It would only be fair if those paying the tolls be credited back any funds that go towards road repair, in their tax refunds.

Makes sense...if you live on one side of town in a high-fawlootin area, make boo-koo money and take a toll road to work, then common folk who live on the other side of town & never use the road shouldn't get hit with a tax for it.

Last summer I melted through an hour+ traffic jam in Chicago so I could pay a 50 cent toll. I would _much_ rather pay a few cents extra in fuel tax.

Extra fuel tax is much easier and cheaper (no extra cost) to collect and can be adjusted as required with next to no cost or efforts.

Of course, all those who hate taxes would rather pay twice as much in daily tolls. What a waste of time and energy it would be. We live in a cracy world.

The only good thing about high price toll roads is that many people will manage to avoid them to save money and the users with enough financial resources can enjoy traffic jam free rides.

That money driven logic is acceptable in many places.

all the cross subsidies and pillaging of tax funds really distorts transportation costs. I like the idea of tolls funding road costs and fares fully funding public transport so people will know what they really cost.

Finance roads with fuel taxes which encourages conservation and gives people control of how much they pay by 1) driving a more fuel efficient car more conservatively, or 2) taking mass transit, or 3) making work/housing choices that will minimize gas use. Less overall driving tends to decrease congestion.

America was once a classless society. Escalades and other SUVs are witness to the fact that this is no longer so. Those of us who wish to take the high road and can afford to ignore energy shortages should be required to pay for their own folly. A retired widow who does not own a motor vehicle should not be charged in taxes for others' excesses. With the coming depression we will not need high powered people in resource wasting SUVs rushing about for whatever purposes. We will be short on food and water and the basics for life, and no longer be able to support arrogant over-expanded egos that feel their time is worth more than our environment. This will be a blessing on America, where we the common folk will return to a quieter and more civil lifestyle without their high pressured bullshit

This will be a blessing on America, where we the common folk will return to a quieter and more civil lifestyle without their high pressured bullshit

Uncle B, other than in fiction, when has this ever been true? life is filled with brutalities large and small. The emotional savaging of a boss to an employee to keep them in line, extract uncompensated overtime, depress wages. The physical violence a loving married couple perpetrates on their children. Savage teasing of children in the schoolyard by teachers and other kids. Look back at our labor history and see police bashing in the heads of people wanting a living wage and better living conditions than the urban slums they were trapped in.

I like your fantasy but history shows a different and uglier truth. history also shows that we should not expect anything better of ourselves and others in the future.

The mantra of "no more taxes" has permeated our culture. We have destroyed any semblance of "the common good." Politicians don't understand economics but do understand elections. Our economy of public corporations have forced us to abandon long-term thinking for quarterly reports.

So the logical result is that there will be no public investment in infrastructure an no interest in transporting the masses (except to the sweatshop). That only leaves private toll roads. Who needs a study?

Toll roads are owned by private corporations. Tolls are a gift to the wealthy who build them with private money and collect far more than roads paid for with tax payers own money.

Toll based methods avoid the problem of collecting revenue when the sources of fuel for cars are changing so much. Also unlike what many think a typical passenger suv does as much or as little damage to the road as a honda civic.. the main damage to roads comes from semis and weather.

Of course the people trying to avoid paying this money will be pissed when they get taxed even when they drive a bev.. but thats what will pay for the roads.

A toll road with variable pricing maintains maximum throughput during peak periods and encourages people to drive during off-peak hours. This makes the road more efficient than a non-toll road.

It would therefore appear that toll roads fulfill the common good better than freeways.

Look at the report again. First:

"The study notes that most forms of transportation finance—fuel taxes, sales taxes and tolls—are regressive forms of taxation in that they burden the poor more than the rich."

If you don't care for regressive taxes the obvious answer is to rely upon the state income tax to finance roads. The authors don't mention it.

But that is a little unfair. The study was about this:

"The study found that the express lanes are disproportionately used by middle- and upper-middle-income households. Using this as a starting point, the researchers asked hypothetically how people of different income levels would be affected if the four express lanes had instead been financed with sales tax revenues."

And their conclusion? If people had paid taxes to build these toll roads - they didn't - then people that don't use the toll roads didn't get a benefit from those taxes.

Amazing!

How might this relate to public transit funding?

"Another strategy is to use toll revenues to enhance transit services along the corridor so that people have an alternative to driving on the freeway."

Yes, that is another strategy. And the authors pose other schemes such as "lifeline" pricing to let the poor use the toll roads at a lower cost. Or giving them some sort of travel credits which amounts to the same thing.

Wouldn't it just be simpler to raise the income tax? And/or use the profits from tolls to reduce those regressive sales and fuel tax rates that worry the fair-minded politicians?

No more tax.

Two completely different things are mixed up here.
Congestion of roads is one problem, that has (in principle) nothing to do with fuel shortage or CO2.
Even if every car is electrical solar powered, there still will be road congestion. On the other hand, even if massive infrastructure would solve road congestion, we would have the fuel/CO2 problem.

Any system is succesfull if the system by itselve autoregulates towards the solution. The free ruling of the law of supply and demand is what makes our economical system so succesfull. Although short-time fluctuations do occur and seem to be 'proof' of the contrary, the simple rule of supply and demand almost always works toward the solution by itself. If there are not enough eggs (demand>supply), the price increases, so the profit of producing eggs increases, which increases incentives to produce eggs, which will increase the supply, which will again lower the price. In an open, transparant system, the price will equilibrate at the level of a fair profit for every step in the production process. The primary obligation of the state is to guarantee transparancy of the system.

