Gas Tax Shortfall
Here’s something ironic: the increase in gas prices this year is causing a projected shortfall in gas tax revenue. Why? People are using less gas. Actually, that’s not ironic at all — it’s exactly what...
View ArticleSelling Congestion Pricing
CIS is thinking about how to message congestion pricing to road warriors. All the ideas he puts forward are intersting jujitsu moves — designed to use free-marketers own strengths against them. Let me...
View ArticleNew Routes and Subarea Equity
There’s some interesting discussion on STB on what a revised Sound Transit initiative might look like. Scaling back to Northgate and Bellevue sounds reasonable, but it would really hurt ridership. The...
View ArticleHey Olympia, Bring Back TIF!!
In thinking about the viaduct, I realized that one way to finance at least part of a surface-street alternative would be through tax-increment financing, or TIF. TIF is used in almost every state in...
View ArticleFree Riders
A Sounder rider wants to know why Sound Transit wasn’t checking tickets more agressively on a train to the Seahawks game. ST responds that this was an atypical situation, but the question serves to...
View ArticleLID vs. TIF
EvergreenRailfan asked in the comments section here what the difference was between Tax increment financing (which is illegal in WA) and Local Improvement Districts (which funds the SLU streetcar)....
View ArticleThe Enemy of My Enemy is my Friend
The Seattle Times editorial board is generally opposed to taxes. People who use Zipcar/Flexcar are specifically opposed to the extra-high taxes they pay to use that service. So, naturally, the two...
View ArticleSales Tax Exemption
Exempting the state from paying itself sales tax on transportation projects seems eminently reasonable: The tax exemption would apply only to transportation projects that use tolls to pay for at least...
View ArticleTax the Land
The conservative Heartland Foundation argues that taxing land — not the buildings or improvements, but the land itself — to fund transit makes sense, since proximity to transit increases land values:...
View ArticleWhere There's a Will
The Urban Land Institute states what should be obvious: if you keep voting down transportation funding, sooner or later you’re not going to have any money to spend on transportation: Among U.S....
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