State to take closer look at tolls on I-93

[Brattle Loop]

For it work, there would need to be a collective belief that the toll money would actually be used to make transportation systems better, directly or indirectly.

Okay, let's re-phrase my critique. You're correct that a collective belief that the toll money would actually be used to make transportation systems better is a necessary condition of and for implementing a scheme like this. What it isn't (and why that's not really a rebuttal as such) is a sufficient condition for it.

Believing that the money would go to good use doesn't change whether the transportation systems are sufficient to permit the tolls to be put in in the first place without a ridiculous backlash. It's been a few years, so my recollection may be off, but as I recall when the Patrick administration sought to raise the gas tax to raise transportation funds, that didn't get killed by concern that the money wouldn't be put to good (transportation) use, it got killed by objections to the tax increase.

You don't just need people to believe that the money will be put to good use, you need them to be willing to pay in the first place. That's a hard chicken-egg problem in this context, because you'd be asking a good chunk of people to take on direct extra costs for an indefinite period (until either transportation options improve or they reorder their entire lives) in exchange for the hope/promise of better future options. It's not an easy sell. In part because (especially if overly broadly implemented) there are plenty of people on whom the burden would fall disproportionately and/or on whom the benefits would be scant, if any. (Let's say someone works where there are jobs and lives where housing is cheaper, and has to commute via a road that will get tolled, but somewhere where the transit options aren't ever likely to be significantly improved absent, say, a megaproject of a radial transit line along the 128 corridor.)

Tolls can be regressive and unfairly burden low income people. With today's technology and electronic tolling, it would be easy enough to index tolls according to personal income. Tolls on every expressway inside 128, plus a few of the more major parkways (SFR, etc.), could (if allocated properly) provide funding for much needed transit improvements. Someone a few posts up stated that what we have now isn't working, and I don't see much Federal funding at all coming along for transit for decades to come. Tolling (indexed to personal income level) seems a sensible and fair way to raise revenue. It may also have the added bonus of decreasing traffic a bit.

I feel like this would be infeasible (and I personally don't think it would be advisable). I'm not a lawyer, but I strongly suspect that if a state tried to make income disclosure a condition of using its roads, the feds would drop an anvil on them. I don't think the states have any power to compel residents of other states to provide them with their tax returns or other financial disclosures, and there's no way the feds would permit a state to make doing so a condition of driving in the state. It'd be a legal quagmire. Not to mention it'd be a pretty serious privacy concern, in addition to being disastrously difficult to enforce. How would it even work? You couldn't base it on who owned the car, it'd take thirty seconds for someone to set up an ethically-questionable business of registering cars to people with sufficiently-low incomes. Meaning you'd have to have some way of knowing who's driving, meaning you'd presumably have to track them (and their movements) somehow, which would absolutely thrill people.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Tolls can be regressive and unfairly burden low income people. With today's technology and electronic tolling, it would be easy enough to index tolls according to personal income. Tolls on every expressway inside 128, plus a few of the more major parkways (SFR, etc.), could (if allocated properly) provide funding for much needed transit improvements. Someone a few posts up stated that what we have now isn't working, and I don't see much Federal funding at all coming along for transit for decades to come. Tolling (indexed to personal income level) seems a sensible and fair way to raise revenue. It may also have the added bonus of decreasing traffic a bit.

I feel like this would be infeasible (and I personally don't think it would be advisable). I'm not a lawyer, but I strongly suspect that if a state tried to make income disclosure a condition of using its roads, the feds would drop an anvil on them. I don't think the states have any power to compel residents of other states to provide them with their tax returns or other financial disclosures, and there's no way the feds would permit a state to make doing so a condition of driving in the state. It'd be a legal quagmire. Not to mention it'd be a pretty serious privacy concern, in addition to being disastrously difficult to enforce. How would it even work? You couldn't base it on who owned the car, it'd take thirty seconds for someone to set up an ethically-questionable business of registering cars to people with sufficiently-low incomes. Meaning you'd have to have some way of knowing who's driving, meaning you'd presumably have to track them (and their movements) somehow, which would absolutely thrill people.

