“This is not a partisan issue, it is a public safety issue.Republicans and Democrats care equally about being protected from dangerous roads and bridges.”
–Mayor Kevin J. Dumas, R-Attleboro.
Agree on the facts and at least some of the analysis, and you know you’re talking to someone in the same political community. Even if you are different sides. I haven’t always agree with Michael Widmer’s policy choices, but I have come to respect what I regard as his reality-based, if corporately-tinged, perspective.
I recently came across a press release urging voters to reject of Question 1, which would repeal the indexing of the gasoline tax to inflation. Although I’m sensitive to its geographically regressivity (it hits hard Western Mass, particularly rural communities), we need the money. And in this screwed up political era, we have to take what we can get.
A coalition called The Committee for Safer Roads and Bridges, a coalition has a broad spectrum of supporters ranging from Massachusetts AFL-CIO to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, says VOTE NO.
Massachusetts residents should vote NO on Question 1 because this ballot measure would eliminate a key part of the funding that has been set aside by the state Constitution to pay for transportation projects across the state. It would jeopardize $1 billion in transportation improvements over the next decade – putting our public safety at further risk.
Question 1 would mean our roads and bridges will continue to deteriorate – threatening the safety of Massachusetts drivers and their families. That’s why Massachusetts voters should vote NO.
Some endorsers of this ballot initiative stand to benefit from a defeat of the question–union workers, construction companies–but we all stand to lose if we don’t have enough money to repair our bridges and roads.
After decades of neglect, the poor condition of Massachusetts’ roads and bridges is now a major public safety crisis. The problem is startling: according to the Federal Highway Administration, 53% of all bridges in the state are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete – ranking us second-worst among the 50 states. A NO vote will send a clear message: we’re against crumbling roads and bridges, and the risk they pose to Massachusetts drivers and their families.
According to the Federal Highway Administration, Massachusetts’s infrastructure ranks second worst among the 50 states for structurally deficient and functionally obsolete bridges. Already, twenty seven bridges have been closed because they are unsafe and another 447 are under traffic load restrictions. Roadways conditions play a significant role in one-third of all traffic fatalities in Massachusetts and motor vehicle crashes cost Massachusetts $6.3 billion a year in medical and other costs.
We are so used to the business interests behaving ideologically that it is shocking when they behave like the rational capitalists they are supposed to be.
It shouldn’t be news that the Chamber et al. support maintaining the infrastructure on which they absolutely depend.
But it is!
I saw a long list of companies that contributed the No campaign.
Paving companies
Gravel companies
Civil engineers
Blasting companies
Asphalt companies
At least when they are done, we have decent roads and bridges that can be used by all. As opposed to the construction companies and workers against the casino repeal – when they are done, we just have casinos…
labor and management can agree.
And I think the voters will reject it.
Here’s the thing: rural areas have far more miles of road per capita. Perhaps more importantly, the money required to build and maintain the roads is far higher in rural areas. So, while it’s true that, on average, folks in rural areas buy more gas, it’s also true that folks in urban areas are already paying for their own roads and paying for some of the roads in the rural areas.
Regressive? Low income folks in urban areas are paying for their roads and helping to pay for rural roads they get neither direct nor indirect (economic) value from. The unfairness highway has lanes facing both directions my friend.
where to find evidence on this. There’s a prima facie argument for both of our sides. There was no direct benefit to Western Mass from the Big Dig. Was it good for the state economy? (I’m guessing you might know more than I do on that). Did we receive an indirect benefit? The direct and indirect benefits of investments in Eastern Mass infrastructure on Western Mass is no doubt more complex than proportionality. We are, for example, receiving and housing your homeless here because there isn’t enough there.
How do low income folks pay for their roads in urban areas? Through the gas tax? They probably aren’t driving trucks, which are used for work as well as transportation as in North Adams or Huntington. Not sure what you’re saying here.
Municipally speaking, my town only spends Chapter 90 money on roads. We also put down 2″, rather than the recommended 3″, of blacktop. I’m also sure that my highway department guys make far less than they do in Greater Boston.
I don’t know what you mean by building roads. What’s a new road? When new streets are built, say for a development, the developer typically pays for them. In terms of municipalities, I don’t know why maintenance costs more. Snow plowing, maybe.
We need infrastructure attention out here is we are going to grow and increase Massachusetts GDP. We’re worth investment. I think there is a viaduct project scheduled for Route 91 in Springfield. There’s also some work being done on Route 291. But there is precious little new construction out here. I don’t know about the rest of the state.
I would expect that the gas tax revenue raised in each municipality in each year is available. I would expect that Chapter 90 money per municipality per year is also available. Now, because gas stations aren’t distributed “perfectly” across cities and towns, one might have to aggregate, perhaps even to the county level. Nevertheless, it would give us some insight on from where the revenue comes and to where it goes.
They’re paying gas tax, income and sales tax, and property tax, all of which are used to pay for roads. As for “driving trucks,” most people in North Adams or Huntington aren’t driving trucks out of employment or necessity, or, actually, at all, so I’m not sure what your’e saying.
What I’m saying is: per capita, per gas tax dollar raised locally, and per income tax dollar raised locally, road expenditures are much higher in areas with less population density. Since we do have Chapter 90 money, and since income tax (both state and federal) also ends up paying for roads, we have this situation where suburbs subsidize rural roads with gas tax money, and cities subsidize rural roads with income tax money.
