Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

To Toll Road Or Not To Toll Highway

I have lived in Texas now for greater than thirty years. Since I migrated here the populace has increased tremendously. Everybody wants to see the roads in Texas be much less congested, but not everybody agrees on what the best solution may be.

It was back in the 1950's, through the use of motor gas taxes, that the Federal Interstate Highway System was constructed. This means that the roadways that we drive on are paid through the fuel we pay for at the filling station. The current federal fuel tax is 18.4 cents per gallon and has not been raised since 1993. With this fuel tax rate not having been raised to keep up with inflation, the effect has been a shortcoming in the total of funds necessary to maintain and build new roadways.

In Texas, it is approximated that $5 billion dollars per year in tax dollars is what is required to furnish an adequate amount of money for maintenance and all new road development that will keep our road ways at their pre-existing levels of congestion. And this figure takes into account the per-cent of road ways that are paid for by use of toll highways If Texans desire to start to lessen congestion on their road ways, it is approximated that $10 billion dollars per year will need to be raised through the fuel tax.

If you are a representative of the Texas government, what are you to do. On the one hand they are instructed not to hoist the fuel tax since no onewishesto pay extra taxes. On the other hand they are instructed certainly not to agree to legislation for added toll highways given that drivers do not want to have to pay for each single mile that they drive.

There are lots of elements to this discussion, but for me the answer is apparent if we just look at the cost for each mile driven by the average driver By use of the fuel tax it now costs each of us about 1 to two cents per mile that we drive. This means that if you reside in an area served by toll roads, you end up having to pay many times more to go about your business than is the case for a driver who lives in an area served by non toll roadways.

Likedriversin each state, those of us who reside in Texas not only pay federal and state fuel taxes, we also pay an annual car registration fee and other taxes to construct new road ways and maintain established ones. These motorists end up paying both the fuel tax and a toll tax as they make their way around the city they live in.

I do certainly not imagine that most Texans can afford to pay road tolls on a every day basis. No one wants to pay taxes, but if the option is between a gas tax or a toll tax, I think that a gas tax is a more proper and much significantly less expensive alternative for our state to choose.

For extra info be sure to check out our website by visiting look at this website here. You may addtionally go to see this article .