Keep the Federal income tax completely out of it, and work solely with the state income tax. Give a rebate on tolls from the state to low income users based on their state income tax. Keep the Feds out of it. This is all assuming that the Federal laws would be changed to allow tolling of roads to pay for transit projects.

 

[Brattle Loop]

Keep the Federal income tax completely out of it, and work solely with the state income tax. Give a rebate on tolls from the state to low income users based on their state income tax. Keep the Feds out of it. This is all assuming that the Federal laws would be changed to allow tolling of roads to pay for transit projects.

I mean...that doesn't solve many if any of the problems I mentioned.

I don't see how it's functionally possible to only charge MA drivers, who are the only people the state has income tax info on (theoretically, because there's plenty of people who can drive who don't necessarily have to file a tax return). Massachusetts cars I suppose would be less functionally impossible, because the state does have registration information for all of them. (Cue NH deciding you don't have to live there to register a car there, in exchange for a not-a-tax-we-don't-do-taxes "fee"...) The problem with that is that the owner of the car isn't necessarily the driver. And a car-based transponder and/or a license plate reader doesn't know if, say, the person driving a car is, for example, my aunt who lives on a pension or my father making six figures, yet that information would appear to be crucial in determining the appropriate toll rebate. The state can't possibly know that info for out-of-state people, which means you'd be running into potentially legally-troublesome waters if you tried to deny that benefit (not necessarily the case that you couldn't get away with it, but it might be spinning the legal roulette wheel).

The only way I can envision to make something like this work without some really, really ugly kludges would be if there was some way of positively associating a driver's identity with the vehicle at each toll point, and cross-referencing that with each driver's financial information. Doing that, to me, would represent an enormous privacy nightmare, particularly if the tolls were widespread.

 

[737900er]

The only way I can envision to make something like this work without some really, really ugly kludges would be if there was some way of positively associating a driver's identity with the vehicle at each toll point, and cross-referencing that with each driver's financial information. Doing that, to me, would represent an enormous privacy nightmare, particularly if the tolls were widespread.

I suppose they could attach the toll to the value of the car rather than the driver's income (for example using the flawed excise tax valuation system). They know what the value of a 2021 Honda Accord is and I doubt many lawyers will start driving around in Mirages to save on tolls. It doesn't fix the regressiveness completely; high earners who have cars spend a smaller portion of their income on cars. However it's easy to implement, they already have access to data from other states/provinces, and wouldn't have as many privacy concerns.

 

[fatnoah]

The wealthiest person I know is destitute in the eyes of the IRS. Mark Zuckerburg has an on-paper salary of just $1

According to Americans for Tax Fairness, Zuck paid $536M in taxes from 2013-2018, so it's not like he doesn't have income reported. However, that's also a tremendously small fraction of his wealth.

Regardless, if we're going to tax for improvements to transportation, I'd rather it just be a broad tax or even something similar to the medicare surtax. Just like schools, police, etc. having an effective transportation system benefits both users and non-users. The surtax is on investment income, so it would at least partially address the scenario you outlined where the highest income earners are mostly making money through investment income vs. earned income.

 

[Scott]

Keep in mind that the wealthy and the students are generally the only people rich enough to live in Town. Why don't we tax them?

Edit: I am being sarcastic

 

[jbray]

I think @Brattle Loop's quote really hits the nail on the head:

You don't just need people to believe that the money will be put to good use, you need them to be willing to pay in the first place. That's a hard chicken-egg problem in this context, because you'd be asking a good chunk of people to take on direct extra costs for an indefinite period (until either transportation options improve or they reorder their entire lives) in exchange for the hope/promise of better future options. It's not an easy sell. In part because (especially if overly broadly implemented) there are plenty of people on whom the burden would fall disproportionately and/or on whom the benefits would be scant, if any. (Let's say someone works where there are jobs and lives where housing is cheaper, and has to commute via a road that will get tolled, but somewhere where the transit options aren't ever likely to be significantly improved absent, say, a megaproject of a radial transit line along the 128 corridor.)

