"Politicians and The Price of Gasoline"

Last weekend I was honored to be a judge at the National History Day competition.  Why is it that Middle School kids understand what adults don’t:  that you can learn from history and, hopefully, not repeat the same mistakes?  Case in point, the tax on gasoline.

As gas prices push toward the $5 per gallon mark, politicians are trying to give the impression of doing something they cannot do:  get prices back down.  Politicians don’t set gas prices, the free market does.  But sometimes, in their haste to appear engaged, the pols do more harm than good.

Obama speaks in Oklahoma, saying he’ll fast-track the southern portion of the Keystone pipeline, even though the White House has no say on the already approved project. It’s political grandstanding, but harmless enough.

But in Hartford when the D’s and R’s get together and agree to mess with gas taxes, watch out.  This is no more than bipartisan pandering to motorists, which will end up hurting both drivers and the users of mass transit.   Here’s the story.

In Connecticut we pay about 49 cents a gallon in taxes… 25 cents in regular taxes and the balance in the Gross Receipts Tax paid by wholesalers and passed along to us at the pump.

The lawmakers want to put a cap on the Gross Receipts Tax for about a year, savings us about 1.7 cents a gallon.  That’s right… less than two cents.  

Pennies in savings, but at what cost?  Do lawmakers forget where the gas taxes go… and what happened the last time they cut gas taxes when Rowland was in office?

Here’s the math:  for every penny a gallon collected in gas taxes, $15 million goes into the Special Transportation Fund to pay for highway and bridge repairs, salt for winter roads and subsidies for mass transit, taking cars off the road.

That fund is already in trouble and could run out of money in two years, leading to talk about finding new sources of revenue… like tolls.  A political stunt like this gas-tax cap will save the average motorist pennies, but leave our highways in disrepair and push bus and train fares ever higher.

Even at $5 a gallon, gas in the US is cheap compared to the rest of the world.  Yet, we drive the biggest and least fuel efficient cars and moan at the cost.  Why do Americans think they have a God-given right to cheap gas?

Sure, gas in New Jersey is cheaper.  But they have tolls on their roads.  Pick your poison… taxes or tolls… because there is no free ride.

What’s driving gas prices higher is not state taxes but Wall Street speculation and geopolitics.  Why not do something to regulate investors betting gas prices will go higher and, in effect, making them do just that?

And when (not if) Israel attacks Iran and the Straits of Hormuz are closed, choking oil deliveries and sending gas to $8 to $10 a gallon, do lawmakers really think that a two cents a gallon saving in state gas taxes will mean anything except for less spending on our roads and rails?

Next time you’re driving on I-95 and wonder why the potholes aren’t filled or worry if the bridge you’re on might collapse, thank your elected officials in Hartford for their short-sighted penny pinching.

First Class: The Only Way To Go

For a guy who writes so much about transportation, trust me, I’m something of a homebody. I don’t like traveling anymore.  Not that I don’t enjoy visiting different cities (and do so almost weekly for business), it’s just that the journey from here to there is not much fun.  When Cunard used to say “getting there is half the fun” they were talking about cruise ships, not flying.

Getting to and from the airport is a major hassle and expense. Airports (and planes) are jammed.  Getting through security is like visit a proctologist. Flights are inevitably delayed.  Meals enroute are but a memory.  Frequent flyer programs have whored themselves, passing out “elite” status to so many passengers that it’s impossible to get an upgrade, let alone a free ticket.  (You should have heard the grumbles on a recent flight from Continental mileage mavens now vying with United road warriors for upgrades since the merger!)

But there is an alternative:  first class… or at least business class on transcon flights.  Sure, it costs more… either in higher fares or in redeeming those once precious frequent flyer miles… but it’s worth it.

You get to check in faster.  You can cut the line with the TSA’s blessings.  The seats are bigger.  The flight attendants are actually friendly.  And they sometimes give you real food.  Plus, there’s that slightly smug feeling as you ease into your seat and watch the coach customers walk in, heading for steerage, that you’re, well, “special”.

