Road Funding Debate

Roads aren't free, we pay for them in taxes and tolls.

If taxes didn't fund roads, businesses would fund them to transport their stuff around. Since an empty road is wasteful, they would also likely be toll/subscription/customers-only based for whoever else. So you would need to pay if you wanted to use the road. Now if a bunch of people want to donate a road to the world (like open source, it would happen), that is great too.

If roads provide value to people, they should pay for some of it. Right?

roads aren't free, they're paid for and (barely) maintained through our tax money

I think most roads should be paid for by tolls and taxes reduced accordingly. This is because roads tend to have a huge number of negative externalities.In some cases the very act of having to pay increases the utility of the road to the user - see congestion charging. This ensures people who gain the most economic benefit from using the road are the ones using this precious resource.Of course, your point could be applied to any government-provided service where there is a fee. The tram re

how do you want to pay for roads?

That's a good summary: someone else has paid for the roads, but won't for the rail.

Similar things could have been said about roads: "I would hope my tax dollars aren't spent on building roads so that it's quicker for rich car owners to travel between cities"

Here is the BIG elephant on the road. Why road consumption is different than all other consumptions:We don't pay for road usage!!!Anything useful that is handed out to consumers at the cost of $0.00 will be overused and develop a shortage.This is so ingrained that it can be hard to think about.Anyway, if we had to pay to access roads, depending on the traffic load, traffic could always flow at full speed, road investments could pay for themselves and a lot of things would

It makes total sense. You shouldn't be taxed if you don't use a service.We have an easy way to deal with roads: tolls.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnpike_trust