Missed Opportunity

NBC covered something on Nightly News tonight that Peak Oil folks have been discussing for a while -- our infrastructure is crumbling.  Actually, a friend of mine (I have no idea if she is part of the Peak Oil crowd or not) was the first to fill me in years ago.

The issue goes beyond roads and bridges.  It is also water & sewer, electrical grid, schools, the list goes on.

But for driving, let's make this clear, bumpy roads can lead to car damage (it certainly leads to wear and tear) -- it makes owning and operating a car more expensive.

How could we have avoided this?  What was our missed opportunity?  We could have taxed ourselves.  By raising the gas tax years ago we would have been putting that money into our own coffers instead of into the coffers of countries that don't really care for us.  At $2/gallon, adding say a $0.20/gallon tax, people would have had a fit and politicians heads would have rolled.  But here we are clearly marching towards $5/gallon gas, and the roads are still crowded. 

Taxing ourselves would have gotten us away from the disaster of SUVs more quickly as well (although at something closer to a $2/gallon gas tax than a $0.20/gallon gas tax).  The big three auto makers would never admit it, but a gradual and planned increase in the price of gas via a gas tax would have allowed them to transition away from the SUV market in a more orderly format, which would have been great for their economy, as well as ours.  It takes a lot of time to retool a plant -- and right now we really need plants that can turn out more busses (and rail cars).

-- Andy

P.S. A road near my house was recently repaved, and they made it worse than it was before.  So increased cost does not (necessarily) equate to better quality.

P.P.S. H St (along with a number of other DC streets) is notorious for being ripped up and fixed, only to be ripped up again.  This is done as the utility companies have no sense of coordination with each other.  It is a major detriment to all involved.  If the cot of repaving is increasingly expensive, would this push them to be better at coordinating.