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Proposed high speed freight service in France
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With apologies to DSchmitt, I will plagerize one of his posts in the "Bush Budget Scraps Subsidies for Amtrak" thread and repost it here for the benefit of those who still think highways users don't pay their own way. I believe this data is from BTS. <br /> <br />DSchmitt - If you request I will delete this or modify it at your behest. <br /> <br /> <br />"The Highway subsidy Myth. <br /> <br />Direct user fees pay for only 60% of the road system. However the Federal share of the cost for Highways is 100% user fee. <br /> <br />States pay their share with 80% user fees (including what they get from the Federal government.). <br /> <br />Local roads are only 26% user fee (including what they get from the Feds and State) While the local streets and roads are not paid for by user fees, they are paid for by the people who use/and or benefit them. <br /> <br /><Until well after 1900, farmers in many parts of the country paid all or part of their property tax by building and maintaing the county road system. There were few autos to pay user fees but the roads were still needed.> <br /> <br /><Streets in the cities also pre-exist the auto and the the highway user fees.> <br /> <br /><In California new local roads are built by developers at theit expence. Upgrades to existing roads are often done by developers or paid for by developer fees. Some Highway (including Freeway) upgrades are paid for by developers too. This of course increases the developers cost, which they hope to recoup from customers, but it releaves the taxpayer of some of the direct costs for the road system.> <br /> <br />States and locals use some highway user fee revenue for non-highway puropses. They also use other revenue for highway purposes so the overall picture is very complicated <br /> <br />Taking all this into account, the highway subsidy is no where near 40%. It may even be in reality non-exsistent since Highway user fees are also used for non-highway purposes. <br /> <br />This post has been edited by DSchmitt on 07 Feb 2005, 22:43:12" <br /> <br />The idea that only railroads pay their own ROW costs is a myth. The difference between railroad ROW funding and ROW funding of other modes is that only railroads engage in defered ROW maintenance to enhance balance sheets. The other modes simply do not have that option due to the separation of infrastructure from transporter operations.
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