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The Solution to the Gasoline Crisis and Other Problems
According to the website of current council member and mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa, traffic congestion costs the Los Angeles economy $11 billion dollars per year. I realize that such statistics are estimates which could either be higher or lower. Still, such statistics blare a certain logic at one. If we, Los Angelenos, were to invest an additional $3 billion dollars per year in a world class mass transit system in order to relieve traffic, wouldn’t we come out several billion dollars ahead? At a certain point we must ask ourselves whether it is viable to continue to invest in the car as the primary mode of transportation. We must ask ourselves whether it is viable to take productive farmland and build Walmarts, Home Depots, and gasoline stations with huge parking lots, as is done in the Central Valley, in effect subsidizing these corporations. We have a scarcity of housing in California, yet we have huge parking lots everywhere.
The benefits of efficient, fast, reliable mass transit are potentially enormous. It is the most efficient manner that we as citizens have to move about in space and time. If I catch the red line at Wilshire and Vermont in Los Angeles, it only takes 10 minutes to get to Hollywood and Vine, once I’m on the train. That’s faster than a car can get there, most of the time. For people who are driving an average of 20 miles per hour on our freeways, thus taking 2 hours to drive 40 miles, imagine that a certain percentage of cars was to be removed from the road, thus allowing you to complete your commute in a shorter span of time. The only way those cars will be removed is if people are given viable alternatives. What percentage of cars is removed from the road will depend on how we develop and operate mass transit and how much we’re willing to invest.
Mass transit would be a boon to the economy. Money that would otherwise go to the purchase of gasoline would have the ability to go to diverse sources and stay within the local community, thus having a greater multiplier effect, instead of going directly to the coffers of the oil companies, perpetuating the cycle of concentration of wealth in our society.
A person would be able to pursue greater sources of employment because he or she would not be dissuaded from the driving commute or from having to ride 3 different buses and take an hour and a half to get somewhere. Mass transit would free us of the burden of having to invest thousands of dollars in a car that pollutes the air we breathe, just to be able to pursue a living, or just to be able to move around in an efficient manner.
An additional benefit for all of us would be reduced pollution, as well as reduced medical costs due to the respiratory illnesses caused by pollution, which we all pay for. It is just to increase gasoline taxes because its consumption uses up a vital resource at great cost to our society, without reinvesting enough back into our society.
There are those who will attempt to frame this as an "us" versus "them" issue. Why should drivers have to pay higher taxes to subsidize the use of mass transit? This is a "we" issue. A lot of people in urban centers both drive and use mass transit, and in the near future, the only manner in which our society will be able to sustain itself, is if the vast majority of us do both, or just use mass transit.
This is one of the greatest opportunities to think globally and act locally. Our actions can have tremendous impact. As an example, what other region of the planet consumes more gasoline than Southern California? What other region of the planet has a greater impact on global warming? We do not have to wait until we have a President that understands science to do something about this problem.
With the passage of Proposition 42 in 2002, the current state tax on gasoline now goes directly to fund transportation instead of going into the general fund. Beginning in 2008, 20% of this tax will go to fund mass transit. Prior to 2002, the State Constitution prohibited the use of the gas tax from being used to fund the operational costs of mass transit, it could only be used for construction and maintenance purposes. However, it is unclear whether Proposition 42, which was an amendment to the State Constitution, authorizes the use of the gas tax to cover operational costs because of its ambiguous language, according to some legal scholars such as Patrick Bergin, whose analysis is viewable online. Whatever the legal issues are, the State Constitution should be constructed to allow for the development and operation of fast, efficient, reliable mass transit in California. Additionally, it should be constructed to allow Californians, if they so chose, to impose an additional 10 cent, 20 cent, or 30 cent tax on gasoline that in its entirety would be dedicated to fund mass transit.
Besides just relying on the gas tax, communities should be allowed to impose local vehicle licensing fees, which is one of the ideas mentioned by Andrew Sullivan in his article. Local communities should also be able to legally impose a gas tax higher than 1 cent per gallon. If the solution I have described cannot be implemented on a statewide level, it should be legally possible for local communities to do this. There is enough wealth and consumption of gasoline in Los Angeles county to fund a world class mass transit system. We can make great strides towards improving traffic, pollution, and the economy with local resources.
Apart from this, mileage based car insurance should be made legally possible in California, which it currently isn’t. People who drive less, instead of being rewarded, subsidize the rates of people who drive a lot. A situation which is unjust and counterproductive to society’s stated goals of reducing petroleum consumption, traffic, and pollution.
If we are serious about solving society’s problems we must be openminded. One should be selective about which tax increases one supports and for what purposes, but the position of being against any and all tax increases is irrational and impractical. It limits our ability to solve problems. It is a ludicrous position for any politician to have.
We must make up our minds whether we truly want world class mass transit for our cities. Not having a steady funding stream guarantees that it won’t get built. Having a steady funding stream creates the possibility that it will get built.
A sustainable future is one with fast, efficient, reliable mass transit and where a car gets 50 miles per gallon, and its consumption of a vital resource such as gasoline is taxed at an appropriate level. The alternative is to make ourselves beholden to the third tenet of the Republican philosophy: TAXES ARE BAD! TAXES ARE BAD! TAXES ARE BAD! Dear Father who art in Heaven, please free us of taxation, give us the patience to be able to tolerate traffic, bless us with good health so that the polluted air we breath won’t harm us, stave off the greenhouse effect until we are old and on our way somewhere else, and let our children and grandchildren deal with it then(with your guidance of course). Please sustain the dollar so that the stock market won’t collapse and our investments will pay off handsomely. And please provide us with abundant supplies of gasoline that we can purchase for less than $2.00 per gallon.
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