Even on Amtrak, first class is a better experience.  On Acela to Boston or Washington there’s a comfier seat and a decent meal.  (I don’t drink, so the free booze in flight or on the train matters little to me). And, unlike the airlines with their pricey airport “clubs”, first class passengers can use Amtrak’s “Metropolitan Lounge” (now dubbed “Club Acela”) for free, complete with wi-fi and free beverages.

When time allows I’ll even opt for an overnight Amtrak ride in a comfy sleeper to Chicago or Miami rather than endure two plus hours of turbulence.

Even traveling by bus there’s a first class option.  The “Limo Liner” between Boston and New York makes the Bolt Bus or Fung Wha bus look like a cattle car.

What may surprise you is that going first class doesn’t always mean taking out a home equity loan.  In fact, compared to full fare coach, first is often only a few bucks more.  And tickets can be changed without charge.

There’s a great Norwalk-headquartered travel meta-search engine, www.kayak.com that allows you to price all your alternatives, coach / business / first, at one site, so you’ll see the hidden bargains.  (Full disclosure:  Kayak is a consulting client of mine… but trust me, I wouldn’t recommend them if I didn’t think they were great). 

My New Year’s resolution for business travel is to “treat myself right.”  Life is too short to be trapped in coach.  I am reminded of a bumper sticker I saw once at a TWA ticket office.  It read:  “Fly First Class… Your Heirs Will”.

Rethinking The Tappan Zee Bridge

Why is a column that usually writes about Connecticut’s transportation problems suddenly interested in The Tappan Zee Bridge?  Because the pending rebuilding of this bridge across the Hudson River will have a major impact on our lives, our economy and travel patterns.

The mighty Hudson River is what separates New England from the rest of the country.  Sure, you can cross over or under the water by car on any number of bridges and tunnels in New York City, but north of the George Washington Bridge there are few options.  And for freight trains, there are none, short of going all the way to Albany.

When it was originally envisioned in 1950, the new trans-Hudson bridge was going to be built by The Port Authority between Dobbs Ferry and Piermont NY.  Instead the Thruway chose the wider, but shallower section a few miles north between Nyack and Tarrytown.  Opening in 1955, the bridge was soon followed by the Cross-Westchester Expressway (now I-287) in 1960, forever linking access to Connecticut from the west.  (A planned extension of I-287 over Long Island Sound as the Oyster Bay – Rye Bridge never came to pass.)

The Tappan Zee, like our old Metro-North railcars, has been repaired, patched and kept going long beyond its 50-year life expectancy.  Maintenance costs over the past four years have cost $389 million. The old, seven lane bridge is literally falling apart and was highlighted on a recent History Channel documentary about our nation’s crumbling infrastructure as a disaster waiting to happen. Think collapse.

Even the White House recognizes the urgency of replacing the bridge, putting The Tappan Zee on a list of 14 projects to receive expedited federal approval.  And while NY state has opted for a design / build replacement… where the winning bidder designs and builds the new structure, rather than working from a state-created blueprint… the $5.2 billion project may get underway this summer.

The real question is, what kind of vehicles will use the new bridge?

While most of the traffic (170,000 crossings per day recently, ten times the original traffic in 1955) is private cars, the bridge is also a crucial truck crossing, especially for cargo bound for Connecticut.  There are also commuter buses from Rockland County connecting to Metro-North.

Many say the new Tappan Zee should also carry trains, or at the very least offer dedicated BRT (bus rapid transit) lanes, but neither is in the current plans.  This is a huge mistake.

An east-west rapid transit corridor, rail or bus, running from Rockland County across the new bridge, then down the median of the Cross-Westchester Expressway (I-287) and connecting with I-95 and the New Haven line of Metro-North / Amtrak, would be a game changer.  So much of our mass transit runs on a hub and spoke system, into and out of New York City, while we lack an east-west connection.  To miss the once-in-a-century opportunity to accommodate mass transit on a new Tappan Zee Bridge would be a tremendous loss.

But as with the much discussed MTA plan to run Metro-North into Penn Station, the future of the Tappan Zee (and with it, Connecticut’s link to the west) lies in Albany, not Hartford.  New York will again decide our fate with no input from those of us in Connecticut.

