# "Only 42% of the $202 bn spent on US roads in 2010 came from



## jebr (Jan 3, 2013)

An interesting article, talking about gas tax policy and the nugget of truth...that roads *do not* pay for themselves, no matter how much people want to claim otherwise.



> After years of slippage in fuel taxes' buying power, only 42 percent of the $202 billion spent on U.S. roads in 2010 came from fuel or vehicle taxes, according to federal statistics. _Somebody's _non-user taxes made up the $118 billion shortfall, a figure that dwarfs annual nationwide subsidies for transit, intercity rail, walking and bicycling combined.Remember, too, that $118 billion worth of free rides severely distorts transportation markets, propping up our dominant mobility choice even as it loses market share to other modes. To quote Ronald Reagan, the last prominent conservative to push through a fuel tax increase (nearly 30 years ago), when something stops moving, government subsidizes it.


Source (MinnPost)

_Edit: Ack, the title got cut off. =\_


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## Trogdor (Jan 3, 2013)

Personally, speaking for myself (and only myself), I'd love to see all subsidies for all forms of transportation eliminated.

Then let the chips fall where they may.


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## The Davy Crockett (Jan 3, 2013)

The price of gas can fluctuate wildly due to speculation on the market, and when the price spikes, people find ways to cope, feeling powerless to do much, other than buying more fuel efficient vehicles, which a few people do.

But try to raise the gas tax by a whole whopping nickel on the gallon, even when the price has dropped by over a dollar a gallon...


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## Bob Dylan (Jan 3, 2013)

Trogdor said:


> Personally, speaking for myself (and only myself), I'd love to see all subsidies for all forms of transportation eliminated.
> 
> Then let the chips fall where they may.


Imagine if this happens! $50 Tolls, $5,000 Airline Tickets and $200 Commuter Rail Tickets! All those folks hoarding Guns and joining T-Party Rallys would go Apes**t!!! Sane people might even join them! :giggle:


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## Blackwolf (Jan 3, 2013)

In a vacuum scenario, I think you'd see nation-wide electrification of all major and minor rail routes happen in very short order if all subsidies for fuel disappeared out-right. Sure, the boon from road to rail cargo would overwhelm the railroads as the truth behind how inefficient over-the-road tucking became crystal clear. And a few million long-haul truckers would be permanently out of a job... But who would care at that point? Even with efficiency maximized by rail transport, I suspect that even the most fuel-sipping of the big diesel-electric locomotives would be rather ugly to a major railroad's bottom line at that point.

Of course, none of this would ever happen that easily. The country would dissolve into a writhing mass of Civil War. The realities of what things _truly cost_ once the cozy insulation of subsidies are ripped away; ugly to say the least.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Jan 4, 2013)

We need more toll roads! All controlled-access roads with alternative toll-less US Routes or other through routes should become toll roads. I'd rather pay tolls then pay tax.


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## Ozark Southern (Jan 5, 2013)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> We need more toll roads! All controlled-access roads with alternative toll-less US Routes or other through routes should become toll roads. I'd rather pay tolls then pay tax.


One major problem with that idea in some areas is geographical. Out here in the Ozarks, there generally are not alternative routes, since building them would have required blasting another giant hole in the mountains. So our two Interstate highways were conversions of the existing federal highways, not a separate right of way: I-44 was built on top of US-66 (except to go around towns where 66 went through them), and the same thing is happening right now as US-71 is being converted to I-49. Even from where I live in a first-ring suburb, to get into the city there is only one practical road, a controlled-access highway. All other routes are farm roads, which in many cases are not even paved. I have to drive the federal highways to work, all controlled access, because there is zero transit within ten miles of where I live. So toll roads are out of the question until we get some actual alternatives to using the beltway to get to work. Believe me, I'd be among the first to use it, even a bus.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Jan 5, 2013)

Ozark Southern said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
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> > We need more toll roads! All controlled-access roads with alternative toll-less US Routes or other through routes should become toll roads. I'd rather pay tolls then pay tax.
> ...


But in your own Missouri, the ID-70 has US Route 50 as an alternative, so the ID-70 should be made into a toll road. My biggest candidate for more tolls would be the West Side Freeway in California, because the ex-US Route 99 and also US Route 101 are good alternatives. But CA is against toll roads.


