No on Metro’s Gas Tax
“Are you ready to pay a regional gas tax, motor vehicle registration fee or property tax to ease traffic congestion in the Portland area?” asks the Gresham Outlook. Here’s a emphatic “NO!” from this voter.
Metro, our tri-county government will likely ask voters to approve new taxes in November of 2008. Anyone else opposed to adding an extra buck-per-fill-up?
Certainly, traffic congestion is only going to get worse in the Portland-Metro area. The Reason Foundation estimates that by 2030, Portland will have worse congestion than Boston or New York (we’ll be doing better than Seattle though).
I’m sure we could all agree that we want to reduce congestion. But, I’m not sure why we have to have another tax to do it.
| Category: Election 2008
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“But I’m not sure why we have to have another tax to do it”
Because gas taxes in Oregon have not been raised since the early 90s. But since then the cost of Labor, Steel, Asphalt (which is made using oil), Concrete, and fuel has increased significantly.
At the same time we have seen heavier average weights of vehicles which do more damage to highways that is not entirely offset by their increased fuel consumption.
And much of the infrastructure in the metro region was built long ago and is reaching it’s end of useful life. Like the Sellwood bridge and the 99E Viaducts in central eastside Portland.
At the same time real-estate which is needed to buy ROW - has increased drastically in the region in the last decade.
At some point we will even run out of ROW which means tunnels or bridges will be needed in some places, and they are even more expensive than at-grade projects.
Building and maintaining roads is very very expensive. Very.