Transportation Policy

 

Here's an alternative to the "Drill Now!" mantra that doesn't involve ethanol subsidies or depleting the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Earlier this month, Congressman Earl Blumenauer introduced the Transportation and Housing Choices for Gas Price Relief Act [PDF]. Blumenauer's hometown paper, The Oregonian, calls the measure a "smart bill":

Like a burned-out addict stealing to support a meth habit, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said yesterday that due to declining gas tax revenues, the Highway Trust Fund would need to borrow money from its mass transit account to pay for road projects. Today's big news story was buried at the bottom of page A17 in the New York Times:

The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would provide emergency funding to local transit systems facing simultaneous increases in ridership and fuel costs. The legislation is now stalled in the Senate. The Bush Administration has made clear their distaste for funding mass transit operating costs. They say they don't want local transit systems to become dependent on federal subsidies. Meanwhile, when it comes to subsidizing Midwestern farmers and the operating costs of America's fleet of private motor vehicles... well, here's how Michael Daly of the Daily News summed it up in his column yesterday:

As the drumbeat for domestic drilling grows louder, can the Democratic leadership come up with a better alternative than tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? Over at the Huffington Post, Shelley Poticha and Geoff Anderson of Transportation for America propose a few ideas that will actually pay dividends. Pols who are serious about reducing the impact of high gas prices should listen up:

CNN broadcast yesterday a relatively in-depth piece on U.S. cities scrambling to meet rising demand for mass transit.

Transit agencies all over the country are nearing a state of emergency. At the same time that rising gas prices are leading more Americans to opt for buses and trains, transit operators are being forced to cut service and raise fares due to budget shortfalls.