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## Trogdor (Jan 5, 2013)

Ozark Southern said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
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> > We need more toll roads! All controlled-access roads with alternative toll-less US Routes or other through routes should become toll roads. I'd rather pay tolls then pay tax.
> ...


This is one of the choices we make in our own lives (namely, where to live).

I see/hear it all the time, even from my own relatives. "I'd love to use public transit, but it just isn't available where I live. I wish _they_ would run public transit to where I live."

I'm willing to bet there's a very good reason no public transit exists within 10 miles of your house. It's probably the same reason most of the alternative routes you mention are unpaved. Ultimately, it traces back to the same reason that the headline of this thread even exists. It simply isn't cost-efficient to provide transportation infrastructure and services to most of our sprawled suburban development.


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## Ozark Southern (Jan 6, 2013)

Trogdor said:


> Ozark Southern said:
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Yes, there is. I live in a town of about 3,000, in a very sparsely populated county, in a metro area that has next to no public transit. There simply aren't a lot of people here, and poor transit connections, so it would certainly go almost completely unused. But it is a good place to live. It's a safe area, with good schools, and the town is nearly completely walkable. So yes, we all make choices, and transportation is only one of a number of considerations.

So there are good reasons why we have one road, and it really serves us well. But by no means should it be a toll road, which is what Swadian proposed. And it would never fly at the polls. Missouri has no toll roads because we don't want toll roads. It is a fundamental right of the people to be able to go where they need to go, and in a state that has made sure the car is the only allowable method for getting there, roads need to be toll-free.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Jan 6, 2013)

Ozark Southern said:


> Trogdor said:
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I did not propose to make a toll road that has no alternatives!


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## Anderson (Jan 7, 2013)

Ozark Southern said:


> Trogdor said:
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Ok, let's consider my situation. I live in a city of about 170,000...but the population on the Virginia Peninsula (Newport News, Hampton, York County, James City County, Williamsburg, and Poquoson) is closer to 500,000. Nowhere on the Peninsula is bus service run more than about once every half-hour as far as I know. I'm on one of those half-hourly service routes (roughly speaking...you've got an hourly route and an every-90-minutes route that overlap; they split way up in the northern part of town), and I think you get close to 30 minutes on a few other lines where 2-3 services cover the same ground.

So why have I never taken the bus here? Aside from the dubious name the bus has (deserved or not), the service is so thin it's not even funny. A lot of trips involve...interesting transfers (one Google Transit suggestion takes 52 minutes to travel 5 miles because it takes me about two miles out of my way) or very lengthy walks. And this is between two places near major roads. This isn't some podunk town with little reason to run a "real" bus service, it's a decent-sized city. To get up to Williamsburg, it's apparently about a two-hour trip that is the stuff of legends and which involves a transfer at Lee Hall between systems if you're not taking one of the twice-daily commuter buses (one each way at rush hour). Really, there's nothing here.

Likewise, we're lucky to have twice-daily Amtrak service, but...really, we need at least a third train so there's a viable commuter frequency into Richmond. But there's lousy transit on either end of the connection, so unless you're going into downtown Richmond, even _that_ isn't an option...and it's not like Richmond is a small town, either.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Jan 8, 2013)

It's such a shame that you live in the largest population center in Virginia yet you have such poor bus service. Thost Hampton Roads buses don't even seem that bad to an outsider.

But you have so many roads in the area that I think ID-64 should be tolled.


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## Just-Thinking-51 (Jan 8, 2013)

Blackwolf said:


> ....And a few million long-haul truckers would be permanently out of a job.....


Truck industry has many faces. Less-than-truckload (LTL), private fleets, and for hire truckload ( TL)

The for hire truckload fleet is about 750,000 units and were short about 20,000 to 25,000 qualified drivers.

So the impact on long haul for hire truck drivers is not that big. You will allways need the last mile truck no matter how you move goods. There a few place that a barge might deliver to, but to your local grocery store is not one of them.

