Gas Tax Proposal

The recent pronouncement from Governor Patrick over a 29 cent gas tax increase has resulted in many phone calls, emails, text messages, and people stopping me on the street asking me what the hell we are thinking in state government.


First, let me say I am not in favor of a 29 cent gas tax. That said, we have a serious problem with our transportation systems in Massachusetts and we need to do something about it. A commission formed to look at this has indicated that we need to spend $19 billion on our roads and bridges just to stay where we are in terms of the shape of our roads. That is not a good place. In 1986, when I was first elected to the legislature, approximately 85% of our bridges in Berkshire County were substandard. That doesn’t mean they were unsafe, but indicated that we needed a lot of maintenance. Today, the number is pretty close to this in spite of the work that we’ve done over the last 23 years. It is clear that we need to do more for our transportation system.

Of course, we need to do more than “run in place”. Here in Berkshire County, we need to increase the amount of money spent on our regional transportation system, the BRTA. We need to do so throughout the state. Sen. Stan Rosenberg and I have established and chair a caucus on regional transportation and the needs in our areas are many and urgent. We need to look at rail for both passengers and freight in Massachusetts. There are better and greener ways to move people around.

The dilemma is how we pay for this. We need a long term strategy that will take care of our back commitments and let us plan for the future. There is no one good solution to this. Any solution has to incorporate a lot of differing strategies in order to stabilize our transportation system.

I started by saying that I was not in favor of a $.29 gas tax. That said, we have not had an increase in the tax since 1992. It has remained at 23.5 cents since then. It has to go up modestly. Here are the gas taxes for the surrounding states:
Vermont $.20
New Hampshire $.20.6
Maine $.27.4
Rhode Island $.31
Connecticut $35.5
New York $44.5
At 23.5 cents we are at the low end regionally. However, if we are to ask people to pay more for gas tax, there are a series of other things that need to happen prior to a vote on the gas tax. Here is my list of suggestions

First, we need to enact the “Olver amendment”. This was an amendment that Congressman Olver used to add to every transportation bill when he was the State Senator from Amherst. It would ensure that each region of the state received a benefit from the gas tax or any transportation plan. If people in my district pay more for a tax, they should reasonably expect that that money will go towards improvements in Berkshire County. One of the problems many of us have with the new proposals is that the administration proposes, and that every news report covers, mentions the dire need to fund the “Big Dig” debt and the MBTA in Boston. After years of road and bridge neglect in order to pay for the big dig, the people of Western Mass can’t be expected to continue to pay for these.

Neither should we expect metro west to continue to pay more than their share from turnpike tolls. However, the Governor has indicated a desire to remove the tolls all the way across the state to Route 128. This is unfair. They shouldn’t pay more, but should continue to pay to use the turnpike. And given our financial situation, a suggestion to remove tolls at this time is silly. In fact, as a Western Mass legislator, I have advocated for a reinstatement of the tolls on exits one through four. We need the revenue, and studies indicate that a vast majority of the users on these exits are from out of state.

I realize that the Governor wants to charge tolls on the borders of the state, but there are far too many ways to circumvent the western borders on back roads throughout the Berkshires. You would create less congestion and make more money by simply reinstating the exit 1-4 tolls.

Lastly, but foremost, we need to reform our current system. We pay far more per road mile than surrounding states and we need to know why that is. We need to examine the policies and practices of surrounding states and take their best practices to streamline our system and its costs. This needs to happen before we increase any fees, tolls or taxes.