Subsidising anything will decrease efficiency. For instance, if (like in many developing countries) water is subsidised, it is much cheaper (even free) for the people than it really costs. This induces massive wasting of water (by rich and by poor), which drives up the cost for the governement and wastes a lot of money. If the goverenement wants to be social (which they should), and want to provide money to the poor, they should just give money, with which the poor can buy their water at the real price. This will make them more conscious and rational, and the total amount of money used by the governement for 'social projects' will be spent much more efficiently. (In many of those countries, corruption makes this system very difficult)

Simply said, everything should cost what it really costs. If you pay roads with tax money, and make it free to use, it will be congested immediately again, and much 'social' money will be wasted.
Fuel should cost what it costs (CO2 recapturing included).
If it is considered unfair that poor people can not use the 'expensive' roads or buy 'expensive' fuel, just give money to all the people you want to help, and let them decide for themeselves what to do with it.
The use of the roads or the fuel to drive it should cost what it costs (depending on the law of supply and demand, so at night cheaper than in daytime).

@Alain

Please send USD$0.10 to pay for the posting of your comment (and this payment reminder) for perpetuity.

An elegant byproduct of the fuel tax is that it encourages higher MPG vehicles.* The "free market" Alain refers to fails to account for detrimental externalities -- every time someone burns a gallon of gas, it reduces my air quality, increases the chances of severe climate change, and increases my country's dependence on foreign oil. Those don't show up in the S-D curves, but they're very real and have a very real cost.

By artificially increasing the purchase price of gasoline using a tax, the purchaser behaves as if those costs are real, and adjusts accordingly.

At the end of the day, the gas tax both helps (a) reduce driving and (b) reduce use of low MPG vehicles. The toll does reduce driving on the road, but does nothing to encourage higher MPG vehicles.

So, instead of having two public Americas -- one for poor people and another for the rich -- why not insist that public spaces are available to users of all financial means, and instead use the gas tax to discourage driving for all users on all roads and to discourage the purchase of low MPG vehicles?

* At $.184 per gallon, not so much at the federal level on a $3.50 gallon of gas, but add in state taxes and you've got some oomph.

Funny... Tax intake is at it's highest levels ever and the corrupt governments (local/state/federal) can't afford to build/maintain roads. Although they can afford MASSIVE wealth transfer and social programs. No essential services, though. Can't have tax dollars going to THAT!

No what happened with the tax backlash is the taxes were going ELSEWHERE and even going to punish the very people paying the tax.. wich of course makes them demand the tax go away.. and as they are the people and vote and can MOVE what they say IS LAW.

To get more money back into ROADS it has to go into ROADS THAT HELP THE PEOPLE PAYING THE BLEEPING TAX.

But we all know thats not what will happen so we all say no to the taxes. In the end the best strategy for most people is to derail all taxes until the area falls apart and then move to a place thats not run by total loser idiots. And guess what.. thats what people are doing.

Overall, this study is simply loaded with value driven terminology and values that predetermined the outcome. It was either funded by the Orange County Republican Party or the Spanish corporation that bought the Indiana Turnpike.

As for all you pay-as-you-go, market-must-dictate purists, please explain how (without - gasp- government intervention) we can price in the cost of pollution and military spending inherent in the price of gasoline, and the benefits of reduced congestion for autos, and reduced pollution and military spending, inherent in mass transit.

Finally, Overtaxed, if we would just spend the same amount on our military as China, Russia, Great Britain, Germany and France combined, we could balance the budget and reduce your income tax rate by 10%.

It's the military spending that far, far outstrips any other spending.

Make those high folutin people that use the road pay for it. I don't drive to work, i'm on da welfare and shudnt have ta pay mor for my 40.

Having fares high enough to cover the costs of public transit would only work if the cost of owning and operating a private car was maybe 10 times what it is today. Where public transit is used the most is where parking costs are very high such as in New York. Lower density areas will have very low parking costs and therefore very low public transit use rates. Public transit is vital to the working poor, students, the handicapped, and the elderly. To cover the total cost of transit with fares we would need to multiply fares by at least eight fold. Could the working poor afford $20/day in bus fares? Could their employers afford to pay them $2.50/hr more which could likely result in more people switching to cars.
OTOH it wouldn't take that much more in subsidies, roughly 13% more to completely eliminate fares and therefore reduce the use of cars and its side effects on the world significantly.

"...improvements through sales taxes."

Not sales taxes, fuel taxes.
I hope this is what they meant. The sales taxes on fuels. That seems like the fair way to me and it encourages less waste.

Politicians need to do a better job of letting people know where their tax money is going. Some people that hate taxes never seem to connect that up. Tell people how much a road costs per lane mile and how much to repair them and maybe people will start to understand how expensive it really is.

"Politicians need to do a better job of letting people know where their tax money is going."

If John Q ever paid attention to how their money was really being spent, 80% would stop paying taxes.

"maybe people will start to understand how expensive it really is"

Yea, 5 guys standing around watching one guy work does get expensive pretty fast.

@ncyder,
This website is not subsidised, and the internet is mostly paid for by the internet providers who pay for bandwidth. I pay may internet provider.
Tax money spent on innovation and helping new emerging industries is money very well spent.
Tax money spent for subsidising an undesired type of consumption is very inefficient and counter-productive.

@ stomv,
I completely agree with your statement.
But of course, you must include the total cost of any product in the S/D model. I am a big supporter of including a carbon'tax' into the price of fuel. We must add the price of removing the CO2 to the fuel itself. We know exactly how much CO2 will enter the atmosphere by buring an amount of fuel. SO the price to remove it should be added to the fuel.
Once the price of 1kg of CO2 is known, it must be added to any source of CO2. (whether it is diesel, coal, a plastic bottle, heating oil, ...)
But then of course, the 'tax' should be used for effectively removing the CO2 (or paying for long-term compensatory mechanisms, like subsidising wind-energy).