[Carfreeliving] gas tax fund for New Orleans

[Jason Henderson]

Hi,

I grew up in New Orleans. I have known this was coming all my life. I 
sat through a few. I am in geography and interested in urbanism and 
transportation issues because of this.

The damge to New Orleans is not a surprise at all, and much of it should 
not be rebuilt. I am not talking about the French Quarter or Victorian 
sections, nor the development along the natural levees.  What should not 
be rebuilt is the sprawl surrounding NOLA. This is a major reason the 
damage has been so immense. Global Warming, sea level rise, coastal 
erosion resulting from canals to access oil and gas, subsidence on an 
immense scale due to the weight of sprawl. Massive levees constructed to 
protect sprawl. Filling in once essential backswamps for sprawl [These 
backswamps used to "store" these surges and rising tides.] Hurricanes 
happen all the time. This was not an act of God or nature, it was public 
policy.
A sustainable New Orleans rebuilt could densify and manage half a 
million. Like San Francisco, New Orlenas had 800 thousand in the 1950s 
and had a much smaller footprint.

SO, on to the money. Funding for the ecologically sustainable rebuild of 
parts of NOLA (including densification of Baton Rouge without expanding 
physical footprint):

50 cent gas tax for direct and immediate aid
50 cent gas tax directly into rebuild fund

Since America's automobility addiction largely led to this, this seems 
fair, Maybe $2.00....

Also, consider a

50 cent gas tax for global warming mitigation fund
50 cent gas tax for sprawl mitigation fund (i.e urbanism fund)
50 cent gas tax for national high speed rail network
50 cent gas tax for national transit fund.

$3.50 gas tax total. Nationwide. ($2.00 additional for all
non-utlility suvs, which is 99% of them)

just a thought as the cost of this is pondered.
-jh

-- 
Jason Henderson 
San Francisco CA 
(415)-255-8136
jhenders at sbcglobal.net 

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: jhenders.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 218 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : /pipermail/carfreeliving_livablecity.org/attachments/20050901/ceb88bdf/jhenders.vcf