Editing 76-04-B4 (section)

=== Transcript ===
Elected officials come and go, but on the shores of the Potomac the bureaucrats keep right on thinking up zany ideas. I'll be right back.

Recently, I talked about the Diamond Lane project on a heavily traveled California freeway. This scheme reserved a lane in each direction to buses and car pools during commute hours. The stated purpose was to force people out of their cars and into the buses in order to relieve congestion and ease air pollution. In other words, government was telling the people what was good for them. The results weren't surprising. Congestion on surface streets and on-ramps increased, and so did air pollution. Finally, a judge wisely ruled that the experiment had to be abandoned until and unless an environmental impact report had been filed and approved.

California's state Department of Transportation was the creator of that mischievous attempt at coercing the citizens, but egging them on with encouragement (and money) was its federal counterpart.

Now, Washington's transit "experts" from UMTA--that's the Urban Mass Transportation Administration--have come up with an idea so far-fetched that it makes the Diamond Lane look like a model of civic virtue by comparison.

UMTA's new idea has been to get some city council to take leave of its senses long enough to institute a plan to charge its citizens a daily tax to drive on the city's streets! Behind this rock-solid article of faith of all mass transit zealots, is the notion that people should stop driving cars and ride buses. The UMTA bureaucrats figure that if a city charges a dollar or two a day as a "street tax", people will be happy to park their car at the city and hop a bus.

I have news for them. People don't behave that way. Their travel patterns are as individual as they are, and they won't fit into neatly compartmentalized schemes, Not to mention the fact that the UMTA scheme--if it ever is put into practice--amounts to double taxation.

They're not discouraged, though. They think they've finally found a taker. The other day, the mayor of Berkeley, California announced that his city would study the UMTA wizards' proposal.

He described Berkeley as "special". It's "special" alright. Whatever else it has been though, it just happens to have a federal Interstate Highway and at least one state highway crossing through it. Millions of people beyond the city's own citizens paid for and use those highways. And, in California, as in many other states, the state gas tax is partly apportioned out to the cities for street work. So, Berkleyans and non-Berkleyans have already paid for those streets.

Apparently, though, the UMTA experts expect all the traffic to queue-up at the toll gates on the city line to pay their daily tax. Consider how many thousands of gallons of gasoline will go up in smoke as all those cars idle. Ridiculous? Of course it is, but both Berkeley and UMTA seem to be taking themselves seriously. One official, comparing this scheme to a controversial program to divert some Berkeley traffic issue with street barricades during the last year, said, the street tax "is going to make the controversy over the barricades seem like child's play."

But the city's director of transportation was quoted in one news report as saying that the federal government would be asked to put up the money for the parking lots, shuttle buses and toll gates, as well as the money to run the street tax system.

Pass the cream; I think I'm at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
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