@Blackbird's pushback is actually a good look at why transit funding in our region (and country for that matter) is in such a dire state. If a reasonable and thoughtful person, like @Blackbird, who is aware of the benefits of public transit as well as the need for funding, is politically against the measures necessary to accurately charge for the external cost of their mode choice and help fund alternatives, we will continue to be stuck in a world where the MBTA is both unable to fund its current problems let alone expand to a more useful future. What hope can we have for people who are unaware or disinterested if those interested are against the measures as well?

My opinion should be clear, while I am not trying to villainize, it seems imperative to me that all highway commutes, reverse or otherwise, intra-128 should be mode shifted where possible. I am a firm believer that the 128 beltway should at least have light rail and connections between the regional rail system as well as the branches that currently reach out. You don't get to a future like that by barely funding one-station expansions at a time so road users need to be part of that funding model given that their infrastructure and mode use present the worst external cost on the health and sustainability of society.

 

[bigeman312]

I think @Brattle Loop's quote really hits the nail on the head:


@Blackbird's pushback is actually a good look at why transit funding in our region (and country for that matter) is in such a dire state. If a reasonable and thoughtful person, like @Blackbird, who is aware of the benefits of public transit as well as the need for funding, is politically against the measures necessary to accurately charge for the external cost of their mode choice and help fund alternatives, we will continue to be stuck in a world where the MBTA is both unable to fund its current problems let alone expand to a more useful future. What hope can we have for people who are unaware or disinterested if those interested are against the measures as well?

My opinion should be clear, while I am not trying to villainize, it seems imperative to me that all highway commutes, reverse or otherwise, intra-128 should be mode shifted where possible. I am a firm believer that the 128 beltway should at least have light rail and connections between the regional rail system as well as the branches that currently reach out. You don't get to a future like that by barely funding one-station expansions at a time so road users need to be part of that funding model given that their infrastructure and mode use present the worst external cost on the health and sustainability of society.

You're absolutely correct, but the question becomes how? How do we incentivize the infrastructure changes necessary to support such a mode-shift? The best solution I see is to continue making the progress that the municipalities (Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, etc) are slowly making on reclaiming transportation space away from automobiles and to different modes and accept that larger, sweeping changes on a state or regional level are just infeasible in the current climate. Heck, Massachusetts voters voted down something as small and simple as indexing gas tax to inflation.

 

[millerm277]

You're absolutely correct, but the question becomes how? How do we incentivize the infrastructure changes necessary to support such a mode-shift? The best solution I see is to continue making the progress that the municipalities (Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, etc) are slowly making on reclaiming transportation space away from automobiles and to different modes and accept that larger, sweeping changes on a state or regional level are just infeasible in the current climate. Heck, Massachusetts voters voted down something as small and simple as indexing gas tax to inflation.

Find some other revenue source that's less politically radioactive, actually build and operate an expanded, reliable, pleasant, clean, system that people believe offers a good service that they want to use or at least can see themselves using, and then start with more of the financial/structural disincentives to car use.

You look at the current state of the T, and demanding people accept "sticks" now to have faith that they're somehow going to see the "carrot" side of it be worth it in a few years, is a big ask.

 

[bigeman312]

Find some other revenue source that's less politically radioactive

Thoughts?

 

[Brattle Loop]

You're absolutely correct, but the question becomes how? How do we incentivize the infrastructure changes necessary to support such a mode-shift? The best solution I see is to continue making the progress that the municipalities (Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, etc) are slowly making on reclaiming transportation space away from automobiles and to different modes and accept that larger, sweeping changes on a state or regional level are just infeasible in the current climate. Heck, Massachusetts voters voted down something as small and simple as indexing gas tax to inflation.

Agreed, though I think there is some added value in being able to point to the smaller-ticket improvements, both in demonstrating their value and that they're capable of being implemented. Things from smaller to larger, like Boston's expansion of bus lanes, Cambridge's expansion of bike lanes, some of the mixed-use trails that have been opened and expanded, to things like the GLX providing transit where none was before all build on each other's utility to some degree in making transit a better and more viable option. Somerville's probably going to see greater impetus for expanding bike and bus lanes to improve access to the GLX now that it's up and running. It's not sufficient to only make small improvements, but a constant churn of them does help center transit as an option, and a viable option worthy of attention, and funding.

