The Atlantic: Why Your Prius Will Bankrupt Our Highways.
“Since back in the Eisenhower era, the federal government has maintained a Highway Trust Fund, paid for mostly by taxes on fuel, that helps cover the repair and construction of our country’s roads, bridges, and mass transit. The idea was that drivers themselves should bear some of the cost the roads they used. Unfortunately, Congress hasn’t raised the gas tax since 1993. Since then, inflation has eaten away at least a third of its value.” Driving down to Austin over the holidays, I have to say that our interstates are disgusting. They used to be smooth and well-kept ... now crisscrossed with cheap tar gap-fill and potholes. Some are turning to gravel, like the remnants of Route 66.
Comments:
Well, remember that states have some say over how that money is spent. We just dropped over a billion dollars for a stupid light rail line… well, I better not get into the light rail line. I’m sure it’s very nice, and you probably can’t buy a better one for a billion+ but it’s destroying neighborhoods for the sake of “progress” while the roads are all going to shit while they build this thing.
The pisser is that Minneapolis used to have one of the best, most amazing light rail transit systems in the country. Then in the 60s they elected a bunch of guys who all were investors in a local bus company. They dismantled the light rail, sold all of the city owned property it was on, bought a bunch of buses (at handsomely inflated prices) and sold it as modernizing and progress and all that nonsense.
I bet if you look at the bottom of this light rail mess you’ll find somebody getting the kickbacks this time around too.
I forgot to mention too that sometimes states are just incompetent in how they allocate funds. My grandpa used to build roads in the state of Michigan (and a few in surrounding states), he owned one of the best road paving companies in the country. He used to brag about which roads he paved and how well they were holding up (“No major work for 50 years!”)
I later found out that there were some major highways in Michigan that he refused to acknowledge that he had done because the state didn’t keep up with basic maintenance, fixing cracks and the like before the freeze/thaw cycle ruined the road down to the sub-pavement. (His roads were all concrete roads, he refused to work with asphalt and called it “bear shit”.)
A lot of that work goes to the lowest bidder too so it falls apart faster. Sure it “saves” money but it never really does. They did a quick and shoddy re-pave of a lot of roads around here just before the RNC in 2008 and they’re all starting to fall apart again.
We used to watch those lovely classroom films that proclaimed America’s pride in our interstate highway systems, our railways ... all paid for by our communal Federal dollars. Pooling our funds through taxes was a source of pride.
How bizarre our modern culture’s new view of these benefits.
CrazyB, you’ve got that right. Our main road here in Eldo was just repaved two years ago, and it’s already falling apart. I despair of any American workmanship standing up to our fathers’ and forefathers’ work. Corporate capitalist greed serves only to offer promises that their company accountants won’t keep.
Emmett, crazybutable, and G-man: Great comments all. It is fascinating (no, not really) that we stopped teaching civics - and Driver’s Ed. for that matter - after the 1980 elections. We no longer water the commons, but plunder it. Redirect public funds into corporate profits. But then those are all ‘civics’ things, aren’t they?
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State’s rights, anti-tax legislators, various local anti-tax initiatives, “If I don’t use it I don’t want to pay for it”
I don’t know where people think infrastructure comes from.
That bridge you drive across was paid for probably with Federal dollars. Bridges are expensive and most towns and counties have a devil of a time buying new ones.
That once beautiful interstate highways system? ALL Federal money, largely in support of national defense so we could rush troops anywhere we needed.
The problem I think is three-fold:
One - local politicians are pandering to local constituents, the initial agreement was the Feds would lay the highway, the locality would maintain it.
Two - We quit teaching civics in school. Local constituents have no idea where that bridge came from or what it takes to maintain it or where that money was supposed to come from.
Three - The taxes were set as a fixed amount per gallon sold. They should have been set as a percentage of price. Then the tax escalates automatically.
Of course, then the locals would throw it into ‘general’ funds and spend it on other things and we’d be right back where we are.
I actually lived in a town that taught civics classes for adults, volunteer time from the various city department managers in the evening.
We had surprisingly intelligent questions from the voters after that. And less mindless pushback when it was time to pay for something. And every time something new was proposed for construction by the city the citizens asked where the maintenance funds were coming from. What a partnership.