Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Sometimes being in the top ten isn't all that much fun



Forbes Magazine has been good to Spokane over the years, favorably editorializing on the quality of life we have here. They have even ranked our state as one of the top five places to do business. But now this... Forbes just ranked Washington State in the top 10 states for high gas taxes. On the bright side, we are pretty low on that list. There are still six states that are taxing there residents significantly higher than us.

The state gas tax is currently at 37.5 per gallon, but that still is not enough to cover all the needs that mounting in Washington. It is likely that the legislature will look at raising it again in 2009. It is also possible that the state might look at other sources of revenue to ease the "pain at the pump." We'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, let's play King for the day. If you were king (or queen), how would you propose to raise the money necessary to meet our state's transportation needs?

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About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.