Toll Roads

[Florida 55]

Originally Posted by kscherzi

The federal gas tax was last increased in 1993, over 20 years ago. Inflation (labor and materials) has badly eroded it's purchasing power. Driving is a privalage, not a right. Those choosing to drive are obliged to pay their fair share. This isn't happening now, and roads are falling apart. The simplest and fastest solution is to raise the fuel tax.

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I wish solving the problem was that simple. First, the Highway Trust Fund, set up to pay for highway construction and repairs, has been raided by politicians with the funds being reallocated to mass transit. About $5 billion of the $40 billion the federal trust fund spends each year goes to mass transit. One way of providing more highway repair money would be to let the metropolitan areas benefiting from the transit funds pay for their own mass transit projects and put all of the proceeds of highway fuel taxes to work on maintaining highways. Higher user fees could be used to cover the cost of mass transit with the users of mass transit paying for the cost.

Second, many road projects are political in nature, not necessarily real improvements to the highway infrastructure. Some politicians have the pull to get extra lanes or new bridges added to roads in their district, whether or not they are truly needed. Other districts, with less political pull, are left suffering with tired patched roads. On top of this, road contracts have a long history of corruption with the government paying inflated costs for road work allocated to contractor friends of politicians and the contractors then skimming off millions for themselves, not to mention using inferior materials. There are also big union payoffs in the road construction business. Eliminate the corruption, and political interference, and you free up billions more of the money in the trust fund to do real road work without having to raise taxes or user fees.

Third, when the interstate system was built the agreement was the federal government would fund most of the cost, the states would own the roads, and the states would repair them. State fuel taxes are far from uniform. It is very possible states with low fuel taxes are underfunding repair and improvements while other states are doing a better job. Raising the federal gasoline tax does nothing to address the issue of the disparity in state funding of infrastructure repair. However, to the degree the federal funds are allocated to repair roads in the low gas tax states the federal government is encouraging states to continue underfunding infrastructure maintenance.

Fourth, interstate highways and bridges developed in the 1950's and 1960's were not designed to carry the amount of heavy long haul truck traffic the roads today are bearing. In the 50's and 60's most long haul freight was moved by rail, not trucks. If heavy truck traffic is responsible for much of the deterioration in road infrastructure, it may be the trucking industry is not paying its fair share of road maintenance. Certainly independent engineering studies could determine what types of vehicles are responsible road wear and the bean counters could determine if fuel taxes collected from trucking are paying for the full share of repair costs caused by trucking. If not, it may be the answer to funding highway repairs is to raise taxes or levy tolls on trucks so they bear their fair share of the repair costs.

Based on personal experience traveling around the country, many roads and bridges in the interstate system require significant repairs and upgrading which suggests the existing system and processes for funding infrastructure repairs requires improvement. Unfortunately, the proposals I've seen to simply levy tolls or raise fuel taxes fail to address the issues of waste, corruption, underfunding of the state obligations, allocating repair costs fairly to the vehicles causing the deterioration, and shifting of highway funds to other purposes (i.e. mass transit). it would be good if politicians and bureaucrats would look at a complete reform of the system, addressing all of the issues, instead of just layering on additional taxes and fees while allowing inefficiencies and subsidies to continue.

[AirHeadsRus]

As I recall, the Gov'ment took in a record amount of tax dollars for the tax year 2013. Perhaps if our politicians spent this on what they are supposed to, instead of the usual vote buying schemes, the roads could get fixed. What happened to all the "shovel ready jobs" money that was sold as fixing infrastructure. Didn't do it. It is going to bankrupt city and county governments to bail them out of their pension mess.
The problem is not that we don't pay enough revenue, it is that we do not spend wisely.

[xrvr]

Airrus, living in Gainesville I am sure the city could be bankrupt in as little as five years because of the biomas plant and the need for Road construction as you may know. Without new taxes we are doomed and most of us will not vote for more in the county or city because we do not trust those in power. Jim

[featherbedder]

Originally Posted by zigzagguzzi

Airrus, living in Gainesville I am sure the city could be bankrupt in as little as five years because of the biomas plant and the need for Road construction as you may know. Without new taxes we are doomed and most of us will not vote for more in the county or city because we do not trust those in power. Jim

You are right about not trusting
those in power, a good example is Il. former governors in prison. Federal state and local politicians in prison still much corruption now. Money does not go where needed, more money is not answer to road problems, take graft out there would be enough to fix roads and other problems, state and federal.

