Streetsblog Capitol Hill offers “Actually, Highway Builders, Roads Don’t Pay For Themselves,” debunking more car-centric myths. A few highlights:
- 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
- local streets are mostly paid for by the general fund, or in a few cases developers
- no one is paying directly for the environmental and social costs of roads, so we all pay these hidden costs
- 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