Oil consumption peaks for world's No. 3 consumer: California

What's the status of public transit and high occupancy lane use? What about recreational uses of fuel?

A state shouldn't be the third-highest oil consumer. It gives people the impression the West Coast is unconcerned.

The state is on a low scale war against new transit modalities.

Years of work to build the HSR (High Speed Railway) between L.A. and SF has been under immense attack from Arnie since he took office.

There will be an another attempt to put the project on the ballot (last I heard for June)..

Attempting to get new gas taxes for anything but more car lanes or road repair faces huge obstacles due to the way News at noon has covered this issue for years.

You wouldn't know the Bay Area Transit Network was the same Bay Area when comparing news between the MSM and BATN...

Probably one in fifty people know that the state's transit apparatus puts out nearly 50% of the state's CO2 gasses....

Why does the governor oppose the railway?

Are those existing gas taxes sufficient for those car lanes, and for road repair?

Why do so few people know about this?

He's postponed the statewide initiative twice already because it was in the way of bond issues he was promoting. The postponements, along with zero coverage outside of the corridor battles that are long over put the issue out of the public's mind. I also think that the MSM has been censoring the issue as they've traditionally been a huge supporter of the car and gas industry here.

They've worked out some kind of private/public partnership that seems to have finally gotten his support, so having checked my library on the HSR he is now tentatively going to support it for November. vs. June.

The timing looks like it will have a very though due to its huge costs and the car lobby's campaign against it. There was a huge fight in downtown where it will start, and its ending in L.A.

California has one of the highest gas taxes in the country, something over 60 cents a gallon. The roads are in horrible shape, many areas of the state have huge air polution troubles, are deadly for pedestrians, and have growing congestion problems. Last year at CO2-Climate change events, it was shown that 45% of the state's CO2 footprint is from transit.

The state is in a huge PR relationship over the taxes and repairs. Back a few years ago a ballot was won to force all go to road repair, rather than for other things. They've gotten away with siphoning money off several times, but this year with people driving less, and previous agreements not to siphon money away from road repair the governor is pushing to slash funding across the board, including over $4 billion in education. The current fiscal crisis just happened a few short months after a huge new prison funding budget was passed.

Survey's of state driver's usually show most people wanting more roads or money going just for road repairs. As I said above, the local TV news programs use this issue all the time to criticize any attempts to use gas taxes for anything other than for expansion of roads or repairs.

The situation is not as bad here as there; I prefer gas taxes to go just for roads.

I disagree.

Europe has demonstrated that public transit and community design issues should take priority over the failed form of private unregulated transit. Over 50% of most urban areas in the U.S. are now covered by concrete.

Public transit systems, along with reorganizing work and homes away from private cars represents the most important human shift that could be made on this planet.

During the lifetime of the Baby Boomers, the planet will have used over half of all the oil ever produced on this planet. Lets' see. What will this do for the future of humanity when most of our drugs, fertilzer, chemicals like plastics, food, not to mention transit are reliant on a non-renewable resource?

Most of Europe uses gas taxes to maintain roads but also for the construction of High Speed rail systems across the continent. You can get from Munich to Paris far cheaper than it takes to fly a similar distance here. We've destroyed our train systems here.

We built this civilization on the basis of cheap oil (less than $1 a barrel up until 1950). It is no longer cheap and must be replaced or the country will end up back in the stone age.

New construction of parking lots and other pertinent areas should be porous. It's too bad that so many rail corridors have been abandoned. Some are now trails.

I really don't think this is an opportune time to talk of hiking taxes. Besides, Europe may have maintained more corridors.

I don't oppose other energies. I also hesitate to blame a generation which has worked hard to make the next generation able to belly-ache, especially given that generational conflicts are nothing new. One day, today's youngsters will find themselves criticized by the next generation.