No sympathy

Tom Toles editorial cartoon from the Washington Post.

The headline on the cover of the DC edition of The Examiner reads "Price of Metrorail to Dulles might land on Toll Road drivers: Commuters could end up paying for half of $4 billion extension."

And your point is?

Roads are subsidized by the tune of 50% from general funds of federal, state, and local governments. Gasoline excise taxes and fees cover the other 50%.

Why should road subsidies be sacrosanct? It's not like the toll road users aren't "driving" demand for transportation and more roads.

Granted in theory, their tolls cover the cost of the road that they are driving on. But they drive on plenty of other subsidized roads.

Who better to pay for an expansion of Metrorail in Virginia but Virginians? As Sam Smith and many others have pointed out, DC has subsidized the initial construction of the Metrorail system by directing all of its federal highway monies (part of that 50% subsidy...) to this. Virginia and Maryland did not take similar actions.

Live by the subsidy, die by the subsidy... see this previous blog entry: Virginia is for "free riders" (not lovers). Ideology such as "pay as you go" comes home to roost.

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