Anyone witnessing the sea of headlights and taillights at rush hour on the highways must realize that the solution to many transportation and environmental related problems rests with public transportation. The decision whether to commute to work in an automobile or public transportation is solely in the impact to the pocketbook. The MBTA and its passengers should not be made to solve the current budget problems on the backs of the riders. Fiddling with this or that bus route should only be fine tuning the system, not solving the finances.
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Public transportation is the solution in the denser areas. It is not a panacea. During the last century of low energy prices, we allowed our suburban development to sprawl so broadly that people are now going in so many different directions that many communities can’t be adequately served by public transit 1networks. Some people just have to drive — driving is not a pocket book decision if you live in Marlboro, you work in Burlington, your spouse works in Shrewsbury and your child goes to college South Dartmouth. In the many cases like that, driving is a pocket book problem, but not a pocket book decision.
That’s why there is political pushback on the gas tax. We have developed in such as a way as to harden our addiction to the automobile. But as a person representing a denser area, I am able, politically, to argue that additional gas tax revenue is part of the solution.