The governor wants to raise the cost of my fuel 3 cents to fund the transit authority (Philadelphia: hotel, tenant)

[Honest Bob]

Originally Posted by greg42

This.

My biggest whine is in fact the sewer bill, $62 for two people when a family of 8 would pay the same. But there's nothing useful I can do about it, except move.

Since the fuel tax is for transportation purposes, one could just as easily point out that too much of those $$$ go to rural roads that hardly anyone uses. Why do I have to pay for those? Come back and whine about taxes when you're fully paying for the amount in $$ you actually receive. I guarantee the urban areas subsidize the rural areas in terms of state expenditure vs revenue.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but there is not one newly paved road in Jefferson or Clearfield County. All of the roads this year were treated with TAR AND CHIPS.
I still don't have all the tar cleaned off my vehicles and the chips has done thousands of dollars of damage to the paint jobs of my vehicles.

You still have not justified the State Of Pennsylvania raising the cost of my plates or drivers license or the price of fuel - which I must burn to get to work to pay the taxes so you can ride like a King / Queen on a city bus!

[groar]

Originally Posted by Honest Bob

Maybe people ought to leave earlier for work and give themselves more time to get home then huh! If I can drive 71 miles in two hours, why can't a person working in the city move closer to their work? Why should they have road rage - when I am the one that is traveling 4 times further then they do.

everyone who uses PAT is paying for that 71 miles of roads that you drive on (like a king!) every day. most of them will probably never use any of those roads. why don't you pay for your own damn roads?

riding like a king/queen on a city bus is one of the funniest ideas i've seen in a while! ah, the sweet luxury of bus travel! the royalty of europe pay a premium to sit on sticky seats and jam into small spaces with strangers!

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by pman

that would probably be good for cities

Indeed--if we left every locality to their own devices when it came to transportation funding, the cities would be much better off. So people outside the cities complaining about state funding for public transit are just being greedy, since they are already way ahead of the game as it is.

[Honest Bob]

Originally Posted by ferrarisnowday

Because the people that live 80 miles away and use the transit systems pay for your roads.

Show me the road that you paid for - when you don't buy gasoline and you don't buy vehicle registrations and you don't have to pay for a drivers license, insurance etc.



They have been raised in recent years. The main reason not to raise them is that many people would stop using transit (and traffic would increase, and low-income people would be unable to get to work)

TOUGH


"Us poor people"?? You really think a majority of people riding the bus are wealthy?

If you have a job and you have a income - you have more then I do!
I don't even get public assistance - because I have money in the bank!

It's like you haven't even considered that the roads people drive on cost money, too. I could just as easily say "Why should us poor people have to pay for your roads so you can live cheap on your huge plots of land in the country?"

We bought or land - by working - and by saving our money so we could buy our land and some of our familys has owned farms, which does not pay much money to work, and which has been handed down from generation to generation. Anytime you want to come up and pick potato's for $3 a hour in the hot sun for 12 hours a day or bail hay for $2 a hour or milk cows 3 times a day for $1 a hour - I will hire you on the spot. Farming does not pay much money. You don't see farmers driving around on new tractors or driving new cars of riding Harley Davidson motorcycles for recreation.



I don't see how taking the bus equates to not taking care of your own business.

If you want to ride the bus, you should have to pay - what it costs to own, maintain and pay the driver to provide the transportation that you think that you are entitled to.






Exactly! Where did people get this crazy idea that taxes are fair?!

I pay property taxes, school taxes, local income taxes, state taxes, federal taxes, taxes on most everything that I buy and use - except food and clothing. You don't hear me grumbling about any of the other taxes that I pay.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

The butt hurt in this thread is astounding.

[BrianTH]

We need to be really clear on how state funding for transportation works. They collect a couple gas taxes, which are more or less dedicated to transportation spending. But then they exempt gas from the sales tax, which has to be made up for by other state taxes. So really, everyone is contributing to state transportation spending through these other state taxes, because the additional marginal tax on gas (gas-specific taxes minus the gas-specific sales tax exemption), plus the registration and license fees and such, isn't nearly enough to pay for transportation spending. Basically, the state is taking from gas with one hand, but then giving half back to gas with the other hand, and the difference has to come from somewhere else. (edit: by the way, I believe the gas sales tax exemption cost the state around $1 billion in revenue this last year, give or take. unedit.)

So whether or not you own or drive a car in PA, you are contributing to the state's transportation budget through the other, higher, state taxes you pay because of the gas exemption. And if someone wants to deny that, just offer them the deal I sketched above (cancel all these special taxes and exemptions, eliminate all state transportation spending, and let each locality take care of itself as best it can). Of course if they know what is really going on they won't take that deal, because the truth is this whole scheme is a way of taking money out of the cities and spending it in rural areas.

Finally, I am not unsympathetic to poor people in rural areas, nor am I actually opposed to state spending on transportation in rural areas. But what I won't tolerate is those people arguing it is unfair they have to contribute to transportation spending cities they don't live in, or that people riding transit should have to pay the full costs of the transit system they are using, or so on. Because if the same standards were applied to everyone, they are the ones who would come out way worse off.

[groar]

well said, Brian.

it's also worth pointing out (again) that the fact that someone rides the bus does not mean that they don't have a driver's license or a car. in this thread alone there are numerous people who disprove that assumption.

on top of that, people who drive in the city are the major funders of rural transportation costs even based solely on Bob's reasoning, and they benefit from public transportation in the form of lighter traffic.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by groar

it's also worth pointing out (again) that the fact that someone rides the bus does not mean that they don't have a driver's license or a car. in this thread alone there are numerous people who disprove that assumption.

Indeed--we actually own two, although we really should sell one.

More generally: again, I'm not unsympathetic to poor rural people, but we have to be planning ahead--in fact we are way behind where we should be. Gas is very likely to keep getting more expensive, as will keeping up rural roads and such. All that is also relatively harmful for the environment, and to public health. And our gas-dependency is a national security problem, and an economic destabilizer. And so on.

So as a society, we need to continue the ongoing process of urbanization--people moving into urbanized areas, which has been happening as long as this country has existed--and we need to be building the sorts of transportation systems that can most efficiently serve urbanized areas, and indeed encouraging the sorts of urbanized-area development patterns that will help make transportation faster, safer, less-costly, and greener.

Now if some individuals want to pay for the right to do things a more expensive way, then OK (provided that includes paying for the full range of costs noted above). But we need to recognize that people don't have a permanent right to do things the more expensive way regardless of their ability to pay, and so we need to be making the transition away from the current system of rural transportation welfare.

[Ann_Arbor]

you don't hear anyone bitching about paying more in gas tax to fund sprawl and loopy subdivision streets, but when it comes to mass transit, everyone seems to have something negative to say. not everyone drives a car, wants to, or sees the practicality in it. in terms of fare to operating cost, mass transit is financially un-sustainable, get over it, because so are roads.

[Blackbeauty212]

Just a re-enforcement of how PA is so socially divided.....us vs. them....Burgh and Philly vs. rest of PA...