Posted by Resident, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Jul 20, 2012 at 11:37 am

Blame the electric cars, hybrids, volts, leafs, teslas, etc.

They have to be the reason otherwise they would just tax gas. Not a surprising move by the Government.

I can see that the ones who will vote yes will be gas guzzler drivers, and the ones voting no will be electric vehicle drivers!

Posted by not going to happen, a resident of the Adobe-Meadows neighborhood, on Jul 20, 2012 at 12:08 pm

I really doubt they could ever make the logistics work on something like that. How do you keep people from tampering with their systems?

If they need more money for road projects, they should just increase the gas tax. Really not fair to keep using sales tax and property tax money for road projects.

I don't have an electric car, but I don't mind if people use them to avoid paying gas taxes, since they do create vastly less air pollution than gas burning cars. This is the same reason that they let electric cars use the carpool lanes, right?

Posted by anonymous, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on Jul 20, 2012 at 12:31 pm

"Bay Area drivers could pay up to $1 per mile to drive under tax proposal" - Mike Rosenberg, Bay Area News Group ('Are you kidding me?', The Daily News, July 18, 2012, p.A7) This was so compelling, I ripped out and saved this hardcopy article.

Whatever the amount would be, whatver they claim, it is a totally outrageous idea/plan. This Metropolitan Transportation Commission and ABAG (Assoc of Bay Area Governments) are out of control.

I have read/heard different things about whether voter approval would be needed. I think it is more about government grasping for more money (to pay for the MTC and ABAG -- what do their "staff" and operations cost?!) rather than traffic reduction. I get that there are regional transportation and housing issues/concerns, but there needs to be a better way of planning for this.

Posted by anonymous, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on Jul 20, 2012 at 12:46 pm

More from the same article:

"...drivers would likely have to install GPS-like trackers on their cars to tally travel in the nine-county Bay Area, from freeways to neighborhood streets, with only low-income people excepted."

ok, I assume whoever manufacturers the transponders (which I don't have as I don't commute over a bridge)is lobbying for this plan so they can make a TON of money

PLUS, we will - as usual - have to subsidize/pay for "low inome" - however that level is defined -- this entire thing is just a bunch of additional bureaucratic nonsense we cannot afford.

What we need are some decent, responsible politicians who will reduce government bureaucracy and nutty plans. Oh, City of Palo Alto,perhaps you can pave the streets and fix the potholes in front of the $2M homes (what do people THINK who visit here and see this?) it is inconsistent with what I have seen elsewhere.