Originally Posted by ndbiker

That is in essence what happened when gas went to over $4/gallon. The problem is behavior modification works. If you raise the taxes to inhibit driving, people drive less which reduces your tax base. Nearly all mass transit systems are tax subsidized. When gas went to over $4 per gallon many transit systems found that they were overflowing with riders but losing money as revenues plummeted. Large cities for the most part can sustain their mass transit sytems. Mid size cities (most of the cities in the US) can't support the cost of a local mass transit system (except for bus service).

As far a US tax, why? Shouldn't it be done at the local level. Why do I want someone in New York to pay for mass transit in Ohio. We have a private mass transit system which works quite well over the distances we cover in our United States, the airlines. We have trains where they make sense, in heavily populated New England. If the cost of gas goes up high enough governments will have to figure out ways to pay for mass transit, but I fear gas taxes would not do the job.