Yes I do know the road in front of my house is pay for by my property taxes and not the fuel taxes my tractor trailer pay for, and you never get me to feed you the line that my truck does the same amount of damage as your car does. I have up to 8,500 lbs on each of my tires. You car must be very big and old just to match the weight on one of my tires.


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## AmtrakBlue (Jan 8, 2013)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> It's such a shame that you live in the largest population center in Virginia yet you have such poor bus service. Thost Hampton Roads buses don't even seem that bad to an outsider.
> 
> But you have so many roads in the area that I think ID-64 should be tolled.


Swadian, Interstates are referred to as I not ID. So in this post, you should have said I-64, not ID-64.


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## Ozark Southern (Jan 10, 2013)

Anderson said:


> Ozark Southern said:
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Exactly! This is the point I've been trying to make. A lot of us live in areas like this. I should be clear that I live in the Springfield-Branson metropolitan area. Springfield is a city of 160,000, and there's about 250,000 in the metro area. My town is small, sure, but it's by no means isolated. Our metropolitan area sees about 5 million tourists per year and is decidedly the economic center of the Ozarks. We are the home of Missouri State University and several corporate headquarters (mostly trucking companies). This is no small town either.

It doesn't take much to have a viable bus system. When I read your description of Hampton Roads transit, I keep thinking "Yes, this is EXACTLY how it is here." We have 14 bus lines, not one of which goes anywhere outside Springfield city limits, and most of which do not get within 2 miles of the city limit. Most are every 30 minutes, and a few are once an hour. One line, just one, goes every 20 minutes for a couple of hours in the afternoon (right, not during rush hour, during the middle of the afternoon). After 6 PM, only four lines operate, and only once an hour. It's the kind of system that makes one desperate to buy a car so one never has to use it again.

In these situations, the mantra of "people don't want to use transit" becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, when the truth is that people don't want to use transit that doesn't work. That's why I'm against adding tolls to highways. Unless we give people a serious alternative to driving, and transit systems like yours and mine are not serious alternatives to anything, adding tolls as a deterrent simply will fail to deter anyone from driving, because there simply is no other option.


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## Trogdor (Jan 10, 2013)

I never saw the purpose of tolls as being a deterrent to driving. I've always thought of them as making the users pay for the infrastructure they are using.


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## The Davy Crockett (Jan 10, 2013)

Trogdor said:


> I never saw the purpose of tolls as being a deterrent to driving. I've always thought of them as making the users pay for the infrastructure they are using.


But isn't a free ride the American Way? :huh:

hboy:


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## Ozark Southern (Jan 11, 2013)

Trogdor said:


> I never saw the purpose of tolls as being a deterrent to driving. I've always thought of them as making the users pay for the infrastructure they are using.


Hmm, I suppose one could see it that way. Thing is, though, around here, we don't pay for anything we're using. The amount of money we receive in federal programmes far exceeds the amount we pay in federal taxes. It's like the thought never crosses our minds that some guy in New York is actually paying for the things I use every day. When you have that culture, where we're accustomed to receiving more than we give, it's pretty tough to convince people they need to give more.


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## Trogdor (Jan 11, 2013)

Ozark Southern said:


> Trogdor said:
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> > I never saw the purpose of tolls as being a deterrent to driving. I've always thought of them as making the users pay for the infrastructure they are using.
> ...


Which is why I stated the following upthread:



Trogdor said:


> Personally, speaking for myself (and only myself), I'd love to see all subsidies for all forms of transportation eliminated.
> 
> Then let the chips fall where they may.


And while we're at it, do the same for public utilities (such as sewer and electricity) and the postal service. Give them the ability to vary the rates depending on where the customer lives and how much it costs to serve that area.

I guarantee my 200+-unit condo near downtown costs less for each of them than the cul-de-sac single-family McMansion sprawl suburb 25 miles away. Why should I have to pay as much as them?


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## Ozark Southern (Jan 11, 2013)

Trogdor said:


> Ozark Southern said:
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That's an interesting idea. If we were to actually do this, and do it right, it would end the absurd situation where it costs us less to own our own home on a half acre in the suburbs than it would to rent an apartment half the size in the city. That's most of why we live where we do. We're urban-minded and transit-inclined, but we cannot afford the cost of living in the city. It's sheer economics.


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