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The True Costs of Driving

Cortright, Joe
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving-true-costs/412237/

Publisher:  The Atlantic
Date Written:  25/10/2015
Year Published:  2015  
Resource Type:  Article

Cortright highlights the costs behind building and maintaining roads as well as what part of public taxes fund such an expensive venture.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

A report published earlier this year confirms, in tremendous detail, a very basic fact of transportation that's widely disbelieved: Drivers don't come close to paying for the costs of the roads they use. Published jointly by the Frontier Group and the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, "Who Pays for Roads?" exposes the myth that drivers are covering what they're using.

The report documents that the amount that road users pay through gas taxes now accounts for less than half of what's spent to maintain and expand the road system. The resulting shortfall is made up from other sources of tax revenue at the state and local levels, generated by drivers and non-drivers alike. This subsidizing of car ownership costs the typical household about $1,100 per year -- over and above the costs of gas taxes, tolls, and other user fees.

While congressional bailouts of the Highway Trust Fund have made this subsidy more apparent, it has actually never been the case that road users paid their own way. Not only that, but the amount of their subsidy has steadily increased in recent years. The share of the costs paid from road-user fees has dropped from about 70 percent in the 1960s to less than half today, according to the study.

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