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The board of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation released its 21st Century Transportation Plan, which outlines the state’s budgetary needs over the course of the next 10 years and beyond.
With infrastructure in need of repairs and the major city transit system steeped in billions of dollars of debt, the state may need to increase revenue from car registrations, license renewals, taxes and tolls.
The Board of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation released its 21st Century Transportation Plan Monday, which calls for a $13 billion overall investment in state transportations systems over the next decade.
The breakdown is as follows, according to a statement associated with the plan released by Transportation Secretary and CEO Richard A. Davey:
To raise the necessary funds these recommendations will include an increase in the gas tax, payroll tax, sales tax or income tax; a new green fee on vehicle registrations; a vehicle miles traveled tax; regular and modest fare, fee and toll increases; and new tolling mechanisms, according to the statement.
“Without new revenues, the MassDOT Board of Directors will need to cut service at the MBTA and RTAs and significantly increase fares in order to approve a balanced budget for Fiscal Year 2014, which begins July 1,” according to the statement.
Gov. Deval Patrick, who attended a presentation of the plan Monday at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said the state is faced with difficult but necessary choices.
“What’s plain as day is that we have to make choices. We can choose to invest in ourselves, to invest in a growth strategy that has been proven time and again to work. Or we can choose to do nothing. But let us be clear: doing nothing is a choice, too,” he said. “And that choice has consequences. It means longer commutes, cuts in services, larger fare and fee increases, and a continuation of the self-defeating economics of cutting off large parts of our population from opportunity and growth.”
He concluded by saying: “I choose growth. I choose shaping our own future over letting the future happen to us. I hope we all are ready that make that choice, and I look forward to working together with you to do so.”
Ajax
5:32 pm on Monday, January 14, 2013
A green fee and a vehicle miles traveled tax? Why don't they just quit wasting money on dumb projects like the gov't center renovations etc and stop taxing us to death? Oh, because its the government and they do not care about how hard we work for our money.
ann merritt
8:18 am on Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Sounds like Deville Patricks' Cadillac spending plan!
One billion a year? That' what the obama s' spent last year on vacation travel! Maybe if they'd just stay in the taxpayer paid mansion we gave them for awhile, they could give some Obama bucks to " Minnie me"!
Funny how our politicians live like royalty, shower our cash on all their friends and pet projects that go bankrupt !? Money that they took from us to pay for repairs to infrastructure and basic services. Yeeha ha. A big ole pork barrel part in DC and Bacon Hill!
Tell Deville to go feed at another trough!
ann merritt
8:20 am on Tuesday, January 15, 2013
A big ole pork barrel " party"!
Donna C.
5:50 pm on Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Can elizabeth warren save us working middleclassers from being "hammered" ??? !!!!!!!!! This is a perfect example. Disgusting.