Monthly Archives: June 2007

Portland’s transit agency, TriMet, “knows the key to increasing ridership is offering more frequent bus service.” But, guess what, the agency is devoting all of its resources to building rail lines that hardly anyone will ride. So the only way it will actually be able to increase ridership is to get a tax increase.

Portlanders voted against expanding the convention center (the twin glass towers), but the city expanded it anyway and now is mostly empty. Portlanders voted against expanding the light-rail system, but TriMet expanded it anyway, and now it says it doesn’t have enough money to improve bus service. (I think the high rise visible between the twin glass towers was also subsidized — JK will know for sure.)
Flickr photo by ahockley.

TriMet is funded out of an “employee tax” (it’s really an income tax, but it doesn’t appear on people’s paychecks as a payroll deduction, so most people other than employers aren’t aware of it) that is scheduled to increase over the next decade.

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Someone recently brought to my attention a 2005 article published in the Washington Monthly, a magazine that used to call itself “neoliberal” before the neoconservatives gave neos a bad name. Anyway, the article in question is called Auto-Mobility: Subsidizing America’s commute would reward work, boost the economy, and transform lives.

Flickr photo by VirtualEm.

The thesis of the article is that driving a car is no longer “a lifestyle decision.” Instead, Americans drive because “to get to work, the vast majority of Americans have to drive.” Thus, the writer argues that Congress should change tax policy and allow commuters to deduct the cost of their driving from their taxes, and, further, that the federal government should “offer tax credits that would lower the cost of commuting to work for low and middle-income employees, and would allow low-income workers who can’t afford a reliable car to get one.”

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