Much has been made of late about what to do with the old bridge after the new one opens.  The latest plan is to leave the bridge open as a pedestrian and cyclist walk-way, much like the repurposed Highline on Manhattan’s west side.  Demolition would cost $150 million, they say, so why not turn the old bridge into a cement park?

It’s a shame that so much discussion has focused on this petty, parochial side issue when the real question about building the new structure to handle more than cars and trucks seems pushed aside.

For more on recent public hearings on the bridge rebuild, click here.

Next Stop Penn Station?

There’s discussion again about bringing some Metro-North trains directly from Connecticut into New York City’s Penn Station.  But will it happen? 

As with many good ideas that seem so easy, this one also has been studied thoroughly and found to be problematic in a number of respects.  Governor Rell floated the idea in 2007 but it went nowhere, aside from an experiment by NJ Transit to run trains from New Haven to the Meadowlands.  Here are the reasons that daily commuter service isn’t yet possible:

INADEQUATE EQUIPMENT:  As any commuter on Metro-North can tell you, we don’t have enough seats for existing service to Grand Central let alone expansion to new stations.  It’s standing room only in rush hour and on weekends.

ELECTRICITY:  Our existing fleet of MU cars cannot take a left turn at New Rochelle and head over the Hells Gate Bridge onto Long Island, then hang a right, in through the tunnels into Penn Station.  The old cars’ overhead power catenary system operates under a different voltage than Amtrak.  And in third rail territory on Long Island, even our new M8 cars use a different kind of shoe to contact the third-rail power source.  The 2009 experimental direct train from Connecticut to Giants Stadium in New Jersey was actually run with New Jersey transit railroad equipment which was only available because it was on weekends.

CAPACITY:  Even if we had the cars with the right electrical equipment to make it over the Hells Gate Bridge and through the tunnels to Penn Station, there’s no room in the station… that the station is full-up serving Amtrak, the Long Island Railroad and NJ transit.  If and when the $6.3 billion East Side Access project bringing some Long Island Railroad trains into Grand Central is completed (many years from now), says the MTA, there might be room for Metro-North trains to access Penn Station.

CUT LIRR SERVICE?        Recently the MTA has hinted they might run some Metro-North trains into Penn Station, but it would have to cut Long Island RR service.  You can imagine the push-back that got, pitting one set of commuters against another.  (See more on our Facebook page).

Whatever the decision, it won’t be made by us here in Connecticut.  Once again, Connecticut is being told by the New York MTA what our transportation future will be.  Connecticut still has no say in the matter… not even a voting seat at the table, either on the MTA or the Metro-North boards.  

Connecticut may be the MTA’s largest customer, hired by CDOT to operate Metro-North trains in our state, but when it comes to important decisions, like expanding rail service to Penn Station, the MTA is clearly in control.

Years ago Governor Rell acknowledged the inequity in this position, and promised to fight for a seat on the MTA board.  But nothing happened.  Nor has Governor Malloy said anything about this unfairness.

So, just why is a New York agency still in charge of Connecticut’s transportation future?  

The Five Biggest Lies About Highway Tolls

Like it or not, get ready to pay tolls on our Interstates and Parkways.  Transportation officials in Hartford say there’s just no other way to raise badly needed money for over-due infrastructure repairs.  Tolls may not be popular, but neither are collapsing bridges.

In the last decade’s debate on highway tolling, here are the five biggest lies that opponents have used to stall the return of highway tolls:

1)    The Federal Government Won’t Let Us:  Also known as “We’ll have to return millions in federal funding”.  Not true, as US DOT officials told us at a SWRPA-sponsored meeting in Westport years ago.  The federal government regularly allows tolls to be used as traffic mitigation and revenue raising tools.

2)    Our Highways Should Be Free:  So should ice cream and donuts.  Nothing is free, including the cost of repairing I-95 and removing snow from the Merritt.  Gasoline taxes come nowhere near to raising the needed revenue. Driving is a privilege, not a right. It should come with a cost.

