural areas so suburban growth doesn’t go unchecked, which could lead to even worse traffic and fouler air than we have today. “We’ve got to have the whole region in this land-use relationship, or we’re going to have leapfrog development,” said Michael Morris, the council’s transportation director.”
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Look at the experience of San Jose, CA and Portland, OR to see the type of mess this central planning can bring to pass. The reason the West coast has a housing shortage, excessive housing prices (and subsequent housing melt-down) is due to the greenie ideology of constraining people to small areas of land instead of letting them spread out.
Cato study documenting this situation, “When Government Plans, It Usually Fails”
“Some of the worst plans today are so-called growth management plans prepared by states and metropolitan areas. They try to control who gets to develop their land and exactly what those developments should look like, including their population densities and mixtures of residential, retail, commercial and other uses. About a dozen states require or encourage urban areas to write such plans. Those states have some of the nation’s least-affordable housing, while most states and regions that haven’t written such plans mostly have very affordable housing. The reason is simple: Planning limits the supply of new housing, which drives up the price of all housing.
“In states with growth management laws, median housing prices in 2006 were typically four to eight times median family incomes. In most states without such laws, median home prices are only two to three times median family incomes. Few people realize that the recent housing bubble, which affected mainly regions with growth management planning, was caused by planners trying to socially engineer cities. Yet it has done little to protect open space, reduce driving or do any of the other things promised. “
Why was Texas spared the worst of the housing bubble repercussions? Because we did not have the Soviet-style central planning of California.
What does NCTCOG want to do? Institute central planning over a wider area in North Texas so the ‘master minds’ can tell us where and how to live, i.e., piled on top of each other.
By the way, NCTCOG is looking for Transportation Planners. If you have cultivated the omniscience needed to plan the daily movements of seven million people this could be your chance.
Portion of the job description reads as follows:
“Sustainable Development – Support land-use initiatives related to the regional transportation system. Develop alternative demographic forecasts and conduct planning activities to support infill and transit-oriented development projects and regional bicycle/pedestrian initiatives.”
“Infill”=pack us tighter
“Transit-oriented”=repeat the mistakes of Portland, Oregon by placing high density housing near non-car transportation
Attend the NCTCOG hearings on their expansion proposal and tell them what happens when centralized land-use planning fueled by a greenie ideology becomes the dominant criteria for where we live.
On the way home from work today, I heard a newsclip from a big shot from TxDOT or DART, can’t remember. But the basic jest was they are going to turn the HOV lanes in Dallas into Toll Lanes. His quote was; “They are doing it in Europe, and it’s the new thing. I think we are behind the curve.” (don’t take my quotation marks as a direct quote….it isn’t, I’m getting old and can’t find my keys most mornings)
I hate HOV lanes, think they are a stupid use of concrete. Just open a new lane and let everybody move faster. And don’t get me started on Toll Roads….and especially 121 which was funded by TxDOT (meaning you and me) and then “sold” at auction.
But what really made me mad was the fact that the Europeans are doing it, we should be doing it also. Next thing they know, DART will be wanting to follow London’s lead and charge to drive downtown.
Shouldn’t they be looking for the Billion dollars they misplaced for the train to Irving?
