Title: Who Pays For Roads? | U.S. PIRG
Headings: Report:
21st Century Transportation

Report: 21st Century Transportation
Who Pays For Roads?
New Report Finds Drivers Pay Less Than Half the Cost of Roads
Webinar to Explain Why Raising Gas Taxes Won’t Necessarily Solve Problems

Content: Playing make believe about where our transportation dollars come from shouldn’t be an option.” The new report pulls back the veil on the “users pay” myth, finding that: · Gas taxes and other fees paid by drivers now cover less than half of road construction and maintenance costs nationally – down from more than 70 percent in the 1960s – with the balance coming chiefly from income, sales and property taxes and other levies on general taxpayers. · General taxpayers at all levels of government now subsidize highway construction and maintenance to the tune of $69 billion per year – an amount exceeding the expenditure of general tax funds to support transit, bicycling, walking and passenger rail combined. · Regardless of how much they drive, the average American household bears an annual financial burden of more than $1,100 in taxes and indirect costs from driving – over and above any gas taxes or other fees they pay that are connected with driving. “The ‘users pay’ myth is deeply ingrained in U.S. transportation policy, shaping how billions of dollars in transportation funds are raised and spent each year,” said Tony Dutzik, co-author of the report and Senior Analyst at Frontier Group, a non-profit think tank. “ More and more, though, all of us are bearing the cost of transportation in our tax bills, regardless of how much we drive.” “We need to dispel the myth that user fees are paying for the building and maintenance of our road network. The reality is that these funds are barely covering a fraction of the cost,” said Gabe Klein, SVP of Fontinalis Partners, and former Commissioner of Transportation for Chicago and Washington, D.C. “The highest return on investment is on bike, pedestrian and transit projects,” he said. State and federal policies often give priority to spending on highways based on the assumption that drivers pay the cost of roads through gas taxes and user fees.