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[quote user="John WR"] [quote user="Sam1"]As noted previously, approximately 92 per cent of Americans over 19 are licensed motorists.  All of them pay fuel taxes, sales taxes, etc.  Unless they live in public housing, they pay property taxes, which is a major source of funding for local streets and county roads.  And if they pay income taxes, which approximately 63.8 per cent of them did in 2011, they sent money to the federal and state government general funds.  Some of these funds flowed back to federal and state road authorities. America's roads are not paid for by overseas investors or little green men from Mars.[/quote] Well yes.  But individuals don't pay for roads in proportion to the amount they use the roads.  My wife and I share one car but we pay the same property taxes as our neighbor down the street whose family has 4 cars.   And sales tax is a regressive tax so poorer people pay more than wealthier people and to the extent that our roads are funded with sales tax there is a real distortion.   My part of the country has a lot of undocumented aliens who do not qualify for a drivers license but they must still pay taxes to support our roads.   Recently I read in my newspaper that the Federal transportation trust fund is out of money so about half of the money need to maintain Interstate highways will come from general revenues.   If we had to pay for roads on a true economic basis where road users paid the costs of the roads in proportion to their use many more people would use public transit and there would be a greater demand for it.   [/quote] As noted some users, especially low income users, don't pay the full cost of the roads that they use.  Others, however, pay more than the cost of the roads that they use. What seems to be missed in this discussion is the fact that American motorists pay for the roads that they use. To the extent that the cost is not covered by direct user fees, it is covered from a variety of other tax generated revenues.  The roadways are not being paid for by people from overseas or Mars. Because such a large percentage of the population drives, they are the tax base from which the monies are drawn to pay for roads irrespective of how it comes about.  The problem, however, is one of awareness. Because most people don't see the full cost of driving, they tend to do more of it, in larger vehicles, than might be the case if they saw the true cost of driving at the pump, which I have long favored. It ain't going to happen!  It is a political nonstarter!  It may be that the country has over emphasized roads and airways at the expense of passenger rail.  We need to get over it.  We are where we are! The key question is what is the best way forward?  For my money it is passenger trains in a very small number, at least for now, of high density, relatively short corridors where the cost to expand the airways and roadways is prohibitive. Proponents of this approach or that approach can make all the intellectual arguments that they want. They may even have the best argument. But if they fail to take into consideration the politics, they lose. Big time!
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