By: Bill Wilson
Ever try salt-and-pepper potato chips?
For five hours I was sitting in the middle seat of an
airplane (for those who don’t know, I’m 6’5”), watching
“I Love Lucy” episodes, eating salt-and-pepper potato chips and
wondering exactly how much snow was sticking to the wings.
Luckily we were still on the ground at Chicago’s
O’Hare International Airport. Wait, did I just say “luckily”?
Well, my first trip to San Francisco did come with a little green. Two coats to
be exact. Crews sprayed deicing liquid resembling antifreeze once before
takeoff. Then when O’Hare decided to close our runway to plow we had to
sit, wait, return to the gate, wait and receive another dose of the compound.
By then ripping open the bag of salt-and-pepper chips was a good idea. At least
it was something to do. After all, the headset they gave me for “I Love
Lucy” didn’t work.
They know how to move in the land of Golden Gate. I have
never seen a public transportation system quite like the Bay Area’s. On
the map there are four colored bus routes, a street car line, ferry service,
the BART, the MUNI underground and the only mobile American monument in the
country—the cable cars. Believe me, the little map I had was attached to
my face. I followed it religiously.
Even more impressive was how these systems intertwined. On
Market Street electric train lines run between four lanes of vehicular traffic.
The rickety cable cars run their main route on Powell and Hyde Streets. They
are the true generals of the San Francisco hills, and commuters rarely break
their march. People who bunk by the Bay seem to lack the kick of a typical
city.
California did lead a charge for the highway industry while
I was attending the National Asphalt Pavement Association’s 47th Annual
Convention. On March 5, voters there embraced Proposition 42, a ballot measure
that will dedicate all proceeds from state gasoline tax to highway and transit
use. The measure, which received a 69% approval rating, prevents state
lawmakers from tapping gas-tax revenues for non-transportation purposes and
held off an 11th-hour campaign by public employee unions who argued passage
might prompt cuts in education and vital health services.
We’ll be competing with top-ranked teams until the next TEA-21—TEA-3—is passed. The Department of Defense, the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services are all diving for this loose ball known as the president’s budget. What
I’m having a hard time with is the accounting genius of George W. With
the economy trying to pull its way back onto the life boat and the war on
terrorism creating new money demands, how is he getting away with not raising
taxes?
This is why establishing a high dollar value now is
essential to TEA-3. The administration seems to be in favor of reinstating $4.4
billion of federal money into the highway program, which will put the 2003
level at about $27.7 billion. In my mind this is still a far cry from the over
$31 billion most expected, and asking for an additional $5-10 billion annually
during the lifetime of TEA-3 is going to require more than just delivering a
few fruit baskets to the leaders of Congress.
Interesting enough, some major players in the industry are
still high on the Revenue Aligned Budget Authority (RABA) and believe it will
once again be an integral piece in the next funding package. This faithful dog
generated millions during the first and second stage of TEA-21, but left a mess
for us to clean up this past year. With a nation fixed on an alternative fuel
solution like ethanol and the hybrid engine, how can we say RABA will go back
to being a devoted companion? Some have suggested capturing revenue lost to the
ethanol tax break, but what about Detroit’s hybrid experiment? The
technology is already out on the roads.
Like I’ve said time and time again, we can’t
afford another drop in altitude. I’m not asking anyone to try
salt-and-pepper chips, but we can’t be afraid of sampling an entirely new
form of revenue.
