As you can probably imagine, I loved the lede in this morning’s N&R story on PART’s vanishing fund balance:
The free ride on PART might coast to a stop soon for area taxpayers, meaning new sales or vehicle taxes could be waiting around the bend, the transit agency’s director said Wednesday.
Brent McKinney told the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation board that the agency will exhaust a $6 million rainy-day fund in the next two years, which would require new sources of money from the 10 member counties.
PART’s never been a free ride for area taxpayers because —- imagine this —we pay the state and federal taxes that have subsidizing empty buses running around the Triad these many years. But I get the idea — executive director Brent McKinney is more than likely going to lobby either for an increase in the local sales tax or for “a yearly licensing fee of up to $8 per privately owned car.”
