Here’s a crazy idea: Let’s spend them on highways.
5 thoughts on “Highway Funds”
It is the old saying about the man convicted of killing his parents, who pleads with the court for leniency because he is an orphan.
I guess the gas tax and the highway trust fund is not a perfect Libertarian solution, but the general idea is that the motorists and truckers are the people paying for the roads. People who pay the gas tax and enjoy having good roads would support the gas tax or even increasing that tax to at least catch up with inflation so as to have good roads.
But the folks asking for more trains are snarking and trolling, “Oh yeah, you complain about the Amtrak subsidy but what about the even larger shortfall in the highway trust fund because no one ever wants to raise taxes, even the gas tax that funds the roads?”
As you and the article points out, there are various transportation “diversions” of the gas tax into mass transit and bike paths, and I believe there are also non-transportation uses of the gas tax money.
So instead of supporting a gas tax increase to build more roads and repair roads, motorists and especially the trucking lobby is saying, “Forget this. Our taxes go up but we won’t ever see any of this.”
I guess the Libertarian solution is that everyone would have transponders and every road would be a toll road, properly market and demand priced. Not sure if this is such a good idea with government rather than private ownership of the roads. As a government monopoly, they would figure out how to pad the toll charges, both for Environmental and Social Justice reasons.
I guess the Libertarian solution is that everyone would have transponders and every road would be a toll road, properly market and demand priced.
From what I understand, they do this in Singapore. It seems to work for them, but then, they go to extremes to limit the number of cars. To buy a car in Singapore, you first have to buy an import license. They’re limited and can cost $10-15K. Then, you get to buy your car but also have to pay a 100% tax. So, if you want a $30K car, it’ll end up costing you $70-75K. And the import license is only good for 10 years, so after then, you have to ship the car out of the country.
If they want to use transponders here, make everyone get one. Cars, trucks, government vehicles, bicycles, everything with wheels that goes on the road. No free riders.
Here in Seattle, the needs of one bike rider outweighs the need of 10,000 motorists.
This is good because… Gaia.
On the other side of the state we have the Children of the Sun trail that runs parallel to the North/South Freeway. The biking/walking path has its own over passes. I kind of like the idea because I do a lot of walking and hiking. We have a lot of trails, parks, and wildlife areas over here. But the Children of the Sun trail is really expensive. Do the people who use it help pay for it in some way? Probably but Discover Pass fees don’t go toward it and are not required to access it. I am not sure what they do with Discover Pass money because most of the places I go that require it receive zero maintenance.
What I don’t like is that we spend $100m (or whatever it is) on the trail and then people choose to ride their bikes on narrow windy roads with no shoulder, lots of traffic, and lots of deer. If we spend all this money, people should be going someplace where it is safe to ride their bikes.
The bike lanes downtown, though, create lots or right of way hazards and bicyclists generally don’t obey any traffic rules. It seems like the more specialized their gear is, the greater the tendency for them to be dbags to walkers and drivers.
Regarding the issue of cyclists, I think that greater provision of cycleways (especially in cities) is a very good idea indeed provided only that it can be done without mucking up vehicular access – a tall order, I know. It might also be a good idea to build cycle access into new developments from the very start.
Why? Well, there are many reasons. One reason is that cycleways don’t cost much. They are much narrower than vehicular roads, need a shallower roadbed and don’t get torn up anything like as much as vehicular roads. And the availability of safe cycleways is likely to mean less people jumping into their cars, and thus less need for continual extension and widening of the road network – which costs a fortune.
There are other reasons as well. One is less use of fossil fuel, which quite apart from the AGW debate is bound to mean less money going to people who want to kill us – and leads to cleaner air as well. Another is the health benefits of regular exercise. (I suspect that there are quite a large number of people who would use bicycles quite a lot if it wasn’t taking your life in your hands to get on a bike.)
It really does, however, need to be cycleways planned so as not to interfere with other road users. An example of how not to do it is my town. Some years ago, my local town council secured EU funding specifically for the provision of new cycleways – and promptly spent most of the money on other things (including £50/roll wallpaper for the council offices and potted plants at £200 each) instead of cycleways. What we got was a large number of roads messed up severely by putting cycleways on already narrow roads – simply by painting lines on the road – despite the fact that many of the major roads in my town have grass verges a good forty feet wide, which would easily have accommodated proper cycleways.
