Gas Taxes Don't Cover the Costs of Our Roads: Cars get public subsidies the same as transit

[marmar]

from OnTheCommons.org:



Gas Taxes Don't Cover the Costs of Our Roads
Cars get public subsidies the same as transit

By David Bollier


The automobile has long been celebrated as a preeminent symbol of individual freedom. Whenever a politician or citizen group calls for redirecting our tax monies toward public transit, inter-city trains, walkable communities, bike lanes, and so forth, the automobile and highway lobbies sneer that such choices are “politically motivated” and threatening to our “freedom.”

Moreover, the lobbies say, spending more money on transportation alternatives would betray a long-time “social compact” that federal and state gas taxes be earmarked for highway construction and improvements. Gas taxes make roads and highways self-funding, the argument goes. This deeply entrenched – and erroneous – mythology has long prevented a re-thinking of how Americans should finance transportation and of the more ecological, socially attractive alternatives.

We should welcome, therefore, a recent report by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, Do Roads Pay for Themselves? Setting the Record Straight on Transportation Funding . The report takes on what it calls the Great Myth of Highway Finance, the idea that gas taxes are a dedicated, self-sustaining source of funds for road-building. Since drivers pay for the gas tax, there is the assumption that there is no public subsidy from taxpayers for roads and bridges. It is only “fair,” therefore, that all gas tax revenues go exclusively to auto- and highway-specific needs. Highways are self-funding through “user fees,” goes the argument. Let other transportation modes make it on their own, too!

The authors of the PIRG report – Tony Dutzik, Benjamin Davis and Phineas Baxandall — set out to demolish this mythology, “with the hope that by doing so, America can get on with the critical debate about what types of transportation infrastructure to build and how to pay for them, free from false assumptions and tired slogans of the past.” ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/second-look-automobiles

[villager]

1. which means we've been subsidizing the automotive industry (and the oil industry) in this way

...for decades now...

[dkf]

2. Public Transit uses the roads too...at least ours does.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. Disengenuous

Vehicles, including trucks pay more than just gas taxes in many states annually.

Hybrids and alt fuel vehicles which do not pay fuel taxes but still use the roads and add wear to them are woefully underpaying.

[Salviati]

7. Hybrids do in fact use gas, and do pay some gas tax...

Since hybrids are also generally a lot smaller and lighter than the average car, they put a lot less stress and wear on the road. Increasing the weight of a car greatly increases the wear it subjects roads to. This is somewhat offset by the fact that larger, heavier cars are generally less fuel efficient, and thus end up paying more in gas tax per mile, but only somewhat offset.

I had done a good amount of research on this several years ago, and if I remember correctly found the following results (take the numbers with a grain of salt, but the overall idea is the same) If you factor in the amount of wear done to the road, a normal SUV ends up paying for the wear they cause about the same amount that a hybrid does (to within about 10% or so), which is about 60% or so less than the driver of a regular car.

More or less, the moral of my research was that if one is gong to be complaining about hybrids not paying their fair share, then one also needs to be complaining about the same issue for SUV's, large trucks, and other heavy vehicles.

[Kolesar]

8. If motorists drive on municipal roads, they are driving on roads financed by property taxes

Way more than fuel taxes. Fuel taxes finance the cross country highways and other state highways.

[glowing]

4. It honestly doesn't make any sense to marry transportation with the gas tax.

If the govt is relying on gas tax to make the revenue for roads and bridges, it creates a connundrum when it comes to making more fuel efficient vehicles or alt fueled vehicles (like electric cars). How does the person driving their electric car contribute to the roads it is driving on? How does the more efficiently fueled car pull in the needed tax revenue for the gas tax? AND people are still NOT driving like they used to. When gas went to $4.00/ gallon, people's habit changed. They bought more efficiently fueled vehicles and changed their pattern of driving. Some switched to public transportation and car pooled... At the very least, people made smarter trip patterns. On the way home from work, one stopped at the grocery store, dry cleaners, and etc in an orderly pattern as to cut down on unnecessary trips that were out of the way. And since making these drastic lifestyle changes because the gas was high and crept to the $4.00, for the most part people have been unable to go back to Hummers and lavishly driving around for the hell of it. The economic condition over the last 10yrs has been stagnating and now devastating for the "middle class".. which really isn't so middle class when most who are working are a paycheck away from losing everything and their homes are no longer valued as an ATM machine.

Again, why are we not leading the protesting revolutions that demand for a fair and prosperous democracy for all of our citizens, instead of watching it on TV?

[taught_me_patience]

5. Gas tax needs to be raised

but it is political suicide.

[customerserviceguy]

9. Agreed on both counts

Provided that what the authors of the study in the OP say is true, and I'm not fully convinced. Besides, any 'subsidy' of trucking is in reality a subsidy on everything those trucks bring, and unless it came out of your backyard, that's pretty much everything you've got.

[taterguy]

12. What would it take to convince you?

I can't get the study to open in my browser.

I've read my city budget. General funds pay for several million dollars worth of roads every year and I'm sure it's typical of all cities.

[customerserviceguy]

13. I'd like to see some figures from a group other than a PIRG

Somebody a bit more independent.

Besides, raising the gas tax might be a good idea, anyway. It would give me a bit of a push towards the hybrid I'm thinking about to replace my 2002 Hyundai Elantra, but I think that beast still has a few good years left in it.

[taterguy]

15. What's really troublesome is that the numbers aren't there.

To know how much automobile usage is subsidized you'd have to analyze the budget of every government entity in the country. I don't know of anyone that's taken the time to do that, even though in a saner world that information would be readily available.

The book Asphalt Nation does a pretty good job of it but it's been a while since I read it.

[Luminous Animal]

16. Asphalt Nation is a very good book which included the fact that, on average

drivers are subsidized for their private vehicle use at about 40% and this report fully supports that fact.

[customerserviceguy]

17. Well, if the numbers aren't there

then it's hard to believe anybody who claims to have them.

Perhaps this decision should be made on a public policy basis, rather than a mathematical one. Like I said, a gas tax increase is probably good policy, but the only time when it's not political suicide is when the prices are coming down. Perhaps the Middle East unrest and subsequent speculation will cause a price increase that will recede after the tension is resolved, and that would be the time to shoehorn in a gas tax.

[taterguy]

18. The exact numbers aren't there but no serious person disputes that auto usage is heavily subsidized

I don't know what the gas tax should be. Increasing the price of gas would have ripple effects all over our economy, especially since most of our infrastructure is designed for cars.

However, if there was more awareness of just how many tax dollars cars suck up then maybe we would start to make different choices.

I have a hard time taking 'Shrink the government' types seriously when none of them address this issue.

[liberal N proud]

6. Since we are subsidizing transportation...

Why not High Speed Rail:

[kudzu22]

10. ....yet...

[Taitertots]

11. My car doesn't make me, I do that all by myself

j/k

[customerserviceguy]

14. That graphic is priceless!

Looks like something from a book I would have read as a kid, but the language sure wasn't from that time!

[taterguy]

19. Kick because this is important