Find some other revenue source that's less politically radioactive, actually build and operate an expanded, reliable, pleasant, clean, system that people believe offers a good service that they want to use or at least can see themselves using, and then start with more of the financial/structural disincentives to car use.

It's not as though the legislature is wholly averse to taxing and spending. A big part of the problem is their unwillingness to reliably fund the system. I agree that less directly-objectionable (and by that I mean particularly obtrusive/noticeable funding mechanisms like tolls) are a better place to start, but there has to be either a political or legal (ballot initiative?) mechanism for forcing Beacon Hill to spend the money appropriately.

 

[Roxxma]

Thoughts?

A parking space tax in both retail and residential garages and lots, maybe $2 or $3 per use in retail garages, and maybe a flat yearly for residential garages, which would go towards transportation. Retail garages (IE hourly) to help collect on the expenses imposed by daily drivers, and residential garages to help collect on drivers who evade taxes by registering out of state. On a recent walk through a residential garage in the South End, I noticed that about 50-60% of all cars garaged there were likely illegally registered out of state, and therefore evading Massachusetts sales and excise taxes (cars garaged in Massachusetts for more than thirty days per year have to be registered here, with exceptions made for military and certain medical occupations). There is a process to recover that, but it doesn't seem as though the RMV or DOR are interested in affirmatively pursuing it. They could also offer a partial or full rebate to those whose cars park in the garages and have proper registrations.

 

[Charlie_mta]

The Feds don't allow tolling of interstates to pay for transit projects, BUT, I still think it's the way to go, if someday the laws are changed to allow that. Not only could tolls be indexed for Massachusetts residents based on their peroneal income, tolls could also be varied throughout the day to have higher tolls during peak hours, and lower tolls in non-peak hours. This is already done for HOT lanes throughout the country. The benefits of this would be multiple: funding fpr transit projects plus reducing traffic on main highways during peak use hours.

And what if the Feds never approve the use of highway tolls for transit projects? Then go ahead with the above plan but use the toll revenues for road projects, which would then free up equivalent amounts of MassDOT funds, currently used for road projects, to be used instead for transit projects.

 

[HenryAlan]

What, like the gas tax?

No, the large general fund appropriation that goes to road maintenance. The gas tax doesn't remotely cover the cost. So the suggestion is fund maintenance with gas tax + tolls, rather than gas tax + general fund.

 

[Scott]

In the past sin taxes like those on cigarettes or tolls like on the Mass Pike were said to be for a specific purpose and then at the whim of the legislature they were used for other things. Is there any guarantee under state law that these tolls would be used for the intended purpose. I believe there isn't

 

[Brattle Loop]

Is there any guarantee under state law that these tolls would be used for the intended purpose. I believe there isn't

For the most part, I think not. One of the (weaker) arguments against the millionaires tax ballot initiative last fall was that the funds it would raise that were ostensibly earmarked for education and transportation could be put to other purposes by the General Court. There may be some state constitutional provisions that restrict them in some cases, but absent that, even if they passed a law saying a specific tax was for a specific purpose, the same legislature could subsequently alter that at will.

 

[BeyondRevenue]

Backward tax policy got us into this mess.
Forward tax policy will get us out.
Can you imagine if in the '50s we all decided to...

• Give $10k in tax incentives for not owning a car
• Toll all major highways
• Incentivize multi-unit dwellings
• Penalize racist, gluttonous SFD-only zoning
• Make suburban developers maintain the roads they 'gave' us
• Tax by miles driven
• Free the MBTA

...just to name a few

We didn't.

The laws we made catered to caveman id and spoiled brat tastes -- bringing 'fun for all', profit for some and a mere notion we'd hit a wall.. someday.
Like children we voted for go-carts, tubs of sugar and every kid getting their own free-standing fort in the woods.
Now were mad that the street lights are coming on and it's time to come home.
We're the problem.