Cycleways are a very good idea that has to be implemented properly or not at all.
It is the old saying about the man convicted of killing his parents, who pleads with the court for leniency because he is an orphan.
I guess the gas tax and the highway trust fund is not a perfect Libertarian solution, but the general idea is that the motorists and truckers are the people paying for the roads. People who pay the gas tax and enjoy having good roads would support the gas tax or even increasing that tax to at least catch up with inflation so as to have good roads.
But the folks asking for more trains are snarking and trolling, “Oh yeah, you complain about the Amtrak subsidy but what about the even larger shortfall in the highway trust fund because no one ever wants to raise taxes, even the gas tax that funds the roads?”
As you and the article points out, there are various transportation “diversions” of the gas tax into mass transit and bike paths, and I believe there are also non-transportation uses of the gas tax money.
So instead of supporting a gas tax increase to build more roads and repair roads, motorists and especially the trucking lobby is saying, “Forget this. Our taxes go up but we won’t ever see any of this.”
I guess the Libertarian solution is that everyone would have transponders and every road would be a toll road, properly market and demand priced. Not sure if this is such a good idea with government rather than private ownership of the roads. As a government monopoly, they would figure out how to pad the toll charges, both for Environmental and Social Justice reasons.
I guess the Libertarian solution is that everyone would have transponders and every road would be a toll road, properly market and demand priced.
From what I understand, they do this in Singapore. It seems to work for them, but then, they go to extremes to limit the number of cars. To buy a car in Singapore, you first have to buy an import license. They’re limited and can cost $10-15K. Then, you get to buy your car but also have to pay a 100% tax. So, if you want a $30K car, it’ll end up costing you $70-75K. And the import license is only good for 10 years, so after then, you have to ship the car out of the country.
If they want to use transponders here, make everyone get one. Cars, trucks, government vehicles, bicycles, everything with wheels that goes on the road. No free riders.
Here in Seattle, the needs of one bike rider outweighs the need of 10,000 motorists.
This is good because… Gaia.
On the other side of the state we have the Children of the Sun trail that runs parallel to the North/South Freeway. The biking/walking path has its own over passes. I kind of like the idea because I do a lot of walking and hiking. We have a lot of trails, parks, and wildlife areas over here. But the Children of the Sun trail is really expensive. Do the people who use it help pay for it in some way? Probably but Discover Pass fees don’t go toward it and are not required to access it. I am not sure what they do with Discover Pass money because most of the places I go that require it receive zero maintenance.
What I don’t like is that we spend $100m (or whatever it is) on the trail and then people choose to ride their bikes on narrow windy roads with no shoulder, lots of traffic, and lots of deer. If we spend all this money, people should be going someplace where it is safe to ride their bikes.
The bike lanes downtown, though, create lots or right of way hazards and bicyclists generally don’t obey any traffic rules. It seems like the more specialized their gear is, the greater the tendency for them to be dbags to walkers and drivers.
Regarding the issue of cyclists, I think that greater provision of cycleways (especially in cities) is a very good idea indeed provided only that it can be done without mucking up vehicular access – a tall order, I know. It might also be a good idea to build cycle access into new developments from the very start.
Why? Well, there are many reasons. One reason is that cycleways don’t cost much. They are much narrower than vehicular roads, need a shallower roadbed and don’t get torn up anything like as much as vehicular roads. And the availability of safe cycleways is likely to mean less people jumping into their cars, and thus less need for continual extension and widening of the road network – which costs a fortune.
There are other reasons as well. One is less use of fossil fuel, which quite apart from the AGW debate is bound to mean less money going to people who want to kill us – and leads to cleaner air as well. Another is the health benefits of regular exercise. (I suspect that there are quite a large number of people who would use bicycles quite a lot if it wasn’t taking your life in your hands to get on a bike.)
It really does, however, need to be cycleways planned so as not to interfere with other road users. An example of how not to do it is my town. Some years ago, my local town council secured EU funding specifically for the provision of new cycleways – and promptly spent most of the money on other things (including £50/roll wallpaper for the council offices and potted plants at £200 each) instead of cycleways. What we got was a large number of roads messed up severely by putting cycleways on already narrow roads – simply by painting lines on the road – despite the fact that many of the major roads in my town have grass verges a good forty feet wide, which would easily have accommodated proper cycleways.
Cycleways are a very good idea that has to be implemented properly or not at all.