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Time to raise gas tax

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR | letters | a fare solution?

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

February 22, 2012

RE “PLAN to share costs would curb T hikes’’ (Metro, Feb. 16): I appreciate the work of the MBTA Advisory Board in searching for alternatives to steep rate hikes and reduction of services, but it seems that one logical part of a solution is missing. Why don’t we raise the gas tax, last raised in Massachusetts in 1991?

Anyone who drives in and around Boston knows that the last thing we need around here is more traffic. It makes no sense whatsoever to raise rates on what we want more of (public transportation). It makes perfect sense to tax what we want less of (traffic).

Raising rates and cutting services would not only disproportionately affect the poor, students, the disabled, and other disadvantaged communities, but it would also reduce ridership, increase our already-infamous traffic, and add to greenhouse gas emissions.

Public transportation is a public good that removes cars from the roads and decreases the amount of carbon dioxide emissions and particulate pollution that each rider might otherwise produce in a car.

Let’s do the right thing. Add a gas tax to the conversation.

Gabriela Romanow