Moulton reiterated his strong devotion to the Lynn Blue Line extension at his victory speech at the Salem Waterfront tonight. He means business--it's absolutely his pet project. What this will all translate to--who the $%^#%$#% knows?
Blue Line extension to Lynn
- Thread starter PaulC
- Start date
underground
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2007
- Messages
- 2,390
- Reaction score
- 3
The best he can probably hope for short term is to get organized on a local level. That is, unless he can somehow convince John Boehner and Mitch McConnell to spend money on public transportation. Seeing as those two are preoccupied with the suing the president, I think it's unlikely.
Not to mention there's reasonable debate if we really have funding problem or a priority problem. Our infrastructure problems and lack of investments can viewed as reflective of lacking funds to do so or the lack will by any politicians since Dukakis.
If a place was serious about investment then they should have voted No by a significant margin. We don't often get a chance to ask the voters what they think about transportation investment -- this is the most clear, direct evidence that they don't want it. Is it vindictive to follow the will of the voters? That's a strange definition.
Now with Q1 passing, the T is going to be scrambling in order just to pay for the most basic of fixes so that the existing system doesn't fall apart.
Why should they spend time and precious resources on a community that clearly isn't very interested in having it? There's so many others in need.
underground
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2007
- Messages
- 2,390
- Reaction score
- 3
Your argument is predicated on the idea that voters think Gas Tax Inflation Indexing is the only way to pay for transit improvements. I don't know if that's true.
I think the race was pitched as a referendum on road and transit safety, and the voters still chose against.
The technical details of indexing were confusing, and reduced to sound bites really. I know that many voters had difficulty with the actual ballot language (as they often do), and even I had difficulty trying to parse it. That's why the campaign focused on "No for safe roads, bridges and transit" and I feel that the success of Q1 means that the voters rejected that message of safe roads, bridges and transit.
The technical details of indexing were confusing, and reduced to sound bites really. I know that many voters had difficulty with the actual ballot language (as they often do), and even I had difficulty trying to parse it. That's why the campaign focused on "No for safe roads, bridges and transit" and I feel that the success of Q1 means that the voters rejected that message of safe roads, bridges and transit.
The referendum didn't ask "Do you accept a tax to fund BLX?". Or "Do you want greater investment in infrastructure?" nor a more specific question towards funding a major project. It asks "Do you want the gas tax index to CPI?"
Despite the campaign saying the tax is for infrastructure, there's a strong lack of trust in government to really follow through. Arguably, this can be viewed as a reflection of the level of trust in government to act in good faith than a lack of desire to have things be in working order. How are you so confident - especially I do know you have been plenty cynical toward government in the past - that a no vote would actually lead to a reality of a MBTA not scrambling for money? Up until Moulton, politicians in the area seem to give no shit towards BLX. Not to mention the State still has billions, what argument transportation has to be the rationed one while other departments gets its needed amounts?
All the money in the world would do nothing if no one want to push to direct funds to desired project. Now we have a man who may actually advocate for BLX, and that's may well count more than the Gas Tax indexing.
Despite the campaign saying the tax is for infrastructure, there's a strong lack of trust in government to really follow through. Arguably, this can be viewed as a reflection of the level of trust in government to act in good faith than a lack of desire to have things be in working order. How are you so confident - especially I do know you have been plenty cynical toward government in the past - that a no vote would actually lead to a reality of a MBTA not scrambling for money? Up until Moulton, politicians in the area seem to give no shit towards BLX. Not to mention the State still has billions, what argument transportation has to be the rationed one while other departments gets its needed amounts?
All the money in the world would do nothing if no one want to push to direct funds to desired project. Now we have a man who may actually advocate for BLX, and that's may well count more than the Gas Tax indexing.
underground
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2007
- Messages
- 2,390
- Reaction score
- 3
Or voters rejected the idea that Question 1 was the only way to pay for safe roads, bridges, and transit. I mean seriously, do you think voters went into the booth and said, "where do I vote for the deadly roads?"
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2010
- Messages
- 8,894
- Reaction score
- 271
Public transit wasn't even a part of it. The lack of transit mentions actually gave me pause even though I was a fierce backer of the no campaign. The question was so poorly worded and confusing that the decision was made to paint the no campaign only as "safe roads and bridges," (http://saferoadsbridges.com) since the number of structurally deficient bridges in MA could be easily quantified and used for marketing (487 by the way). Transit investment and safety was never even mentioned.
My signature looks so bare now...
