Fees that could be used to fund Corona's transportation bill

A day or so ago, I editorialized about Sen John Corona's bill that would allow Dallas County Commissioners to impose taxes that would be used to fund transportation projects in the area. I said that the bill would allow the commissioners to raise the sales tax. That was incorrect. I have finally secured a copy of the proposal and it appears these are the fees the country can play with:

• A tax on the sale of gasoline not to exceed 10 cents a gallon but which would be adjusted annually according to inflation.
• A "mobility improvement fee, in an amount not to exceed $60" that would be "imposed on each person registering a motor vehicle in the county other than a person who initially registers a vehicle after acquiring the vehicle." (Huh?)
• A $1-an-hour tax charged for using public parking places.
• An annual motor emissions fee based upon the amount of pollutants your car ads to the Dallas air. The maximum tax here would be $15 a year. I'm guessing that would be added to the cost of your annual auto inspection.
• Doubling the fee for renewing your driver's license with the added charge going into the transportation fund.
• A maximum $250 "new resident roadway impact fee ... imposed on each person registering a motor vehicle previously registered in another state or country and collected at the time of registration."

Incidentally, the commissioners don't have to pick just one of the above options. They could impose as many of them as they think would be needed to get the job done each time they approved a new transportation project.

I still don't like this plan, even if sales taxes are not involved. My opposition, as stated earlier, is based upon my belief that:

• Rail transportation, especially high speed rail transportation, which is desperately needed, is a regional, even a statewide issue, and shouldn't be approached on a county-by-county basis.
• To impose these fees would require two votes: The first a statewide vote just to approve the concept and then local county-by-county votes every time the commissioners decided they wanted to fund another project. Frankly, in these economic times, I don't think highway loving Texans are going to vote to raise their own taxes for projects designed to pry them out of their pickups.
• I still think someone should more carefully analyze where the money we currently pay in federal and state gasoline taxes is going and to report why those funds can't be used to fund these projects.