Comments on: Are Highways Subsidized?

By: Male Fitness

Male Fitness — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:07:16 +0000

Howdy! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and tell you I genuinely enjoy reading through your articles. Can you recommend any other blogs/websites/forums that go over the same subjects? Thanks a ton!

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:48:55 +0000

You are wrong about your “no subsidization” with roads. The Interstate Highway System was set up to pay as you go for construction. As noted above federal gas taxes have increased to keep up with needs even though today ONLY 57% is paid by user fees. All the rest is subsidized from general local and state taxes. In 2008, to meet federal obligations the federal government took $8 billion from the general fund. Since $94,152 billion was spent on roads in 2008 and since only 57% is paid by user fees ($53,666 billion) that leaves $40,485 billion in subsidies. That was for one fiscal year!

By: Jeff09

Jeff09 — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 14:20:25 +0000

Folks, the author is renowned (should I say “infamous”?) for his shameless promotion of cars and sprawl. He works in academia, but that’s just a figleaf to cover his “analyses.” He has a perspective on these matters that is bought and paid for by right-wing interests, and he will twist or ignore any data that don’t support that perspective.

By: Michael Givens

Michael Givens — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 04:10:50 +0000

One error in this article talks about the gas tax and inflation. Texas has had the same gas tax since 1993, but revenue has gone up faster than inflation. Why? Because the population grows thus more people are paying the gas tax, and they drive more. Inflation is irrelevant, it’s the cost of construction that matters. We saw double-digit growth of constructions costs two years in a row when inflation was 2%.

By: San Antone

San Antone — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 18:38:44 +0000

Um, it doesn’t matter how the roads are paid for, it’s still coming out of our pockets.

By: James Madison Fan

James Madison Fan — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 19:50:49 +0000

Orluz,

Around half of our oil comes from domestic sources and the majority of the other half comes from Canada, Mexico, and South America. If you were to add what the US imports from North Africa and the Middle East combined it would total around 15% of our imports (7% of our total oil consumption).

If the wars in the Middle East are about US greed for oil we’re not too bright because we’ve imported exactly – zero – oil from Iraq in two decades of being involved in the sectarian muck. In fact one of the things Haliburton was doing in Iraq is bringing in oil from Kuwait and other sources so gas prices wouldn’t rise and cause civil unrest. If the US had spent the money buying oil that we invested the past quarter-century in baby sitting the third world we would own most of Iraq’s reserves but the children refuse to play well in the sandbox without adult supervision.

The US is there because Europe and Asia get most of their oil from this region. Europe gets around 54% of its oil from North Africa and the Middle East. Japan gets around 75% of its oil from the Middle East. If the Middle East degrades into a giant sectarian brawl it will destabilize every economy on the entire planet and that’s assuming it stays local and conventional rather than the Indians, Paki’s, Iranians, and Israeli’s tossing nukes at each other which is a very real possibility. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to end up in a planet wide economic and/or radioactive toilet because the Shia, Sunni, Hindus, Jews, Christians, etc. can’t figure out which invisible super entity is the right one and who he favors.

Our problem is we think the rest of the world thinks like we do but they don’t and would prefer not to. We treat women as equals. The Islamic crowd treats them as property. So we send an army fully equipped with unveiled women in pants to protect the two holiest cities in Islam and wonder why Osama and his Muslim kin folk have their panties in a wad. A rough Catholic equivalent would be sending a bunch of nude, gay, pagan, prostitute, abortion doctors to protect the Vatican. I’m betting that wouldn’t go over too well with his holiness or his billion member flock. That’s what happens when your president thinks that foreign cultures are something you find in imported yogurt.

Weak,

If you don’t like urban sprawl rather than forcing people to live in vertical Habitrails we should control population growth. I’m tired of carrying around an ever increasing onus of “huddled masses.” If they can’t take care of themselves then stop having babies.

By: Weak Article

Weak Article — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:43:04 +0000

Two major problems with this article:

“…yet these urban clusters occupy just 2.6 percent of the land area of the United States . Not only are we not running out of open space, thanks to automobility most Americans enjoy their own private open spaces in the gardens and play areas in their yards.”

Do you propose we continue the sprawl until we use up as much livable land as possible? In Chicago, this means sprawling all the way west to the Mississippi.

“The planners argued that they would better account for social costs. Instead, many have supported a crusade to reduce driving by allowing congestion to increase. Where possible, they diverted highway funds to expensive and little-used rail transit projects. They spent other funds on endless studies or on projects that actually reduced roadway capacities.”

Do you propose we continue building lanes on highways? 16, 20, or 30? How many lanes is enough until you inevitably return to a bottle neck?

This article is clearly written with a small minded bias towards suburban sprawl and personal “freedom”. I live in Chicago and have a variety of parks (your suburban “yard”) within walking distance of my apartment as most in this city do. Also, I am sure people are enjoying their yards as much as they are their televisions and computer screens.

By: orulz

orulz — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 03:51:09 +0000

Old article, but here is my comment.
The most significant but indirect cost of driving that you miss is the cost of the US’s involvement in the middle east. If they didn’t have oil, or we didn’t want it, we would have just slightly more interest in the affairs of the middle east than we do now in sub-saharan Africa. That is to say, very little. The path to radicalization of islam has been complex, but to say that the US has played no role in it would be inaccurate. We have interfered with their governments frequently in order to assure favorable terms for access to their resources. So add in at least a portion of the trillion-plus dollars plus the lives we’ve spent on the wars over the past 10 years.

Real estate in desirable urban areas costs more than in desirable suburban areas, especially after the housing bubble burst. Why? Demand. People really, really love to live in nice urban areas. Problem is, the desirable urban areas in the US are too small, and land use regulations implemented by those convinced low density and segregated uses were the solution to everything (mostly since the 1950s) have made it nearly impossible to expand the desirable urban areas and provide supply to meet that demand.