Transportation Funding

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I’m not necessarily against federally funded transportation, but if I state that the nation’s highway system is like McDonald’s because the quality is getting worse and its only appeal is that it is easy and the same in every state, it pigeon holes me into being against it. So for the sake of this post, I am against federally funded transportation. 

“The vast majority of the country's road network is local, and likewise most travel occurs in a person's home county, so to some extent it makes sense for this level of government to generate its own funding revenues and establish its own funding priorities” (Jaffe 2013). The State serves as the entity creating and controlling the road ways within their boarders, so as Jaffe states it makes sense for states to also control the way these systems are financed. As the gas tax dwindles, local and state levels are already beginning to take control to transit funding, finding new ways to fund transportation growth. States have gone as far to avoid increasing the gas tax, only Twenty-eight states have raised their gas tax rates since 1992, but only three raised it enough to keep pace with inflation” this trend has helped cripple the federal fund for transportation that was traditionally fueled (totally intended this) by the gas tax (Puentus and Prince 2003). As states have pulled away from the gas tax they have found other ways to fund themselves, further decreasing the need for federally funded transportation.

Another common complaint that could be solved with the removal of federally funded transportation is that, “States with less developed highway system, less intense highway usage, higher per capita income, and more rural population have benefitted from redistribution over the past three decades” (Zhu and Brown 2012). State and locally funded transportation would solve this complaint, as urban areas with high-use transportation systems would benefit from a new funding scheme that allows their taxes to return to their area. 

-Hayden Wooton
(edited by: Wells)

Jaffe, Eric, and CityLab. “We Shouldn't Be Surprised That Most Transit Referendums Won.” CityLab, 13 Nov. 2012, www.citylab.com/equity/2012/11/we-shouldnt-be-surprised-most-transit-referendums-won/3885/.

Jaffe, Eric, and CityLab. “The End of Federal Transportation Funding as We Know It.” CityLab, 15 May 2014, www.citylab.com/solutions/2013/03/its-end-federal-transportation-funding-we-know-it/4931/.

Puentes, Robert, and Ryan Prince. Fueling Transportation Finance: a Primer on the Gas Tax. Brookings Institution, Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, 2003.


Zhu, Pengyu, and Jeffrey R. Brown. “Donor States and Donee States: Investigating Geographic Redistribution of the US Federal-Aid Highway Program 1974–2008.” Transportation, vol. 40, no. 1, 2012, pp. 203–227., doi:10.1007/s11116-012-9413-x.

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