RALEIGH – Over the past couple of sessions, members of the North Carolina General Assembly have come up with some foolish ideas for balancing the state budget.
Raising the price of riding the state’s ferries is not one of them.
Rep. Grier Martin, a Raleigh Democrat, is a co-chairman of the transportation subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. Last week, his panel endorsed not only a Senate plan to increase Ferry Division spending by $11.3 million but also to devise a new fee schedule to set prices high enough to cover the cost of serving most ferry riders. In an era of declining revenues, Martin told the Raleigh News & Observer, lawmakers “need to take a look at this – given what we know about [the ferries’] operating costs.”
He’s right. Right now, tolls cover only six percent of the cost of running the state ferries. That number ought to be headed up towards 100 percent. Some of the state’s ferry routes aren’t even tolled at all.
As much as possible, transportation should be a fee-for-service business. To a greater degree than is commonly understood, transportation is is a fee-for-service business. Users of passenger and freight air service finance the cost of airport infrastructure through ticket fees. Users of freight service finance the cost of rail and port infrastructure through shipping fees.
And while the state owns and operates most surface highways and streets, the vehicles that traverse them are mostly privately owned, and the cost of the system is mostly borne by users in the form of fuel costs and taxes (which roughly comport with miles traveled) and vehicle taxes.
There are glaring exceptions. Rail and bus transit is heavily subsidized by taxpayers who never use it. And the state’s ferries cost far more to operate than comparable stretches of roadway, meaning that regular ferry passengers do not come close to paying the cost of their riders through the gas and vehicle taxes they pay.
Like limited-access highways such as interstates and loops, ferry routes can be priced. They should be. The only justification for state involvement in surface transportation in the first place was that at the time of the advent of the automobile, there was no practical means of enforcing tolls on the proliferating network of roads and streets. Charging a variable price at the pump rather than at a gate or booth made more sense – and seemed to require state involvement to enforce.
Today, with modern technology and a better understanding of the economics of transportation, we should be moving more and more transportation assets towards the same user-pay principle that currently applies to airline travel and freight service. In the case of ferries, that means raising the tolls.
Remember – the “free” ferry ride from Hatteras to Ocracoke isn’t really free. It costs a lot of money per passenger. Why should taxpayers who aren’t on the ferry, who in many cases have never been on a ferry, subsidize the trips of those enjoying the ride?
North Carolinians have a constitutional right to taxpayer-funded protection of their lives and property. They have a constitutional right to a few other basic governmental services financed by general taxation. They do not have a constitutional right to ride a ferry at someone else’s expense.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.