After a district meeting on Monday this week, I traveled back to Boston in the evening. As I was leaving town, I noticed at an area gas station that the price of a gallon of regular unleaded gas was $1.91. On my way to Boston, I stopped at a Shell Station in Templeton, just outside of Gardner. There, I filled my tank for $1.79/gal. Not only was it cheaper there, but I saw several stations in Cambridge with lower gas prices!
North Adams Mayor John Barrett has been complaining for the past year that gas prices are higher in the Berkshires than elsewhere in the state. I have made numerous phone calls to complain about the higher prices (and prices are even higher in South County). I have been told that transportation is the difference in price, but that makes no sense. The station at Templeton is at least as far away from gas distributors as is my district. And it doesn’t explain why prices invariably go up every week end.
That means that Berkshire County residents are expected to pay more per gallon than those areas that will actually see a benefit from this gas tax. Let me see; more per gallon, in an area where the rural nature means we use more gallons to travel and the weather and hilly terrain mean we actually need our SUVs and we don’t have the option of mass transit.
Just another reason to find a better way to pay for our transportation system.
6 comments:
I have to disagree Mr. Bosley.
The gas tax is a fixed tariff that was set years ago - and never increased along with inflation along with the things it was supposed to pay for.
Let's set it at a reasonable level and have it increase according to CPI. If we can prove that Western MA is disadvantaged, then lets set the gas tax at different levels for different areas of the state.
Tolls are horrible and ineffecient - they waste gas and raise blood pressure. Unless they can be done with scanning/billing rather than stopping/collecting - I'm going to hate them.
BTW - I think it's great the you have a blog and give us unwashed masses a chance to have our say.
Thanks. I am not saying that we shouldn't pay a fair gas tax. I just want that money to go to road and bridge projects in the area rather than in other areas. I think it is unfair to ask a certain group of people to pay tolls to solve the problem also. Let's figure out what's fair and then get everyone to pay equitably. Thanks again.
I think the fair answer is a gas tax that is attached to the amount of money spent in the region divided by the population.
In other words:
MS/GS = GT
where
MS is money spent in the region
GS is the gallons of gas sold
GT is the Gas Tax.
Or some other formula the makes things fair for everyone. That said, to some level, we all something for big-dig like projects that benefit not only say Boston but the state as a whole in a more peripheral way.
I have a formula I like to use:
You use the pike = You pay for it
I just wanna say that our gas prices are high enough. I am currently one of those unemployed people. adding this tax is ludicrous, its bad enough with the gas prices alone. I travel to Springfield technical college 3 nights a week trying to get an education, and to find a job in today's terrible job market. Also with trying to make people in western mass pay for the pike is nuts. I think the governor needs to take his head out of the orifice its currently in and start using common sense.
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victor
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