Thoughts on Transportation Funding

I was reading a KSL article and got thinking about how I think transportation should be funded.  Here it is.

Transportation should be paid for based on use.  No more picking winners and losers.  Whenever possible the people that use government services should be the ones paying for those services.

Road funding should be as follows-

1.  The Federal Government should pay a portion of road construction and maintenance cost for military access/government access.  The amount they pay to each state should be per mile of essential roads in each state, county, or city.  This money should be taken as a tax spread uniformly to all US Residents.  Institutions deemed to be high-risk military targets should also pay a portion of this cost.  i.e. power plants, high occupancy buildings, government buildings, transportation hubs, etc.

2.  All residents and organizations (not just property owners) should pay a portion of the road cost for emergency vehicle access.  In addition, law violators, based on the severity of the law violated, should pay more for this access.  Have this be a flat tax in a person's state income tax return and a built-in fee for traffic tickets, and all criminal convictions.  The cost of this access should also be modified for population density.  It takes more road to have emergency services to your remote cabin or ranch than it does to urban America.

3.  Each year when a vehicle is registered, it should be taxed based on the miles driven for the cost to maintain the roads due to natural damage due to weather and snow removal.  This is uniform for all types of vehicles.

4.   Each year when a vehicle is registered, it should be taxed based on the miles driven and the weight of the vehicle to cover the cost of the damage caused by the vehicle.

5.  An alternate to 3&4 would be to include those costs in a vehicle purchase based on its expected life mileage.

6.  Don’t double dip.  Government has to reduce taxes equal to the taxes being raised in the above ways.  Money brought in through items 1-5 can only be used on our roads, and each election a ballot measure should be given to increase or decrease the quality of roads required and thus increase or decrease the associated costs we all pay.

7.  I would like to see companies bid to maintain sections of the roads and have cost impacts for down times, congestion, etc.  Let them be innovative, bring costs down, etc.  Just offer the road funding for bid instead of having a bureaucracy for road maintenance.  I think this could be easily privatized.

Other transportation modes should follow a similar pattern.  Buses paid for by their users.  

I see three counter arguments to this methodology-

1.  Captive riders make up a lot of bus riders.  I would say that individuals that cannot drive due to health reasons, should have their bus cost contributions limited to the cost of owning and operating a car and the maintenance costs of the roads for a car.  The remainder of the bus cost (if higher than that) should be covered by society (government) and should be clearly published.  (i.e. bus fare for captive riders is $2, but actual cost is $3, and the extra dollar is paid for in your captive fair tax that you all pay with your year-end taxes.

2.  Low income individuals… I am sorry, but I think we should all pay for the roads we use.

3.  Negative impact on the economy by restricting free flow of goods and services. I can see this argument being made.  However, these are real costs and what is the economic impact of hiding them?