| ▲ | amanaplanacanal 20 hours ago | |
In the US, roads are paid for by other taxes instead. Property taxes for local roads, and general fund monies (income, sales, and inflation) for highways. Unfortunately that hides the real cost of using the roads, and makes it harder for people to make good choices. This seems unlikely to change though. | ||
| ▲ | rootusrootus 18 hours ago | parent [-] | |
I think it is a complicated issue. People who do not drive still benefit from having a road going to their house. Either for deliveries, or for emergency vehicles, or whatever personal transportation they do end up using. So we want to spread the cost around a bit so everyone is paying something, in a perfect world as close as possible to how much they benefit from it. I imagine it also varies somewhat across the US. Locally, our city does not use property taxes for road maintenance, we have a pavement fee which is billed through the utilities system (same one that handles water & sewer, for example). Plus gas tax from the state. It could be argued that the distinction between the pavement fee and property taxes is subtle, though. | ||