While drivers celebrate their cheaply filled tanks, highway infrastructure is deteriorating at an unprecedented rate.
A November expose by “60 Minutes” showed the embarrassing state of highway and rail infrastructure in the U.S. About 70,000 bridges are structurally deficient. Congress last passed a comprehensive transportation bill 18 years ago.
A funding mechanism for our roadways, the Highway Trust Fund, will encounter a budget shortfall before the end of the fiscal year unless action is taken to increase revenues.
The federal gas tax, which has not increased since 1993, is significantly lower than similar ones levied in countries that do a far better job of facing up to the externalities of car-centric society. By raising that tax now, while gas prices are lower than they’ve been since the depths of the Great Recession, the government could make large investments in sustainable transportation while preventing a catastrophic budget shortfall.
The gas tax tends to place the heaviest burden upon the poorest consumers, who often live farther away from their workplaces. But if these revenues are not simply diverted to construct more highways, but are also funneled to finance public transportation systems in the Triangle, the entire community would stand to benefit.
Chapel Hill Transit, which according to The Atlantic receives 28 percent of its $19.5 million budget from the state and federal governments, could benefit from gas tax funds.
By increasing the gas tax, the government can work toward a transportation system worthy of the 21st century and focus infrastructure investment to serve poor communities better than momentarily cheap gasoline ever could.
