The battle lines are being drawn in Washington.....
Do Roads Pay For Themselves? Setting the Record Straight on Transportation Funding
2011-01-04
Executive Summary
Highway advocates often claim that roads "pay for themselves," with gasoline taxes and other charges to motorists covering – or nearly covering – the full cost of highway construction and maintenance. They are wrong.
Highways do not – and, except for brief periods in our nation's history, never have – paid for themselves through the taxes that highway advocates label "user fees." Yet highway advocates continue to suggest they do in an attempt to secure preferential access to scarce public resources and to shape how those resources are spent.
To have a meaningful national debate over transportation policy – particularly at a time of tight public budgets – it is important to get past the myths and address the real, difficult choices America must make for the 21st century. Toward that end, this report shows:
· Gasoline taxes aren't "user fees" in any meaningful sense of the term – The amount of money a particular driver pays in gasoline taxes bears little relationship to his or her use of roads funded by gas taxes.
· State gas taxes are often not "extra" fees – Most states exempt gasoline from the state sales tax, diverting much of the money that would have gone into a state's general fund to roads.
· Federal gas taxes have typically not been devoted exclusively to highways – Since its 1934 inception, Congress only temporarily dedicated gas tax revenues fully to highways during the brief 17-year period beginning in 1956. This was at the start of construction for the Interstate highway network, a project completed in the 1990s.
· Highways don't pay for themselves -- Since 1947, the amount of money spent on highways, roads and streets has exceeded the amount raised through gasoline taxes and other so-called "user fees" by $600 billion (2005 dollars), representing a massive transfer of general government funds to highways.
· Highways "pay for themselves" less today than ever. Currently, highway "user fees" pay only about half the cost of building and maintaining the nation's network of highways, roads and streets.
· These figures fail to include the many costs imposed by highway construction on non-users of the system, including damage to the environment and public health and encouragement of sprawling forms of development that impose major costs on the environment and government finances.
To make the right choices for America's transportation future, the nation should take a smart approach to transportation investments, one that weighs the full costs and benefits of those investments and then allocates the costs of those investments fairly across society.
READ MORE AT:
http://www.uspirg.org/home/reports/report-archives/transportation/transportation2/do-roads-pay-for-themselves-setting-the-record-straight-on-transportation-funding
2011-01-04
Executive Summary
Highway advocates often claim that roads "pay for themselves," with gasoline taxes and other charges to motorists covering – or nearly covering – the full cost of highway construction and maintenance. They are wrong.
Highways do not – and, except for brief periods in our nation's history, never have – paid for themselves through the taxes that highway advocates label "user fees." Yet highway advocates continue to suggest they do in an attempt to secure preferential access to scarce public resources and to shape how those resources are spent.
To have a meaningful national debate over transportation policy – particularly at a time of tight public budgets – it is important to get past the myths and address the real, difficult choices America must make for the 21st century. Toward that end, this report shows:
· Gasoline taxes aren't "user fees" in any meaningful sense of the term – The amount of money a particular driver pays in gasoline taxes bears little relationship to his or her use of roads funded by gas taxes.
· State gas taxes are often not "extra" fees – Most states exempt gasoline from the state sales tax, diverting much of the money that would have gone into a state's general fund to roads.
· Federal gas taxes have typically not been devoted exclusively to highways – Since its 1934 inception, Congress only temporarily dedicated gas tax revenues fully to highways during the brief 17-year period beginning in 1956. This was at the start of construction for the Interstate highway network, a project completed in the 1990s.
· Highways don't pay for themselves -- Since 1947, the amount of money spent on highways, roads and streets has exceeded the amount raised through gasoline taxes and other so-called "user fees" by $600 billion (2005 dollars), representing a massive transfer of general government funds to highways.
· Highways "pay for themselves" less today than ever. Currently, highway "user fees" pay only about half the cost of building and maintaining the nation's network of highways, roads and streets.
