"I find this hard to believe. First of all, a new freeway does not produce vehilce registration revenue. That's not necessarily so. New freeways can and do help the construction of new subdivisions, which in turn draw new residents who, as a result of a move, may be inclined to purchase a new automobile to suit their mobility needs. That aside, the vehicular registration alone, whether it increases or remains constant, provides a solid revenue-generating device that applies to users of roadways, which in turn generates a large ammount of regained roadway funding. Nor do new FREEways produce toll revenue. Again, that is not necessarily so. What are to be freeways are often constructed by issuing municipal revenue bonds to be repaid by user fees in the early years of their existence. To collect those fees they put in toll booths, which operate until the bond is paid off, and then the road enters into operation as a freeway. In the end you're left with a self-financed freeway construction project. How many vehicles per day are going down each mile of freeway? 100,000? 200,000? Each 100,000 vehicles per roadway mile @ 20 mpg average @$0.40 tax per gallon is just $2000 per day in revenue, or $730,000 per year. At a 20 year roadway life, that produces a total $14.6 million dollars of gas tax revenue. Now that's an interesting little financial game you're playing. Too bad it doesn't add up in reality. Why don't you try looking at the real numbers, as in the actual gas revenues collected and actual expenditures on freeway construction? Here are the 2000 figures. Total revenues raised by taxes, licensing, and user fees totalled $101.5 billion. Maintenance and administration cost $59 billion while about $65 billion was spent as new construction capital. That leaves you with about $22 billion in net shortfalls, or less than a cent losses per passenger mile travelled on highways. By comparison, $1.8 billion was spent on light rail in the same year with revenue returns of only $200 million on that. That translates into $1.23 in losses for every passenger mile travelled on rail. To this must be added the annual maintenance and police costs for the road (grass cutting, pothole repair, restripping, plowing, salting, appurtenance repair, signage updates, etc.) Yeah, and by 2000's figures, annual administative costs were barely half the regained revenue from taxes, licensing, and user fees. Absent new construction, there would have been a $40 billion surplus. the lost property taxes This is just a guess on my part, but I would venture to say that the loss in property taxes caused when a new roadway takes up a small strip of right of way or frontage area are negligable when compared to the gain in revenue from the property value increases along that new roadway. Freeways make new land easily accessable, which leads to development. When land is developed, evaluations go up and the property tax base increases. Assuming $1 million per year for maintenance and police, we've got annual revenue of around $750,000 to 1.5 million vs. costs of $3.4 million or $5.4 million with opportunity costs. That's a lot of assuming on your part, but as I just demonstrated, there's a big difference between your assumptions and the figures as they actually happened in 2000. These roads do not include the complex interchanges most freeways do have at major intersections. Really? Cause the toll road network in my city has some of the most developed interchanges of any road in our highway network. And it operates on budget without difficulty. Once again, you assume a lot of stuff that simply doesn't happen in reality. The freeway system is built upon the backs of people who do not drive on it Nonsense. Most drivers in an urban area use a freeway at some time or another on a frequent basis, even if not daily. While it is true that there are some costs associated with road construction, they are minimal in comparison to the alternative. In 2000 it was less than a cent in net costs per passenger mile travelled on freeways. Compare that to light rail, which is truly a system built upon the backs of people who do not ride it - our taxes paid $1.23 per passenger mile of rail use in 2000 for a portion of the population that is so small it can be considered negligable in transportation measures. Urban personal transportation has never been a paying proposition. Much to the contrary. Between the 1880's and 1915 many cities across the nation had financially successful private transit companies with city franchises. Ours in Houston operated on budget for most of this period, save some business dispute-induced shortfalls in some years. From about 1915 to the 1930's they continued operating streetcars on a budget that was either met or fell slightly short. In the 30's and 40's finances on rail dropped, so they switched to busses which continued as a financially viable enterprise until about 1970. The first subways and trolleys were generally not successfull financial enterprises Again, that was not the case at all in Houston. Save business dispute shortfalls, the first big financial hits did not occur until 1915 when taxi cabs became a competitor. The city responded by regulating the taxis into non-existence, and rail continued on or near budget for another 15 years. Try again. which is why the City's were involved from the beginning. Houston got rail in 1874. Aside from the city giving the rail company a franchise to build on its streets, no real government assistance came until 1915, over 40 years later. Try again. That said, the question is really how is public money best raised and spent on this endeavor? Fair enough of a question. And as I have noted, highways are statistically preferable to rail in practically every case. My additional position is that this could be improved upon by permitting private and quasi-public highway projects when and where it is viable (i.e. toll roads, auction of certain right of ways for private fee-based roadways etc.)"
In other words, more excuse making.
(I think you're losing you mind. When I said you exhibited signs of obsessive-compulsive behaviour, I didn't realize how right I was and now instead of the Civil War, you've directed it at me. I've become the focus of your life.)