Tolls are an anti growth and unfair means to pay for infrastructure projects, especially when the effected parties did not vote to take on said burden.  Any financial commitments selectively assigned to one group over another to incur millions or billions to stay where they live or work is a form of failed government policy that was not clearly thought thorough.

The best form of fairness is to consider whom made the commitment.  If the commitment is a county, then the county is responsible to bear the costs.  If a state made the commitment then the population of the state is responsible to bear the costs.

Transportation issues are those government policies that should be devised which encourages green growth and energy efficiency.  Tolls are not an incentive for a statewide policy for smart growth and energy self sufficiency. It only creates another bureaucracy.  One does not need more government agencies to deliver on smart growth.  All tolls should be gotten rid of and the fuel tax be the means to pay for the infrastructure.  Economic growth should be incentives through taxation not burdening one over another. 

Government policies for transportation and energy efficiency which require public dollars are better served being driven by a fuel tax.  This fuel tax should be weighted towards fuels that are less green.  It will provide the incentives to decrease consumption of fuels considered less green and increase efficiency.   Further, the policies on transportation infrastructure could be weighed to be more effective.

This means of funding infrastructure will allow faster means to develop commuter rail and subway lines. 

(pics by pallih and dougwn)

This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under Public Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.