Funding roads (taxes, user fees etc)

[SammyOES2]

Here is a good post from City Observatory discussing the fact that motorists do not cover the cost of the roads they use, let alone all of the other costs associated with driving (air pollution and climate change, inefficient land use patterns, traffic injuries and fatalities).

It also talks about the fact that pricing roads makes them more efficient, but that isn't true in the same way for transit. And it addresses calls for pricing infrastructure for people on foot or bicycle- that absurd idea is sometimes proposed when someone hears an idea to ask motorists to pay for a bit more of the social costs they create.

Articles like this are the bane of my existence.  They're opinion pieces masquerading as reporting facts.

In this case, I agree with their point about not being efficient in terms of congestion, and reading through the linked CBO article, it looks like thats a point backed up by the data.

But then we get into:

"It’s also important to keep in mind that this report only addresses the direct financial costs to government for constructing and operating the highway system. There are also huge social and environmental costs—from air pollution, climate change, and injuries and deaths associated with crashes—that aren’t reflected in the prices that that roads users pay."


This is a favorite of these types of articles.  Instead of talking about costs/benefits and net costs, they just focus on the costs.  

"And—almost in passing—the CBO report casts doubt on the accepted wisdom that highway building triggers economic growth. They say: “Research suggests that increase in economic activity from spending for new highways in the United States have generally declined over time.” Translation: highway investment experiences diminishing returns. The nation gets a big gain from building the Interstate Highway system when there was none, but each successive increment to the system produces a smaller and smaller return.
"


This translation is fundamentally wrong.  The conventional wisdom IS that highway investment experiences diminishing returns.  But that doesn't change that they do provide returns.  And that in some cases you need investment purely to maintain the economic benefit you were previously getting.  That can still be a good investment.

After this we get into the bulk of the just non-fact based rambling.  The subway vs. highway argument about increased traffic is ridiculous.  In both cases you require a large capital increase to get the system started to support up to some level of capacity.  As you increase usage, you increase delays for everyone if you don't change the system (this is all obvious from looking at the NYC subway system).  They make the comment about increasing usage can decrease delays as more trains are run.  More trains being run requires a further investment of money!  The equivalent to the highway system would be that increased usage can lead to more lanes being added or bottlenecks removed and decrease congestion for everyone.

And of course with transit you get to a point where you can't handle the capacity with more trains and need to build more stations, enlarge stations, add new lines, etc.  All REALLY expensive things on par with building new highways or performing significant enlargement of highway systems.


Most importantly, the thing I'd like to see in an article like this is an actual comparison of the amount of subsidy the highway system is getting to the amount of subsidy the public transportation system is getting.