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September 27, 2005
Gas use source of consumer indigestion
I’m sure everyone is as sick of hearing about high gas prices as they are sick of paying for them. Even media coverage of Hurricane Katrina focuses as much on the effect of gas prices as on those killed, hurt or displaced by the disaster. It is as though the cost to drive to work is more important than people’s lives.
But since gas prices are at the center of attention, this is a great opportunity to open up a discussion. Yes, I agree that SUVs are wasteful, pointless and evil, but too often the discussion of oil consumption stops at
Detroit’s average fleet mileage. It’s not just about the size of the vehicle, it’s about how far it’s driven.
As Jim Motavilli points out in his article “Getting Out of Gridlock,” Americans drive more than two trillion miles a year, spending a national average of an hour a day in cars. Americans use 60 percent of the 20 million barrels consumed a day in cars, making 900 million trips each day, and spewing out tons of emissions. Our solution? Build more roads.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation’s (MN DoT) highway projects in planning and underway through 2025 are projected to cost, over $5.5 billion with even costlier plans currently being proposed. The 12 miles of the Hiawatha light rail line cost $715 million. Opponents of light rail frequently cite its costs, but few ask what the cost of not having light rail is.
In addition to the astronomical costs of continually building and upgrading roads, the gasoline consumed by automobiles, and time spent in traffic, there are usually hidden costs not factored in. These include the encouragement of urban sprawl, which destroys 12 million acres of farmland and 60,000 acres of wetland every year, as well as pollution.
Motavilli observes: the light rail generates .01 grams of hydrocarbons, a bus .20, and a car 2.09 per passenger mile, with similar figures for carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide.
There is also the question of who benefits. An MN DoT graph shows transit receiving three percent of expenditures, while state trunk roads receive 54.6 percent and local roads 33.4 percent. In my opinion, denying funding to mass transit while subsidizing wealthy commuter suburbanites by increasing funding for roads amounts to a regressive tax. It results in cutting services and raising costs for the poor, while providing expensive goods that disproportionately benefit wealthier citizens.
Speaking as someone swimming against the tide of urban sprawlčI moved from the country to the cityčI feel being able to jump on the light rail and go anywhere in the city would serve me far better than being able to drive my car there and allow me to avoid traffic jams.
So, apart from redistributing transportation expenditures, how do we pay for developing light rail? As the MN DoT web site mentions, a one-cent per year increase in the gas tax provides $33 million to the Highway User Tax fund. Change the recipient of this money to a Light Rail fund and I would fully support a $1 gas tax hike. By the time people will have changed their driving habits, we’d have enough money to build a nice, metro-wide light rail system, thereby joining the civilized world and at the same time reducing our dependence on oil.
Posted by msveum at September 27, 2005 12:02 PM
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