Pennsylvania transit systems tag hopes on wrong issue

Altoona PA - An article out of the Altoona Mirror regarding Altoona's transit system, AMTRAN, mirrors what is being said at most transit systems in Pennsylvania. The support for Governor "Fast Eddie" Rendell's plan to tax oil company profits for transportation.

As previously mentioned in Laurels and Lances, this plan is not going to solve the problem. All it will do is raise costs to public transit through higher fuel prices and every one of these operations will be right back where they are now, crying for money and threatening the public with fare hikes and route cuts.

These transit systems are so afraid of losing another penny of public funds that they're willingly supporting a plan that will ultimately cut their own throat. This is because this poorly conceived plan is the only thing that is really being considered. To oppose it means risking their position to get funding in the future.

This form of tax that is being proposed never brings in what the politicians and activists claim. The tax ultimately is passed through to the consumer through higher prices. In the case of public transit, here is what will happen:

Transit systems would initially see increased funding and then when their fuel contracts expire, they would be facing major increases in the cost of fuel. At the same time, John Q. Public would also be paying more at the pump. This would push many onto public transit creating a demand that couldn't be met due to the rapidly rising fuel costs to the transit system. As more of the public switched to transit, the windfall profit tax would drop and so would the available amount of funding.

In effect, public transit would cut its own throat by getting people out of their cars. As people reduce their car use, so too does their use of gas which directly effects the amount of available funding the transit system would receive.

Considering the fact that every rider on public transit is heavily subsidized already, fare hikes will still happen as well as massive route cuts. For a transit system to charge the true fare for each person and break even, fares would need to be at a minimum of $10 or more per trip (and this assumes a fully packed 40 foot bus).

A 1% sales tax dedicated to transit is a much better method for dealing with the funding crisis yet no politician is in support of this plan. It sounds so much better to tax the "big, evil oil companies". Well, the "big, evil oil companies" have the upper hand and as you increase costs to them, they'll simply pass that cost back to you through even higher prices.

Until politicians and transit systems stop advocating such taxes to fund transit, it's only going to get worse. Stop wetting your finger to see which way the political wind is blowing and coming up with whacked out plans that will ultimately fail in the long term.