The Union Leader has a great editorial in this mornings Sunday News titled "Free Trains." It is great for several reasons the least of which is that it mirrors concerns I have been expressing for years. That no matter who pays to build them, someone has to pay to keep them. That would be New Hampshire Taxpayers. But Democrats are aghast that the NH House would dissolve the New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority–the head of a beast seeking to force commuter rail upon us–because hey it doesn’t cost anything.
But it does cost and it could lead to something that costs us even more in the future. A lot more.
December 2009 at NH Insider – I hit it out of the park when someone compared road taxes to rail taxes.
Passenger rail costs are not limited to the root infrastructure itself. That would be rails versus roads. Taxpayers would have to subsidize passenger rail-cars, fuel the cars, maintain the cars, probably pay the workers and their benefits, and support the entire system when it fails to turn a profit, which will be always and probably forever. While roads have some other infrastructure nothing compares to rail.
In contrast people buy their own cars, and pay for their own fuel and maintenance. They may buy the car to get to a job that’s probably not funded by taxpayers either. (Except in Concord) Taxpayers do not need to subsidize any of that where with rail we’re supporting all of it. So there is no possible apples to apples comparison to road and rail taxes.
The state also makes a lot of money on registration fees and fuel taxes for road vehicles, tolls and license plates, and some towns rely so heavily on registration fees that even minor reductions can cause budget issues. Passenger rail offers no comparable net increase in revenues and in all likely hood a net loss. So Passenger rail risks reducing revenues and increasing tax obligations for no significant greater good.
But that’s hardly the most pressing point about the ongoing illusion of free commuter rail…
