dougmc

As a disclaimer, I am not familiar with the funding for the roads in Tennessee, but ...

If this is true, one or more of several things must also be true --

1) this budget must be funded by more than "mainly gasoline tax and license fees"
2) gasoline taxes and/or license fees must be much higher in TN than the rest of the nation, or
3) roads must cost a fraction as much in TN as the rest of the nation to build and maintain (seems unlikely), or
4) this budget must only pay for certain items related to the transportation infrastructure -- and not everything.

For example, in Texas the money collected by the state portion of the gasoline tax is significantly larger than the license fees, and yet only pays for about 1/3rd of the cost of maintaining the highway system. To make matters worse, the highway system it pays for is literally the state highway system -- roads with numbers. City roads do not get a penny of this money, as the state Constititon prohibits that.

Most of the rest comes from sales taxes and property taxes. (No state income tax in Texas.)

rydabent

Actually anyone would have a very hard time convincing me that all the gas tax and wheel taxes are directed totally to streets and hi-ways. Especially local b'crats some how or ever misdirect those funds to build some pet project.

ItsJustMe

If you include ALL the external benefits of having roads, I think the ROI is pretty incredible. Without roads we would be a 3rd world country, so I think that indirectly at least roads have payback well in excess of their costs.

MattFoley

But read the clause I put in right before that: "At this point in the US's transportation network development". The Interstate Highway system was an amazing thing and has done wonders for the economy. However, building and expanding roads in areas that are already built up only attracts more traffic and spurs unsustainable exurban development. It's called the Lewis-Mogridge Position and the basic premise is that building roads induces demand, thus creating more traffic. Kinda like the old saying that "the task expands to fill the time allotted", the principle states that "traffic expands to fill available road space". I think it's pretty well established that roads are good, but traffic is bad (google the stats about how much time and money are wasted by Americans sitting in traffic, in addition to health problems and pollution), so building roads, in most cases, will only add to these problems. Thus my statement that roads have a really bad ROI, since these days they tend to create congestion (and all the other negative externalities) and little else.

The Human Car

You have to keep in mind that the gas tax is split between federal and state. So when a state says gas tax it's just their portion and does not include what the feds give back. To complicate things even more on the fed side, general funds have been used to increase the fund not to mention how much goes back to each state is NOT based on how much a state has contributed or how much people drive but some crazy formula that sets states up as either donor or receiver states so you could say a portion of everyone's gas tax goes to pay for roads in Texas. (Just to name one receiver state.)

unterhausen

the gas tax is an absolutely perfect solution to the issues of building and maintaining roads -- except it isn't high enough. The crazy thing is the only proposed solution to this seems to be the insane plan of using expensive equipment to track everywhere you go so that they can send you a monthly bill per mile. They really just need to crank up the gas tax.

dougmc

It's a pretty good solution, except that it isn't high enough -- as you said.

It's not absolutely perfect, however.

1) it doesn't catch vehicles that use alternative fuels. Homemade bio-diesel, electric? No tax. Yes, these are rare, and yes, we're trying to encourage electric vehicles, but as these become less rare this will become more of a problem.

2) drivers of fuel efficient cars pay less. They do less damage to the roads too, true, but nature does more damage than small cars anyways so this is sort of irreelvant. If the fee is to pay for just using the road, then having a Prius pay less than another car isn't really fair. (If the fee is for CO2 emitted, then of course it's perfectly fair -- but that's not what the fee is for.)

Of course, again, we're trying to encourage efficient vehicles, so this is a pretty minor problem -- so minor it's barely a problem at all. Unless of course you drive a big SUV, in which case you'll run for office on a "fairness" campaign and win due to votes from other SUV drivers who will kill the entire plain to raise the gasoline taxes.

3) it doesn't catch bicycles. (In order to be absolutely perfect, it needs to be fair, and so cyclists should be charged a little bit if this is the only thing that pays for roads. But again, society should be encouraging cyclists, so foregoing a small bit of tax on them should not be a problem unless cyclists come to outnumber drivers.)

4) the tax works reasonably well for smaller vehicles to cover their use of and (small) damage to the roads, but for larger vehicles (for example, fully loaded 18 wheelers) the damage caused to the roads (compared to a car) is much higher than the additional fuel used (again, compared to a car.) So additional taxes would be needed to cover that.

On the bright side, if the states are good at anything, it's taxing commercial vehicles -- so these taxes are generally already in place.

All that said, I do think it's the best all-around way to fund the roads.

genec

Two fold solution... one that covers everything. All vehicles (including bicycles) pay an annual fee based on weight... that accounts for the potential damage that a particular vehicle may cause to the roads... bikes of course would pay little more than a token fee... as they weigh "nothing" relative to even the lightest car. Then raise the gas tax; make it as a percent of the price, not just a fixed amount. That way as gas goes up, the tax goes up.

Of course none of this will happen... but there is your "solution."