The graphic above burped forth from the Congressional Budget Office. Why you should care: a lot of transit agencies, including Metro, depend on the federal Highway Trust Fund for millions of dollars to help pay for everything from shiny new transit projects to infrastructure repair.
Many transportation stakeholders are hopeful that Congress passes a multiyear transportation spending bill that breathes some life back into the HTF. That will be tricky. The HTF depends heavily on federal gas taxes, which haven’t been raised since 1993 because, well, raising federal gas taxes doesn’t sit well with elected officials in Congress. For obvious reasons.
Here’s the entire Congress Budget Office report:
Categories: Policy & Funding, Projects
It seems pretty simple to me. Couple the amount projected to come in with projects to be built. We don’t need higher taxes, we need more responsibility in deciding which projects should be built and serve the masses the most economically.
Rail projects to win favor in a community or projects that don’t go anywhere like the Crenshaw Line should not have been funded. The Crenshaw Line almost goes to the airport. The Green Line almost goes to the airport. The Gold Line almost goes to East Los Angeles City College. The Expo Line almost goes to the beach. Why are all these ALMOST lines never completed to their destinations? And why are these lines so expensive to build? The major railroads can lay track for less than one half the MTA pays per mile. Then there are projects like the 405 fiasco. They widened the freeway and on and off ramps only to tear it all up within a year to widen it again.
Where are our HTF dollars going and why is there a projected shortfall? Only look to the past and present to find the answer.
“Couple the amount projected to come in with projects to be built”
Well then nothing gets built.
“We don’t need higher taxes”
Glad to know you and I agree on that. I take on the approach that government doesn’t spend our tax dollars wisely and spends them wastefully. A large portion of that go to fighting stupid wars and another goes to paying out public employee union benefits. The former we can stop by not meddling in other countries’ affairs and stick to investing in our own country, the latter can be done simply by ending pension benefits and moving the public employee sector to 401ks just like everyone else. Who has pensions these days anyway? And why should taxpayers pay for them?
Burped forth – brilliant.
From: Metro’s The Source <comment-reply@wordpress.com> Reply-To: Metro’s The Source <comment+pyq6uxvjlz7fsjr05gkuc_wu@comment.wordpress.com> Date: Tuesday, April 28, 2015 3:04 PM To: Sharon McNary <smcnary@scpr.org> Subject: [New post] Graphic: Highway Trust Fund falling off cliff
Steve Hymon posted: ” The graphic above burped forth from the Congressional Budget Office. Why you should care: a lot of transit agencies, including Metro, depend on the federal Highway Trust Fund for millions of dollars to help pay for everything from shiny new transit pr”