California will charge the highest taxes on gasoline in the United States come Monday but some complain that even more money will be needed to maintain the Golden State's roads and freeways.On my road trip a couple weeks ago, I paid less per gallon in out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere Nevada and Utah than I do in suburban Sacramento.
The new 5.6 cents extra tax per gallon tax will boost the total paid per gallon from 41.7 cents to 47.3 cents. It is expected to raise billions for road and bridge repairs around the state along with mass transit projects. That is on top of the 12 cents per gallon increase in 2017.
And now prices have gone up again. So now we have the highest gas taxes in the country? Yay, at least we're #1 in something.
Adding more to the price of gas is not about fixing roads: it is about making the use of cars more painful as a form of environmental virtue signalling.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Los Angeles continues to make bus riding so painful that that's not a workable mode of transportation either:
L.A.'s Bus Riders Are Suffering. Rail Spending Is to Blame. [Reason]
>> Since a recent 2007 peak, Los Angeles' transit agency, Metro, has cut bus service by 21 percent [...], while simultaneously raising fares, according to a report published by the Reason Foundation (the nonprofit that also publishes Reason). Trips taken on buses have fallen in the same period by 32 percent.
>> The [L.A.] Times, citing data analyzed by UCLA, reports that average bus speeds have fallen 12.5 percent over the last 25 years.
>> The reason for the decline is Metro's prioritization of rail transit over buses, says Baruch Feigenbaum, a transportation policy expert with the Reason Foundation. <<
Since buses are a needed form of transportation for the poor, the prioritization of rail is a big F.U. to the city's struggling underclass.