Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Who really pays for our roads?
Some motorists think that bicyclists should be taxed because they don't pay road user fees. They think that user fees pay for construction of our roads. Beside the fact that most cyclists own cars and buy gas, it's a fallacy that motorist user fees pay the full cost of our roads. According to a recent report from the PEW Charitable Trusts on trends in highway funding, only "51 percent of the nation's $193 billion set aside for highway construction and maintenance was generated through user fees." (via Greater Greater Washington)As reported by DC.Streetsblog, "In Texas, he said that, on average, it cost the state 20-30 cents per person per mile to build and maintain a road to the suburbs, yet drivers only pay on average 2-3 cents per mile through the gas tax, vehicles fees, etc. 'What we found was that no road that we built in Texas paid for itself,' said Krusee. 'None.'"
We think we'll be referring to this information in the future so we've included links in our Cyclist Resources page under References, Road Taxes 1 and 2.
Labels: gas tax, road taxes
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