Roads pay for themselves? No way, says Texan
Folks for whom it's an article of faith that roads are paid for with the gas tax while transit bleeds the body public might want to ignore this article from DC.StreetsBlog.org on the high cost of highways and who ends up paying for them.
In short, Rep. Mike Kursee says roads cover only a small part of their costs in his state and that taxes raised in the cities go to extend roads out into rural areas. He has some candid comments about the state of the nation's transportation finances.
The article doesn't say, but Krusee is a Republican.
Comments
That runs somewhat counter to a University of Minnesota study early in the decade that concluded drivers pay roughly 84% of the total costs associated with roads in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.
Posted by: Froggie | November 10, 2009 3:32 PM
It always cracks me up that the "roads pay for themselves" argument is used to imply that the amounts that we are paying are appropriate and just, which I think is Krusee's point: just because roads may "pay for themselves" in aggregate doesn't mean that we aren't overpaying individually, which is the dirty little secret that you'll never hear from the highway lobby. Face it, those of us in this area who frequent 50,000-vehicle per-day roads are overpaying to subsidize 100-vehicle-per-day roads in, say, Garrett County.
Shoot, the Department of Defence "pays for itself" too, by its "users", but don't try to use that fact to justify $40,000 toilet seats and $500 screw drivers. In a similar vein, just because "roads pay for themselves" doesn't mean that it doesn't burn me up when, during the summer, I see SHA paying contractors to weed wack the grass around individual guard rail posts, of which there must be millions in the state. (Hasn't anyone in the highway industry come up with a ground cover alternative to grass?!)
Posted by: Six-ft-six | November 11, 2009 10:35 AM
Mike,
Here's a link to a summary of the TxDOT study that he's referencing.
http://www.txdot.gov/KeepTexasMovingNewsletter/11202006.html#Cost
Federal transportation funding largely comes from the gas tax, but state and local spending for road construction & maintenance largely comes from income, property, and sales taxes that support general funds, with gas taxes providing a small portion of the funding necessary.
The Texas study looked at the amount of gas tax generated by automobiles traveling on different roadway segment and then compared that revenue with the cost of roadway construction & maintenance. They found that the Texas gas tax would have to be raised to $2.22/gallon in order to pay the full direct costs for road construction & maintenance of segments.
This doesn't even touch on the externalities associated with roads such as reduced impervious surface, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, etc.
We always hear about the subsidies for transit and bicycling, but rarely hear about how we subsidize driving.
Posted by: Patrick McMahon | November 11, 2009 11:49 PM