As someone who is an advocate for bringing passenger rail to Nashua and southern New Hampshire, I believe that people who hold this position, like me, are compelled to come up with a way to fund it, especially the day-to-day operations.Currently, the people of New Hampshire have stymied dedicated transit revenue streams via the gasoline tax with a prohibitive constitutional amendment.
In addition, New Hampshire politicians have a unique habit of “taking the pledge” against any broad-based taxes.
Yet some New Hampshire politicians are not seeing reality when they say that they would be in favor of passenger rail if, it “paid for itself.”
This ignores the fact that there aren’t any transportation systems in the United States, transit or auto, that do not require government subsidy.
Unlike roads and bridges, our state government has no dedicated revenue stream for funding transit in New Hampshire, operations or capital improvements.
The time is now for the people of New Hampshire to fix this gross inequity.
We need a stream of revenue at the state level dedicated to transit so that we can offer a range of transportation choices to the traveling public and remain competitive in a 21st century global economy.
Raymond Guarino Nashua