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Comment by barney54 | Hacker News Reader

Gas taxes are the user fees people pay to use the roads. In no sense is it true that roads always loose 100% of money.

The last gas tax raise was in 1993 and it's not inflation adjusted. The federal highway fund is out of money, bridges are crumbling. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/opinion/sunday/raise-the-g...

100% is an exaggeration, but it's not far off. Our roads aren't just failing from a lack of maintenance, they're failing in one generation, they're failing to be paid for from usage taxes before they need full replacement.

http://taxfoundation.org/article/gasoline-taxes-and-user-fee...

In New York, less than half of the cost of roads is borne by drivers via the gas tax. In California, drivers pay less than a quarter of the cost.

There are no states in the US where gas taxes cover more than 60% of the cost of roads.

This is another form of racism/classism. White people have no problem paying for white people transport (cars!). They object to "city" transport which often carries poor and other-colored people.

If only there was a way to charge for the privilege of driving on the road. Maybe we could stamp out steel plates to affix to vehicles. Those plates could signify that the owner has paid an annual fee for using the road.

As I understand it, cars can be fairly expensive. Maybe some kind of tax on the sale of each one could bring in a few bucks.

Here at HN, your point could convince a lot of people if you gave some solid references to original sources for your statements about costs and how they are covered.

I'm in NYS and have been for 20+ years, and what I've seen in the last time or two I renewed the license on my car was that I paid a surtax to support the commuter trains, the MTA. So, it looks like the car owners are supporting the trains whether they use the trains or not. Only once did I ever get on one of those trains. And I'm proud to say that I've never been on a NYC subway.

E.g., I live on a nice street in the suburbs. There is maintenance on the streets and snow plowing in the winters. My impression is that my local town is paying for that out of real estate taxes -- if so, then that's fair since everyone in the suburbs needs the streets, even if they shop at Amazon and get deliveries via FedEx or some such.

But passenger trains? People in the suburbs don't need passenger trains so much, and even if they do they still need the local streets to go between the trains and the doors. So, again, using real estate taxes to pay for the local streets is fair enough.

I don't have good data on what the costs are for Federal highways, bridges, trains, capex, opex, and how those costs are being covered, but my impression is that the gas taxes and tolls pay for what the cars and trucks use and that in the US it's just hopeless for the train tickets to pay for what the trains cost -- but again that's just my impression.

Since I'm not in either the car or train business, I haven't gotten the data.

But if you are for trains and want to convince people, then having the data on costs and how they are being covered would help, really, is crucial.

Uh, writing this, it occurs to me that to be fair the Federal gas taxes should need to cover only the Federally supported highways and bridges, e.g., the Interstate highways. In that case, sure, local real estate taxes and not Federal gas taxes may be the main source of funding for local streets.

If you consider that passenger trains remove other people from the road, drivers actually do benefit from their construction. It's not necessary for the train to serve you personally for it to be beneficial. It just has to remove enough people from the road that driving is easier for you.

Why is never having ridden the subway a point of pride.

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