Streetsblog Capitol Hill offers “Actually, Highway Builders, Roads Don’t Pay For Themselves,” debunking more car-centric myths. A few highlights:

  1. gas taxes pay for only about half, and that is declining, of the federal and state highways system, while the rest comes from the general fund
  2. local streets are mostly paid for by the general fund, or in a few cases developers
  3. no one is paying directly for the environmental and social costs of roads, so we all pay these hidden costs
  4. in most states, including Nevada, no sales tax is paid on fuel purchase, so that not only is the gas tax being dedicated to a specific use for roads, we are foregoing the sales tax that might pay for other things, and then having to pay general funds on top of that for road building; it is hard to imagine a better system for benefitting one mode of transportation over all others