“If you want to go upstream, you have to swim against the current. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.”

These are the words of muckraker journalist and social reformer Jim Hightower, and as one of his admirers and acolytes, I have taken on a project that could not be more contrary to the current. I've had a computer geek friend of mine prepare for your signature an online petition calling for a .01/gallon increase in the gas tax - effective statewide - to be earmarked for funding public transportation.

Before you trot out the tar and feathers, please hear me out. Inadequate public transport is an issue for most of the state's rural communities, and for a while there was hope for a quantum upgrade in our county of WATS (Wayne Area Transit System) to include a new service: an all day shuttle along Route 31 from Savannah to Perinton in Monroe County, giving Wayne County riders connections to Rochester throughout the day. This would have been a considerable improvement over existing schedules, which consist of a morning and evening Rochester Transit bus from Lyons to Rochester, and a twice daily park-and-ride shuttle from Newark to Webster.

WATS chief Bob Jordan started collecting the baseline data needed for the proposal; I had hoped it was proceeding on track, but when I called (after a respectable interval of time) to check on its progress, Bob reported that it had been put on hold due to a funding shortfall.

It was then I got the idea for the petition, which hopefully will appeal to everyone's sense of justice and fair play. In as much as public transit systems have atrophied because of the use of private motor vehicles, and in as much as private motor vehicles account for such a sizable share of greenhouse gas emissions, it's only fair to levy a tax - a carbon tax, if you will - on their use. And complain though they will, few motorists cannot afford the extra 20 cents or so whenever they fill their tanks.

According to my rough calculations - which are admittedly amateurish but not that far off the mark - the shuttle would have cost around $76,000 a year, a mere blip on the budgetary radar screen.

And who knows? This addition to the scheduled runs will surely attract more passengers, and may come close to paying for itself.

I realize, of course, that now that gas prices have dropped from nearly $4 to less than $2 a gallon, few will be rushing to their computer keyboards to access the petition. But then again, maybe - just maybe - there are some concerned citizens out there who realize the gravity of the climate situation and are willing to make a small sacrifice in order to implement some remedial action. The petition will make this possible.

Here's the site: http://www.com.ipetitions.com/petition/taxforpublictransportation/

Roland Micklem

Savannah