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Cars and trucks are more fuel efficient, and Americans are driving less. I suspect that the recession has had something to do with it. More fuel efficient vehicles and reduced driving have resulted in a road funding problem, since the fuel tax is a major source of revenue for state and federal highways. A quick partial fix in Texas would be to stop diverting 25 per cent of the fuel tax to education. At the federal level a halt to diverting approximately 22 per cent of the HTF to mass transit and other activities would help provide more funds for roads. Both probably are non-starters Financing public education in the Lone Star State is challenging. Taking way the diverted highway funds would produce a howl of protests.  Moreover, raising the fuel tax in Texas is another non-starter. Texans want better roads; they just don't want to pay for them.  So what is the answer? Toll roads!  That's what we are doing in Texas. At first I did not like the idea, but the more I have thought about it, the more I have cottoned up to it.  Tolls are paid directly by the users. They know exactly what they are paying to use the roadway. It gives them a better idea of what it costs to drive. And it is going to become more clear as time goes on, because it is how we are going to fund urban roads in Texas. Also, it is fairer. Many of the folks way out there, as in Midland and Odessa, claim that it is unfair to increase the state fuel taxes to pay for the complex, costly roads required in urban areas like Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.   And they are right.  Toll roads in urban areas are paid for by the motorists who use them. And not by folks out there!
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