The Myth of Road Tax
 

This subject has been brought up many times before, but recently I've heard people carry on about paying road tax so motor vehicles have priority on public roads. This is an interesting paper in PDF form that explains how roads are paid for, how gas tax is not a "user fee", and how highways nowadays are highly subsidized, more than ever, by general taxation.

"In short, highways have never fully “paid for themselves” through gasoline taxes and other user fees, are doing so less than ever today, and there is good reason to believe that they will be unable to do so in the future, at least in the absence of a dramatic increase in user fees that will make alternative modes of travel even more attractive than they are today."

It is a lot of reading, but it made more sense for me to see how transportation funding works.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/27f4j2e

Now if there were only a way to get motorists to read and understand this... if this were taught in a school class as part of a larger "responsibilities and ethics" of road use class, perhaps we would not have some of the issues we have today.

But otherwise it is our little secret that some motorists will refuse to believe.

This bit right here hits the nail on the head about the myths spread by some organizations regarding road use.


I find this particularly interesting as at least one member here on BF constantly rants about "cyclist inferiority syndrome" while an organization for which he is a speaker spreads the very lies that tend to reinforce the thinking that leads to this "cyclist inferiority" situation.

Here's another link on bicycles and road taxes:

http://grist.org/article/2010-09-27-...uld-be-unfair/

I always think it's funny when conservatives criticize public transpo and bike/ped programs as "socialist" but then demand more roads be built. At this point in the US's transportation network development, roads are one of the most subsidized and least return-on-investment projects there is. Statistics show that bike/ped projects are not only cheaper, but create more jobs per mile than roads, with none of the external costs like pollution, traffic congestion, and horrific deaths. If that's socialism, then pass me a copy of Das Kapital and sign me up!

Plus, bicyclists cause less wear and tear per mile of roadway, helping make the roadway last a little longer, which is a financial advantage for local/county municipalities

And this should not be a political issue, as in, not a conservative versus liberal issue. It's about whether the US can afford to keep being so car-centered, and whether it's good for the general population, economy and health-wise, to continue being car-centered.

Want to fight the "obesity epidemic"? Instead of trying to outlaw things like trans-fats in San Fran and large sodas in NYC, why not make it more feasible for people to walk and bike places instead of driving?
It goes without saying, really, if more people used their muscles to get around, the "too many calories" problem would probably be a moot point. LOL

Fully agreed... however there are folks that consider "instead of driving" an "anti-motoring" effort.

I wonder if she's right. I read on the ODOT page somewhere that the gas tax pays for about 80% of road maintenance in Oregon. Is that only for highways and freeways?

Do you have a citation for this?

Cheaper per mile -- that certainly makes sense. After all, roads and bike paths are basically the same -- but bike paths are smaller and don't need to be as sturdy and don't usually have curbs -- so they're cheaper. (And they're a *whole lot* cheaper when you're merely repainting existing roads to remove lanes or make them smaller to add room for a bike lane -- though hopefully this doesn't really count when somebody comes up with these statistics.)

But "creating more jobs per mile than roads" ... that doesn't make any sense. The "jobs created" idea thrown around is basically directly related to the cost -- most of the money you spend goes into employing people to perform your labor, and the materials you purchase goes to labor to create the items, raw materials and to the owners of the company -- "creating jobs" at every step.

Probably so, here in Calif., our gas tax's first priority is to pay the service debt (interest/payment) on the borrowed money for freeway and highway construction, then the second priority is freeway and highway maintenance( about 86% of the remaining monies), then lastly, to the county roads and city streets.

We get that crap here too as seen in this letter that appeared in our local bird cage liner:

http://www.therecord.com/opinion/let...-accommodating

Following is a draft of my response

It is rare to see such a display of ignorance as shown in Roger Marsh’s letter on 30 May. First, there is no such thing as road tax. Gasoline taxes and licence fees are not earmarked for roads but are put into the general fund. Besides, these do not anywhere near pay for the construction and maintenance of roadways. Funding comes mostly through income and sales taxes and especially property taxes. Given my tax bill I can assure Mr. Marsh that I pay enough in order to operate my bicycle wherever and whenever I wish.

Mr. Marsh would also like to see cyclists confined to sidewalks. This is dangerous. Many accidents occur as a direct result of cyclists “submarining” from the sidewalk unto the roadway. Entrances from parking lots and driveways are danger zones because of a combination of poor visibility and relative speed of even cruising bicycles. Pedestrians, especially the young and elderly are vulnerable to being struck by cyclists.

Mr Marsh seems to believe that since few are dressed in business attire on their bike this means that we are all out just having a good time. I commute on my bike in all weather conditions and I carry a change of clothes so I look professional on the other end. I also use the same bike to run back and forth to socialize with friends or shopping. Every time I leave the house I think about whether the bike would be as effective rather than using the car for the intended journey. It seems increasingly that I am not alone and as gasoline prices increase I would suggest that Mr. Marsh get used to many more cyclists on the road.

