Modern Transportation Funding and the User Pays Principle: Are drivers paying for what they get and getting what they pay for?

摘要

Shrinking gas tax purchasing power has resulted in a growing dependence on localtransportation dedicated sales taxes to fund California roadway and transit projects. However,these new funding strategies stray from the traditional user pays principle embodied in the gastax and long espoused by the Federal Highway Administration as the fairest way to financehighway projects. After analyzing the funding sources of the Presidio Parkway (an ongoing P3project in San Francisco which utilizes availability payments) we find that federal and state gastaxes are still the largest source of funding at 53% while federal support , tolls, and sales taxescontribute 23%, 16%, and 8% respectively. An analysis of users of the facility, in the form ofcommuters who use private cars and bus transit to access downtown from the surrounding SanFrancisco and North Bay area, reveals that individual contributions through a host oftransportation taxes and fees are miniscule when compared to the annual availability paymentsreceived by the concessionaire. We found that commuters’ average annual contribution to thenew facility ranged from $3 to $29 which is orders of magnitude less than the $548 annualcontribution that we calculated would be required if the project were to be supported solely bytolls. These findings highlight the trend in current highway construction financing strategies thatsubsidize commuters who are unwilling to pay the full cost of transportation infrastructure withbroad based taxes that are collected regardless of benefits accrued to the individual.