BuckeyeBlog

Many states are worrying about the effect increasing gas mileage of cars will have on their gas tax revenues, which they use to pay those people in yellow vests you often see standing around in construction zones smoking a cigarette, supposedly maintaining the roads. Apparently the idea of raising the tax rate is too simple, because according to Gongwer News, the National Conference of State Legislatures advocated a scary new form of tax for highway maintenance at its conference last week:

The bipartisan legislators’ policy also encourages Congress to move toward new funding concepts, such as one that charges a vehicle based on the number of miles driven in a state. NCSL said a pilot program in Oregon proved the system viable.

If one were to go to the link above and look at the presentation, he might notice how the government determines the number of miles a vehicle has driven in a state: a GPS location device planted in each vehicle. That’s right, the government would track every vehicles’ movements. Don’t worry, legislators would put laws in place limiting the types of data the government is allowed to collect and store regarding your movements. That puts my mind at ease, anyway.

Here’s another idea: why don’t we privatize our road network? Privately managed toll roads have been proven to be both viable and successful, showing that major arteries can be maintained privately. Other countries have taken that concept to greater levels, extending it to lower volume roadways. Two-thirds of Sweden’s road network is managed privately; upkeep is estimated at half the cost of a comparable public system and service is better.

Of course, that’s a much more drastic and radical solution than simply having the government track each citizen’s daily movements and real-time location.

Cincinnati citizens groups are organizing for a ballot initiative to ban red light cameras. The Buckeye Institute interviewed one of them, Chris Finney, on Buckeye voices .

Would you think such an effort would give officials pause, maybe cause them to go slow on establishing red light cameras? Maybe, but it appears not to slow down Cincinnati City Council. “This week could bring a decision by city council on whether to proceed with negotiating a contract with American Traffic Solutions, Inc., the Scottsdale, Ariz., company recommended by the city administration .”

Here’s a guess. Maybe council is hoping that by entering a contract now, they’ll forestall a successful effort to rescind the contract later, on the grounds that the contract cannot be changed after the fact.

That, or they just don’t care what voters think or do. Voters are hoi pollois, while council members are hoity-toity.

UPDATE: Council backed down after all. ‘Til September, anyway . My guess is people will be paying more attention then, not less.