No, I think they went into the voting booth and probably weighed anti-tax rhetoric against the safer roads message and chose the anti-tax rhetoric. Nevermind that the tax would have added up to almost nothing to them personally; the No campaign probably did not amplify that message enough anyway.
Sadly, it will probably take another tragic bridge failure or similar to remind voters why it's important not to let these things fall into neglect. I-35 is too long ago and too far away, most people don't remember it.
Sadly, it will probably take another tragic bridge failure or similar to remind voters why it's important not to let these things fall into neglect. I-35 is too long ago and too far away, most people don't remember it.
Again, choosing the safer roads message implies trusting the government to use the money to keep the bridge from collapsing. There's not exactly a high level of trust in government right now.
If the question was more directly binding - like going into a pool where it has to be used to build/fix stuff, or raising direct funds to BLX, or basically something that sounds more guaranteed they money will go as intended, then you can make an argument towards what you said.
If the question was more directly binding - like going into a pool where it has to be used to build/fix stuff, or raising direct funds to BLX, or basically something that sounds more guaranteed they money will go as intended, then you can make an argument towards what you said.
underground
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2007
- Messages
- 2,390
- Reaction score
- 3
In any case, I think most of us "in the know" already realized how tenuous it is to hang transit funding's hat on the gas tax, indexed or not. It was politically easy to get through Beacon Hill, but it's not wildly sound policy with gas usage dipping. Either way, we were going to be fucked in a few years, or are going to be fucked in a few years unless we get MassDOT an actual steady source of revenue to meets their budget needs. So the politically non-easy (is that a word?) solution was coming either way.
Last edited:
Worded to say to go into a special earmarked pool, at least advertise will go into its own special account - hardly anyone pointed that out as a counterpoint. Again, the battle is more having people trust the government to use the money right and having people in government who wants to use the money right. At least we got Moulton.
The gas tax has always gone into a special account. That was part of the deal when it was created. In various places around the country, organized motordom initially opposed the gas tax, and then relented when a deal was struck to devote those revenues to roads.
That's it in a nutshell, basically. Later, some of those funds could be used for transit, but for the most part in each state and at the Federal level, the gas tax goes to transportation. Period.
After eight decades, if people don't believe that the gas tax goes into transportation, then nothing will convince them.
pixelsand8
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2013
- Messages
- 467
- Reaction score
- 2
Seems a rather lame "justification" for passing this. Even if you think there is a 5% anything gets done with the additional money, that's better than zero. I'm pretty sure people just don't want to pay taxes.
F-Line to Dudley
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2010
- Messages
- 8,901
- Reaction score
- 7,715
Binary thinking gets no one anywhere. Including this thread. The gas tax question was poorly-worded and has nebulous implications that could go a lot of ways. "THEY VOTED FOR THIS MEANS THEY'RE AGAINST THIS...SCREW THEM!!!" is an utterly unproductive attitude for tackling complex problems with a lot of shades of gray.
I sort of knew where I was going to vote on that, but it was utterly underwhelming staring at the question on the ballot and thinking "Well, jeez...neither of these choices mean diddly in a vacuum. And the Legislature isn't getting kicked to the curb this election and taking a stand on what it wants to fund, so it might as well be a vacuum."
I sort of knew where I was going to vote on that, but it was utterly underwhelming staring at the question on the ballot and thinking "Well, jeez...neither of these choices mean diddly in a vacuum. And the Legislature isn't getting kicked to the curb this election and taking a stand on what it wants to fund, so it might as well be a vacuum."
Most people don't view 5% versus 0% is worth taking. There's always people who don't want to pay taxes. But a good portion don't want to pay taxes -or more taxes - because they don't think the money will go anywhere beneficial. If the question was more directly tied to a project - or they pushed hard to ensure voters are fully aware that the money goes to a special fund that will be transparent to infrastructure, I'm willing the bet the vote would have been different.
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2012
- Messages
- 5,078
- Reaction score
- 1,653
None of the political arguments that reached the general public mentioned transit at all. The whole thing was pitched as road and bridge safety. AAA sponsored ads against Question 1. People weren't campaigning for this question on pro/anti transit basis, and I doubt many people - other than urban planning/transit junky types like us - voted based on transit infrastructure.
I think they didn't mention transit in statewide messages because they were afraid of turning out the Herald crowd to vote against those "layabout bus riders" (to use the seemingly current epithet).
Anyway, that still means that they voted against road safety.
Anyway, that still means that they voted against road safety.