O'Malley and the legislature are looking to raise fees for transportation, from a 15-cent increase in gas taxes to higher charges for bus and rail passengers. Car registration fees would also go up.
If that's the cost of maintaining and improving our infrastructure, I don't see much of an alternative: better to pay now and not when there's a bridge collapse. We used to get a good-sized chunk of money from the Federal Government, but that's drying up and we have some serious needs that even this package may not address. The "Purple Line" in the DC area is on us here in Maryland, and that looks to be a few billion dollars, which is in fact far more than this new fee would raise.
Stuff is expensive!