[richinny]

last week on i-95 just south of the CT border to NY i passed a road repair crew. the 'patcher' was tossing out shovels of asphalt patch into the holes at about 40 mph. about a third of the mix scattered along the highway and i figure another third went flying as vehicles hit it. they were also doing 2 lanes from the right hand lane. as mentioned, a lot of money is being wasted.

[kscherzi]

Unfortunately there will always be found examples of waste and corruption. Those should be attacked for what they are, not be made into an excuse to fail to act. A well established and maintained road system is in the national interest. I don't mean just for defense but for commerce and mobility. Our ability to freely and affordability travel makes us stronger as a nation. For this reason I think the federal government should lead the states by example.

States can't lead as they are too parochial and competitive by design. Notice how low tax states like to mock high tax states, except under investment has consequences. According to the Wall Street Journal Texas is beginning to grapple with this problem as they recently decided to let portions of their road system return to gravel.

I also don't buy into the "just cut the fat and all will be okay" line of reasoning. The tally of needs far exceeds total budgets of most DOT's. Maybe tolls are the way to go, probably the same outcome as raising the gas tax, at least for states the toll.

[moosetags]

My fear is that increased tolls will become a deepened "honey pot" for the politicians. I'm sure that they will find other uses for increased toll revenues, other than road maintenance.

Brian

[Bk Yd Safari]

Originally Posted by Florida 55

I wish solving the problem was that simple. First, the Highway Trust Fund, set up to pay for highway construction and repairs, has been raided by politicians with the funds being reallocated to mass transit. About $5 billion of the $40 billion the federal trust fund spends each year goes to mass transit. One way of providing more highway repair money would be to let the metropolitan areas benefiting from the transit funds pay for their own mass transit projects and put all of the proceeds of highway fuel taxes to work on maintaining highways. Higher user fees could be used to cover the cost of mass transit with the users of mass transit paying for the cost.

Second, many road projects are political in nature, not necessarily real improvements to the highway infrastructure. Some politicians have the pull to get extra lanes or new bridges added to roads in their district, whether or not they are truly needed. Other districts, with less political pull, are left suffering with tired patched roads. On top of this, road contracts have a long history of corruption with the government paying inflated costs for road work allocated to contractor friends of politicians and the contractors then skimming off millions for themselves, not to mention using inferior materials. There are also big union payoffs in the road construction business. Eliminate the corruption, and political interference, and you free up billions more of the money in the trust fund to do real road work without having to raise taxes or user fees.

Third, when the interstate system was built the agreement was the federal government would fund most of the cost, the states would own the roads, and the states would repair them. State fuel taxes are far from uniform. It is very possible states with low fuel taxes are underfunding repair and improvements while other states are doing a better job. Raising the federal gasoline tax does nothing to address the issue of the disparity in state funding of infrastructure repair. However, to the degree the federal funds are allocated to repair roads in the low gas tax states the federal government is encouraging states to continue underfunding infrastructure maintenance.

Fourth, interstate highways and bridges developed in the 1950's and 1960's were not designed to carry the amount of heavy long haul truck traffic the roads today are bearing. In the 50's and 60's most long haul freight was moved by rail, not trucks. If heavy truck traffic is responsible for much of the deterioration in road infrastructure, it may be the trucking industry is not paying its fair share of road maintenance. Certainly independent engineering studies could determine what types of vehicles are responsible road wear and the bean counters could determine if fuel taxes collected from trucking are paying for the full share of repair costs caused by trucking. If not, it may be the answer to funding highway repairs is to raise taxes or levy tolls on trucks so they bear their fair share of the repair costs.

