Financing for Highways

Leo Trombatore’s (state director of transportation) letter (Aug. 14) reveals the un-Republican, anti-Adam Smith philosophy of the Deukmejian Administration’s bond proposal for highway financing. It does not provide the “more balanced approach to highway finance” promised by Trombatore.

It continues and exacerbates the present imbalance--sales taxes, property taxes and businesses pay the public cost for motorists and truckers, particularly the latter. It is this imbalance which has gotten us into this mess in the first place.

Until we stop the practice of providing gross subsidies to motorists and trucking firms, we will not be able to resolve our urban transportation catastrophe.

Traffic-management strategies, which he also cites, are, for the most part, in place. They’ve already demonstrated their marginal effectiveness in controlling congestion. Construction is not the answer--the cost for an effective expansion of the system would exceed $20,000 per household.

Anything less would simply move the roadblocks to other and worse locations. And even that absurdly expensive program would be only a temporary solution until more cars and trucks move into the scene.

The only rational solution requires that we remove the burden of highway financing from the sales, property and income taxpayers and place it where it belongs, on the motorist, and, particularly, on the trucking industry.

We object to the principle of bond financing; highway financing should be pay-as-you-go. However, AB 671, written by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), chairman of the Transportation Committee, which would provide over $3 billion by means of a bond issue, would repay the bonds from the gasoline tax.

That, at least, is as it should be.

STANLEY HART

Chairman

Transportation Committee

Sierra Club

Altadena