As for the failure of cyclists to follow traffic laws I will not excuse it and I support greater police enforcement. However, the blatant hypocrisy of certain motorists in condemning cyclists wholesale is difficult to swallow. Daily, whether on two wheels or four, I see motorists continue to text message, run red lights, speed, make unsafe passes, and ignore stop signs and pedestrian crossings. These violations are being committed in vehicles that can weigh several tons and are capable of high speeds that can cause tremendous injury.

My guess is that the creating jobs claim comes from the fact that bike/ped jobs consume more labor per dollar spent, necessarily local labor, than do highway jobs that use large amounts of materials, likely not locally sourced, and large machines, certainly not locally sourced.

All the same, paying gas tax is for the fuel you put in your vehicle, not for using the roads. People also buy gas for airplanes, off-road vehicles, lawn mowers, farm equipment, sawmills... and they are not likely to be using public roads with them. It's a bit of a stretch for the common mindset to say paying tax on your fuel is a user fee for using public roads. Does a percentage of this gas tax pay for ways to alleviate environmental impact, such as air pollution?
And, if gas tax was related to user fees of the roads, do high fuel consuming vehicles have more "rights" to the road than fuel efficient or non-petroleum powered vehicles?

I heard one freight hauling truck driver insist he paid $33,000 last year in "road tax". I don't understand that exactly. Did he mean personal income tax, business related tax, or vehicle registration fees, per axle and/or gross tonnage fees? I'm rather ignorant of that aspect...

My bad, the statistic is actually bike/ped projects create more jobs per dollar spent than road projects.

I agree, but too many times the two sides of the argument split along political lines.

I am always suspicious of any article or claim that is based on numbers but gives very few numbers in support. I think this article falls in that category. Don't tell me that numbers don't add up. Show me the numbers.

A good portion of the article is dedicated to pointing out that road taxes goes into general fund money. So what? Frankly, it is irrelevant whether the taxes collected goes into a fund specific for road maintenance/building or goes into the general fund. There is revenue coming in and expenses going out. Whether it comes out of one big general fund bucket or out of a dedicated bucket does change the numbers.

According to the chart on pg. 16, the revenue collected by road taxes was equal to or greater than the amount spent in the years 1947-1956 and 1992-1998. Claiming that road taxes collected never paid for the roads is untrue.

This can be interpreted as a reason to increase taxes, especially on high mpg vehicles like Prius's since they are clearly not paying their "fair share" for the miles driven. Another tax proposal I have seen is a tax per mile driven each year. We just have to have government mandated GPS monitors installed on all of our vehicles so the government can tax us properly.

The problem with charging the high mileage vehicles more in taxes, is that they are causing less damage to the roadways than Mother Nature, especially in California.

Really, when you're looking at the damage caused to the roads by vehicles, it's a very highly dependent on the weight of the vehicle. Bicycles+riders does none. Passenger cars, even SUVs do next to none. It's the big trucks that do the damage.

For example, the study linked to by this page estimates that a fully loaded 18 wheeler does 9600 times the damage to the road that a passenger car does. If I recall correctly, the formula isn't really well know, but the estimates are that the damage is proportional to weight to the fourth power.

Ultimately, the states ought to tax the 18 wheelers heavily for the damage they cause, but since normal passenger cars do negligible damage they should just be taxed for the use of the road, enough to cover the damage due to Mother Nature and other maintenance.

[There is such a thing as "off road" fuel which you don't pay the tax on and is actually dyed a different color. We have many gas stations in rural areas that have "off road" diesel pumps. You can also, as a business, take a tax deduction for taxed fuel used off road.

http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/...r/20103438.htm

I seriously doubt that they ever paid for the roads plus free (as well as insufficiently paid for) parking, nor for all the externalities.

And the trouble with that is, AFAIK, the trucking companies are barely breaking even with the wildly fluctuating and higher costs of diesel, so the cost of transporting things goes up, raising the cost of merchandise and deliveries... so when the price of transport goes up, the price of everything else goes up. At least... that is how I understand it.

I see. I haven't seen pumps labeled like that, before. Interesting.

Here in Calif. it's dyed red, and there are some hefty fines if it's found in one's personal vehicle's fuel tank. Locally, the state's highway patrol are sticklers on drawing samples from fuel tanks of diesel pickup owners who have transfer tanks located in their truck beds, but this only happens when the transfer tank is full of dyed fuel tended for fueling off road equipment.

Have to quibble here:

I'd have to point out that at least in this state (TN) the Transportation "budget" (funded mainly by gasoline tax and license fees) routinely runs a "surplus" and gets "borrowed" from for other things instead of the other way around. So, in theory TN highways, st roads "pay for themselves". But it shouldn't be news to anyone that X tax doesn't ever go specifically Y program in the budget.