· These figures fail to include the many costs imposed by highway construction on non-users of the system, including damage to the environment and public health and encouragement of sprawling forms of development that impose major costs on the environment and government finances.
To make the right choices for America's transportation future, the nation should take a smart approach to transportation investments, one that weighs the full costs and benefits of those investments and then allocates the costs of those investments fairly across society.
READ MORE AT:
http://www.uspirg.org/home/reports/report-archives/transportation/transportation2/do-roads-pay-for-themselves-setting-the-record-straight-on-transportation-funding
___________________
GOP Wants to Bring Transpo Policy Back to the 1950s
by Tanya Snyder on November 19, 2010
A top Republican transportation staffer gave some clues yesterday about the GOP's plan to drastically restructure national transportation policy and reverse many reforms of the past 20 years.
In an off-the-record luncheon with the Road Gang, a sort of "fraternity" of Washington highway executives, Jim Tymon gave the view from his seat as Republican staff director of the House Highways and Transit Subcommittee. Streetsblog spoke to sources who attended the gathering.
...What does that mean for reforming our broken transportation system? Well, everyone wants to stabilize the highway trust fund – it's not sustainable to continue spending more than the fund brings in from gas tax revenues. (According to Tymon, the trust fund currently spends roughly $50 billion a year, while taking in revenues of just $35 billion.)
But if the option of raising taxes is off the table (Mica believes in VMT fees but says it'll take years to get there, and has flatly opposed raising the gas tax), the only solution is to cut spending – and that's just what Mica and his Republican colleagues seem poised to do, to the tune of $7 billion to $8 billion per year. Tymon called it "cutting the fat."
Apparently, for Republicans, the big target for cuts appears to be transit spending. Tymon suggested to the Road Gang that the current $8 billion allocated for transit annually could shrink to $5 billion. The Road Gang was, apparently, relieved to see that transit would bear the brunt of the burden of spending cuts.
READ MORE AT:
http://dc.streetsblog.org/2010/11/19/leaked-gop-wants-to-bring-transpo-policy-back-to-the-1950s/
by Tanya Snyder on November 19, 2010
A top Republican transportation staffer gave some clues yesterday about the GOP's plan to drastically restructure national transportation policy and reverse many reforms of the past 20 years.
In an off-the-record luncheon with the Road Gang, a sort of "fraternity" of Washington highway executives, Jim Tymon gave the view from his seat as Republican staff director of the House Highways and Transit Subcommittee. Streetsblog spoke to sources who attended the gathering.
...What does that mean for reforming our broken transportation system? Well, everyone wants to stabilize the highway trust fund – it's not sustainable to continue spending more than the fund brings in from gas tax revenues. (According to Tymon, the trust fund currently spends roughly $50 billion a year, while taking in revenues of just $35 billion.)
But if the option of raising taxes is off the table (Mica believes in VMT fees but says it'll take years to get there, and has flatly opposed raising the gas tax), the only solution is to cut spending – and that's just what Mica and his Republican colleagues seem poised to do, to the tune of $7 billion to $8 billion per year. Tymon called it "cutting the fat."
Apparently, for Republicans, the big target for cuts appears to be transit spending. Tymon suggested to the Road Gang that the current $8 billion allocated for transit annually could shrink to $5 billion. The Road Gang was, apparently, relieved to see that transit would bear the brunt of the burden of spending cuts.
READ MORE AT:
http://dc.streetsblog.org/2010/11/19/leaked-gop-wants-to-bring-transpo-policy-back-to-the-1950s/
Ken Prendergast
Executive Director
All Aboard Ohio
12029 Clifton Blvd., Suite 505
Cleveland, OH 44107
(216) 288-4883
kenprendergast@allaboardohio.org
www.allaboardohio.org
Executive Director
All Aboard Ohio
12029 Clifton Blvd., Suite 505
Cleveland, OH 44107
(216) 288-4883
kenprendergast@allaboardohio.org
www.allaboardohio.org
