Hacker News Reader

Comment by onlyrealcuzzo | Hacker News Reader

> This is all very expensive to build and maintain, and the cities and municipalities are left to foot the bill.

Look, I hate Single Family Housing as much as anyone - but roads are BY FAR the most expensive part of infrastructure you mentioned - and those are financed by gasoline taxes.

If the people in the sticks are buying a lot of gas, they're paying a lot more taxes for the roads, too.

It'd be nice if property taxes were slightly higher in suburban areas to make up for the higher costs - but it really wouldn't need to be that much higher. Houses usually cost more than condos - so you're paying more property tax already by having a more expensive home...

Sure, there's exceptions like condos in Manhattan and near the beach and ski resorts, etc...

View on HN

According to some quick googling, about 26% of roads are financed by gasoline tax, another 11% from tolls, and the rest from federal and state general funds:

https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...

> roads are BY FAR the most expensive part of infrastructure you mentioned - and those are financed by gasoline taxes.

This is a common misunderstanding of how roads are funded. Roads are not solely funded by gas taxes and are predominantly paid for by funds raised from sources other than gas taxes.

> Look, I hate Single Family Housing as much as anyone - but roads are BY FAR the most expensive part of infrastructure you mentioned - and those are financed by gasoline taxes.

I don't think that's true. Gasoline taxes aren't high enough to pay for roads.

https://frontiergroup.org/resources/who-pays-roads/

It seems as of 2015, 50% of road related costs came out of general taxes. And as gas taxes have remained fairly constant, while roads have become more expensive to repair as they get worse, I can only think that number has gone up since then.

> It seems as of 2015, 50% of road related costs came out of general taxes.

Note that in the context of the "half came from gas taxes," the article is only talking about highway funding. Local road funding isn't covered by Fed gas taxes at all.

They are not wholly funded by gas taxes. At best, federal roads are half-funded by gas taxes, and local roads are not at all.

> roads are BY FAR the most expensive part of infrastructure you mentioned - and those are financed by gasoline taxes.

Do you have any sources for that? I'm in Australia, where fuel costs about twice what it does in the US. A decent portion of that is taxes/duties, but road spending is taken from consolidated revenue, and fuel taxes ultimately contribute a minority of the spending on roads. So unless the cost of fuel production is massively lower in the US, something doesn't add up.

GP is likely talking about US federal gas taxes -> Highway Trust Fund -> Federal highway spending.

Notably, though, the HTF spends more than it earns in gas tax revenue; the shortfall comes from the general fund. And also Federal highway spending does not cover all highway spending; the rest comes from the states[1][3]. Federal highway spending also does not cover local roads at all.

[1]: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/images/full-reports/...

[2]: (Above image from https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57138 )

[3]: https://frontiergroup.org/resources/who-pays-roads/

> Look, I hate Single Family Housing as much as anyone

Why would you hate the only kind of housing worth living in?

I would end up in a mental institution if forced to live in a multi family home.

Roads are absolutely not financed by gasoline taxes. They are massively subsidized by the federal government. Watch some videos about Strong Towns to learn about the problems that is causing in regions that are not experiencing constant growth.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com