WALL OF TEXT WARNING:
I'm going to try not to touch too much on the political aspects of this (liberal: tax everything vs. conservative: eliminate taxes), but will note a few things here. Since this is my industry (roads and bridges), I feel qualified to speak. This issue isn't directly about electric cars, finding/enforcing new taxes, oil companies, etc, though all of those entities are effected one way or another.
I think folks need to step back and take a look at the things they typically use, what they actually cost and how their taxes are appropriated by their elected representation. Anyone have any guesses on what it costs to maintain a road/mile? What about building or widening a new one? Rural 2 lane vs. urban 8+ lane interstate? (Answers, in averages, at the end of the post). I won't bother finding them all but there are hundreds of legitimate research articles about the state of our (The United States) infrastructure and how we simply can't keep up. To make matters worse, the real value of the gas tax has essentially decreased by over a third since the mid 90s (that fact is about 3 years old now) by simply not keeping up with inflation. To add to that still, people quickly forget what causes a road to deteriorate. Sure, things like de-icer and weather don't help, but the obvious answer is use! If it has wheels and travels pavement, it probably is causing some sort of wear and tear. Anything from a motorcycle (minimal), to a prius, to an overloaded tractor trailer (worst case offender, both in damage caused and contribution to repairs).
I guess without getting too specific, rather than having a knee-jerk reaction to this issue, it's important to read up on what's actually happening and why these solutions are being proposed. I've included a list of sources below (I was too lazy to annotate within this paragraph). It's a good place to start to begin getting educated on what's really going on with transportation dollars.
All of the following are greatly effected by geographic region, residential density, and existing conditions and exclude major improvements such as bike/ped facilities, transit, ITS. Also excluded are necessary ancillary construction, so there will be HUGE variances:
Maintenance (milling and paving):
$300,000 to
$500,000 per lane mile; so one mile of a two lane road is twice as much
Construction of a rural 2-lane road:
$2Million to
$5Million per mile
Construction of an urban 8-lane interstate:
$12Million to
$15Million per mile
OA
Sources:
Good read on maintenance costs:
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/nchrp/nchrp_rpt_688.pdf
VDOT's operating budget and where it all comes from:
http://www.virginiadot.org/about/resources/FY_2016_CTF_Budget.pdf
Where the Feds get money to give to States:
Office of Highway Policy Information - Policy | Federal Highway Administration
Tax Foundation's Highway Trust Fund Article:
Options to Fix the Highway Trust Fund | Tax Foundation