3)    Tolls Will Slow Traffic:  It’s not 1965 anymore.  Tolling doesn’t require highway-wide barriers with booths and gates.  Just look at the NJ Turnpike or Garden State Parkway, where barrier-free tolls using EZPass allow you to pay at 55 mph.

4)    Tollbooths Cause Accidents:   See #3 above.  This happened once, 29 years ago, in Milford, and was used as an excuse to end tolling in the state.  If toll barriers are unsafe, why don’t fiery truck crashes happen daily at the hundreds of other toll barriers around the US?

5)    Highway Tolls Will Divert Traffic to Local Roads:    This may be true, for about the first week.  If people would rather drive for free on the Boston Post Road than pay 50 cents to save an hour by taking I-95, let ‘em.  Few drivers are that cheap, or stupid.

Trust me, I know about tolls and toll booths. I spent three summers in college working as a toll collector on the Tappan Zee Bridge.  The toll was only 50 cents to cross the mighty Hudson, but people still didn’t like paying it.  (Today the toll is $5).

Connecticut pioneered toll roads as early as the late 18^th century.  But today our state is facing billions in over-due bridge and highway repairs.  And federal aid for transportation may be cut from $469 million to $301 million. So why are we in this current mess?  Who’s to blame?  Us! 

We’re the ones that stupidly pushed CT lawmakers to cut the gas tax 14 cents a gallon in 1997.  And we’re the ones making it political suicide for legislators today to say they support tolls, even though they know tolls are inevitable.

Pick your poison:  “free” driving on pothole-filled highways with collapsing bridges… or pay a few bucks for a safe, speedy ride.   I vote for the tolls.

Congress to Commuters: "Drop Dead"

Back in 1975 when New York City was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, then- President Ford declined to offer help and the NY Daily News’ headline screamed “Ford to City: Drop Dead”.

Well, last month the US Congress said about the same thing to us users of mass transit.  In their quagmire of inaction, bickering and partisanship, they let expire an important tax benefit to commuters:  whether you drove or took mass transit, you used to be able to spend up to $230 a month in pre-tax dollars to fund your commute.  But by not acting to extend the law, that benefit dropped to $125 a month for riders of mass transit but increased to $240 a month for drivers’ parking expenses.

What?  Commuters who ride the train / bus /subway get screwed but drivers get a benefits hike?  Yes, friends, it’s all true and you have Congress to thank.

This isn’t a red-state / blue-state issue.  I see it as a “gray state” victory, the gray states being those paved with asphalt that have scorned mass transit.  Meanwhile, big city riders of the rails get penalized.

There’s something egalitarian about mass transit… millionaires riding in the same smelly Metro-North cars as blue collar workers.  People of color actually mingling with white folks!  It’s like we’re all in this together, sharing space, giving up our individual liberties (smoking, singing, traveling exactly when we want) for the greater good (less highway congestion, air pollution, saving money).

People in the gray states don’t understand that.  Theirs is a culture of selfishness:  my car, my space, my right to travel where I want and when, to heck with you.  Oh yeah, and the right to have free parking (or at least subsidized, as under this bill).

Connecticut commuters welcomed the New Year with a 5.25% fare hike on Metro-North (with similar fare hikes to come the next two years), thanks to the Malloyadministration seeing rail riders as an easy target for “revenue enhancement”.  So losing this federal tax benefit is just adding insult to injury.

The Federal government doesn’t do much in terms of our commuter rail.  They didn’t pay a penny for the new M8 cars.  They don’t set the fares, determine the station parking rules or set the timetable.  All of those are state functions.  (Sure, the feds did kick some Tiger III grant money to Stamford for station work, but aside from that, nada.)

That’s why Senators Blumenthal and Lieberman are trying to restore this federal taxbenefit, the one thing they can do to help us commuters.  They’ve been flooded with angry letters.  Their bill (S-1034) has 10 co-sponsors but so far hasn’t won support from their colleagues who matter, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Ranking Member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).  Not a lot of commuter rail in Montana and Utah, eh?

Time will tell if Congress can fix this mess.  I’m not optimistic, despite the best efforts of our Connecticut delegation.

For more information  on what you can do, visit this website.