Based on personal experience traveling around the country, many roads and bridges in the interstate system require significant repairs and upgrading which suggests the existing system and processes for funding infrastructure repairs requires improvement. Unfortunately, the proposals I've seen to simply levy tolls or raise fuel taxes fail to address the issues of waste, corruption, underfunding of the state obligations, allocating repair costs fairly to the vehicles causing the deterioration, and shifting of highway funds to other purposes (i.e. mass transit). it would be good if politicians and bureaucrats would look at a complete reform of the system, addressing all of the issues, instead of just layering on additional taxes and fees while allowing inefficiencies and subsidies to continue.

highway systems funding is just like social security and medicare...well funded projects that are raided by bureaucrats with the revenue spent on everything but the intended purpose

[eubank]

I'm not sure that "raiding" the highway trust fund is the proper term. It's not as if projects other than direct road construction and maintenance involve, e.g., spending the money instead on foreign aid or meals for seniors or somesuch. On the other hand, money from the fund is sometimes (certainly not always) spent on projects that might properly be delayed or funded by other means. Still, the temptation of Congresspeople of all political stripes -- and hardly restricted to this Congress, for it's been this way for quite a few decades -- to earmark money from the general highway fund for constituents' highway-related projects is hard to resist, plainly.

Senators McCain and Coburn wrote a paper on this back in 2009, and many of the points are directly applicable today. I'm no great fan of either Senator, though I think they're pretty much on the mark in this case. (This was obviously before President Obama came along with the idea of allowing states to fund highways via user fees.)

http://atfiles.org/files/pdf/OutofGas730Final0.pdf

I don't think that this is a partisan matter at all. It has nothing to do with being a liberal or being a conservative; alas, it does have to do with being a caring human in Congress, and the negative consequences of being so.


Lynn

[J. Morgan]

Simply stated, the gas tax SHOULD pay for roads maintenance and construction, but the fact is that government is an expensive and inefficient instrument.

Frankly, I doubt a majority of the fuel tax collected goes toward road construction and maintenance, even though it was sold to the public under this assurance.

[J. Morgan]

A "road tax" certainly insinuates that the proceeds of such taxes go to roads, but this is not the case, instead once all of the money is spent on other things, the politicians come back at us for more money for roads and infrastructure, this is not honest.

[HowieE]

And you can keep your doctor.

[J. Morgan]

. ... Yea.

[Jim Foster]

California and a couple of other legislatures, don't remember right now which states, just passed a $50 tax to be added to Hybrids and $100 on pure electrics to be added to their yearly license fee because they are not paying enough gas tax. Ya think that will go to fix the roads?

They want folks to conserve, but when they do, they tax them for doing it.

[J. Morgan]

You gotta love politicians and their "solutions".

By the time they get done with us there won't be anything left.

[Grrrwolf]

Originally Posted by mistermcfrug

Yes, in this way, the government gets the public to pay twice for the road, once with gas tax and a second time with tolls.

Plus the increased cost to consume any product shipped on those roads. It's certainly a slush fund. Oh, and our fine politicians shrewdly renegotiate a 1/6 to 1/7 royalty for our domestically pumped fuels every time they get a chance...

I've been calling the money I spend on gas my 'get to work tax' for years.

[Jim Foster]

Originally Posted by Grrrwolf

Plus the increased cost to consume any product shipped on those roads. It's certainly a slush fund. Oh, and our fine politicians shrewdly renegotiate a 1/6 to 1/7 royalty for our domestically pumped fuels every time they get a chance...

I've been calling the money I spend on gas my 'get to work tax' for years.

Now it's our "Pay to play" tax.

It's getting crazier all the time.

[kscherzi]

I feel lime a broken record, the gas tax haven't changed since 1993, over 20 years ago. Imagine living off your income then today and maintaining everything the same. Not possible. To compare, the average driving American pays about 108 in federal gas tax pet year. The same person pays 600 per year for Internet or more than that for Starbucks Coffee.

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[Jim Foster]

I paid $985.32 in gas tax last year. I paid $420 for internet and bought no Starbucks coffee.

None of this has anything to do with the fact that gas tax is being spent on things for which it was not intended at it's inception.

[reinergirl]

This thread has been closed due to the politics getting out of hand.