Federal Aid Highway money given to each state per dollar contributed. Source: GAO
From DC Streetsblog comes this picture showing all states are now net recipients of Federal Aid Highway Funding. “A significant amount of highway funding is no longer provided by highway users,” GAO stated in the report. More analysis here.
And that’s without Alaska’s bridge to nowhere! (I’ve seen where they were going to build it – it would be a great location for a gondola line, if anyone actually lived in Alaska)
It’s a fantastic location for a ferry. They should just try that. Oh, wait.
Seriously, what is wrong with these people … ferries = fun!
[not kidding, I grew up with the Bainbridge Island ferry, and miss it still...]
They stuck the airport across a very small channel, but one that takes big tall cruise ships. A local pointed out the only way to build a bridge there – what would be a massive structure for this tiny little town in the middle of nowhere (only a few miles of road in the town, and it’s unconnected to anywhere else, accessible only by ferry or airplane). They wanted to build that bridge to expand the town onto the island.
Funny how Washington DC gets the most money. I wonder why…
It’s because they’re just a city – where a lower proportion of people drive. Those subway users don’t pay federal gas taxes for their commutes.
Actually, I think it’s mostly because DC has no state government, and so all of its expenses are paid directly by the federal government. They come out on top when you look at general federal spending versus revenue as well.
its payback for having taxation without representation :)
It must be that they contribute so little, but there is need to have great streets (are they all Federal there?)in the Capitol.
I think that may be another reason – a lot of their roads are likely federal. They don’t have state or county levels of government to handle major arterials and small highways.
Because no one who uses a highway pays income tax..?
Why don’t you read the whole thing, John?
I did, but I still find it indecipherable. I’m not sure what the map is trying to say, or the article.
I did find this quote from the article interesting:
Yes.
True.
And that means planning for real high speed rail, fuel cell cars that don’t pollute and possibly the introduction of self-driving personal transit vehicles, which are now on the road in Germany, Nevada and China.
Fuel tax is one of the few taxes we have that are limited in spending only on one thing. When I buy a t-shirt my taxes don’t only go to building cotton looms. It goes to paying for fire stations and hospitals and schools and our military and… roads. Not only do cars suck up all of this single-sink taxes, you’re now arguing that isn’t enough?
Thinking about this further, the problem is really one of nomenclature. As a society, we decided to build public roads, and to collect fees to pay for these roads. But instead of a gas tax, we should have called it a road fee. And made it clear that while this is the fee for building and maintaining roads, fuel should still be subject to the same sales tax as everything else.
This way, if we need more roads, we just increase the road fee appropriately rather than pulling from general taxes. And gas wouldn’t end up as one of the only tax-free items you can buy, next to unprepared food.
In the case of WA state that is mostly true although P&R lots and flyer stops are considered highway projects but are also transit projects. In the case of the Federal highway funding this is not the case. For example it’s funding built most of East Links Lake Washington crossing. This article is another example that fails to mention that the money taken from the general funds is virtually exactly the amount take out for transit funding. The other fallacy here is that only drivers benefit from highways. Unless you live in the wilderness and are self sustaining you are dependent on our highway system.
“The other fallacy here is that only drivers benefit from highways.”
Could you please point out where the fallacy you site is stated.
Cry me a river for those poor non-drivers who are having their money seized for something from which they derive no benefit. Perhaps for the sake of social equity WA should drop the sales tax on cars; one of the few things that gets tax at the retail level and then again every time it’s resold on the private market?
Karl Marx himself would blush at such a scheme!
Just to be fair, shouldn’t the map that’s used to illustrate this particular story be a bit more accurate? Looking at this map, it seems like the state of Alaska is roughly the same size as Arizona or Nevada. A visual sense of scale seems to be absent here.
In Alaska’s defense, if I had to guess, I’d think that for every ‘bridge to nowhere’ in the (huge) state of Alaska, there are dozens of remote Alaskan communities that benefit from the very real lifeline that highways provide.
(Also, love ‘em or hate ‘em, shouldn’t a bit of respect be given to Texas? If these numbers are fair and accurate, $1.03 is a pretty impressive stat.)
The above map is a standard depiction of the 50 United States.
Given that Alaska is almost half the size of the lower 48 (OK, maybe closer to 1/3rd), depicting it in full size is impractical.
(Although such a map is always handy to show tourists who arrive in Seattle thinking that they are just a short hop away from Alaska by boat or car.)
Nobody lives in Alaska. Why are we building roads to little towns in the middle of nowhere?
Remember, folks have lived in Alaska for thousands of years. (And I don’t think the Russians ever paid them for the territory.)
Started out to fill demand for seal skin top hats, then it was gold and now oil.
This is maddening. America’s priorities are so backwards. So much money is given for roads, but none for rail? Absurd.
None for rail? Have they stopped funding Amtrak? What’s up with the Pt Defiance by-pass? Have all the states returned their HSR money? All that money “given” for roads was first “taken away” by taxes on fuel, tires, property adjoining the roads, etc.