As for the homeless… ask them where they’re from. Folks who have fallen on hard times have headed to cities for millennia. That doesn’t mean that they “belong to” the cities. If a struggling family or individual comes from Hadley to Springfield to look for work, but instead finds bad luck, is that person now Springfield’s problem? Or, rather, if that person then ends up in a shelter outside of Springfield, is Springfield really exporting the problem, or are those homeless actually returning from whence they came?
was about $300,000. I can’t remember all the roads we spent it on, but some years, the bulk of money has been spent on thoroughfares traveled by people passing through town. Because that’s also a factor. Some streets are mainly for residents use, but most municipalities have streets that are arteries to other places. My town has 3 or 4 streets that sustain a lot of out of town and particularly truck traffic. So some of our money is spent for the good of the region and the Commonwealth, not merely for the municipality.
Gas stations? We have two in town on Route 202. The gas tax they collect is probably not reflective of the money Granby residents. People don’t necessarily buy gas in their communities as you recognize, but aggregating by county wouldn’t be likely to work either. For example, much of my town’s residents work in a different county as I do. I’ll do some digging to see if I can figure anything out though.
Sorry, I took for granted you knew about the homeless being shipped out to Western Mass. It’s been a topic on BMG before. This is what I’m talking about:
Trucks? People drive them in rural areas at a much higher rate than urban or suburban drivers do. Some like the idea of driving a truck, but a large number of these people have trucks because they do work with them. Cut and haul wood, plow snow, do construction, work in the trades. They don’t have the option of driving a Prius like I do. A gas tax hits those people harder than it does people in the city.
Of all the tax money paid by Massachusetts residents that goes toward roads — state and federal gas tax, state and federal income tax: more money is spent on roads in Granby than Granby residents pay. They’re almost certainly being cross-subsidized by communities that have (a) more gas tax collections per mile of road, (b) more income tax collection per mile of road, or both. It’s a natural consequence of being a rural town.
That residents of other communities drive on your roads is irrelevant so long as Granbyites (?!) drive on other roads, which as you’ve pointed out, they do quite a bit.
As for trucks, look, I went to college in the South. I know about the cultural use of trucks in rural areas — how some are used for regular work, and plenty are justified by their owners for their occasional work, and still others are needed to tow boats, motorbikes, or ATVs, oblivious to the reality that the “need” of recreation certainly isn’t a get-out-of-tax-free card. So look, on a regular day this week — Wed or Thurs — start counting vehicles. Count automobiles and count work trucks. My bet is that you’ll still see more autos than trucks.
== snip ==
I know full well about the families being served temporarily in Western Mass. But you’ve avoided my point — that most homeless people aren’t from Boston or Springfield. They move there, already down on their luck, and continue to spiral. My question remains unanswered: when someone from Greenfield moves to Worcester, finds himself eventually homeless, and then gets government services that send him back to Greenfield, is he really being “shipped out to Western Mass” or is he being “shipped back to Western Mass?”
I can’t prove you wrong. And you’re right, I doubt very much Granby contributes more than it receives in tax revenue, at least where the gas tax is concerned.
I wasn’t avoiding your point, just wasn’t sure you understood what I was referring to. Honestly, I don’t know if homeless move to the city. It makes sense, but I don’t know where they come from. Still, that’s different than shipping homeless from Eastern Mass to Chicopee and Springfield to live in motels. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think the homeless regularly migrate across the state. Maybe they may migrate to the closest urban areas, but across the state? (None of this is to say that all of the homeless shouldn’t be taken care of)?
While we’re at it, you didn’t explain how Western Mass benefits from the Big Dig, either directly or indirectly.
This is great stuff for good, detailed study: financing roads and migration of homeless both. Because, fact is, neither of us know with any certainty, we can just speculate. Nothing wrong with speculating, but I am very curious!
As for the value of the Big Dig to Western Mass, the “direct” answer is — any time you or yours travel in or around Boston, you just might be getting there faster. I mean, how often does stomv’s family benefit from bridge work on the Pike west of the I-84 off-ramp? Such is life in a Commonwealth.
The “indirect” answer is tax revenue. The outcome of the Big Dig is an improved economy in Boston Metro, which generates income, sales, and other taxes for state coffers, spent state-wide. Of course, a booming economy also requires more state resources, so whether or not the counterfactual (the “but for” where the Big Dig doesn’t get built) results in more or less net tax revenue is unclear to me. I suspect that the net outcome is positive state-wide — that is, I suspect that the net effect is that the state sends more local aid to each community than would have were it not for the Big Dig, which is good for each community.
We’ve actually had this discussion before.
The view I offered is a common one in Western Mass, and it may not be correct. The challenge you presented me with is helpful for keeping me tuned into what I know, don’t know, and can’t (easily) know. So you’ve helped keep me honest.
I much prefer to be right than parochial.
Another aspect of stomv’s more positive response is the counterpoint to the question you asked — how would Western Mass have been hurt by NOT doing the Big Dig.
The old Central Artery was DEAD! It was literally falling apart, a mass of rusting steel and crumbling concrete. It was also carrying between two and three times its design capacity.
The Big Dig was a SUCCESS. As built, warts and all, it is ENORMOUSLY more beneficial than either letting the old Central Artery collapse or attempting to rebuild it in-place.
Had the Big Dig NOT been done, Western Mass would have had to depend on cities in Connecticut and New York for health care, airports, professional sports, and all the other reasons people use Boston.
The additional build-on that I would add to stomv’s response is that Western Mass should, in my opinion, be among the loudest proponents of investing heavily in public rail transportation between Boston and points west, including Worcester, Springfield, Pittfield, and perhaps Albany NY.
Even better would be to restore public rail service joining one or more of these other cities to Lowell, Lawrence, and perhaps the towns already served by the Fitchburg line.