evidence: When motorists in New York top off their gas tanks this Labor Day weekend, they’ll be paying an average of about 45 cents per gallon in state and local fuel taxes—the 5th highest total in the nation, and second highest in the Northeast. [...] While a number of states have significantly boosted their gas taxes in recent years, New York’s total fuel tax burden has ranked at or near the top of national rankings for a long time, thanks to increases enacted in the early 1990s for the express purpose of funding highway and bridge improvements. [...] State and local sales taxes add an average of nearly 20 cents per gallon to the pump price of gas in New York, which also reflects 18.4 cents per gallon in federal gasoline excise taxes.*