Quote:
Originally Posted by satxgreen
What is the purpose for a toll road?
What is the state thinking when it considers to build a road and then have its over tax paying citizen pay for the roads they use to go to work..? Every time a person in Texas puts gas in their tank they pay for the road they drive on, every time a person renews there drives license they pay for the road they drive on, and every time some one pays there county taxes they pay for the roads they drive on. Highways come from Germany and the every growing demand for cars, as the number of people increases so do the number of cars hear in the US. We get some of our greatest ideas from friends the Germans. We need to stop Spends money on roads that wont be use by our kids and start to look at high speed trains or some new form of transportation.
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The gas tax you pay on the highway in no way comes remotely close to payign the bill for the road you use - the highway system covers only part of the major arterial network in Texas, and even the state highway system itself gets "contributions" from sales and property taxes.
The funding mechanism in Texas (under 'free'ways done as usual) is a huge subsidy from urban drivers to suburban and rural drivers, since more major roads in urban areas are locally maintained. Additionally, the diversion of property and sales taxes for state highways (in addition to all those local roads) is a
big subsidy from non-drivers to suburban drivers.
In short:
you don't remotely pay your own way if you're driving in/out/around the suburbs. Tolls are a small step in the right direction.