Highway financing - new Reason study argues for wider use of tolls/road pricing

Roadspace is a valuable and scarce commodity, expensive to provide, needing professional management, careful maintenance, intelligent adaptation to changing demand, planned rehab and reconstruction, and prudent imaginative investment.

Roads and their rubber tired vehicles are the dominant transport mode - a mass transportation system beside which trains, airplanes and ships are minor accessories playing niche roles. Roads are what give us our core mobility, making it possible for us to range over metro areas 50 miles (80km) across for employees, specialized services, retail opportunities, recreation, education and social contacts. They are what enable us to enjoy economies of scale, choices, and diversity in the way we live, work, play and love.

If roads are to be properly run they need to be properly priced. Here in America, and in many other countries, roads have been financed by a mishmash of tolls, fuel taxes on gasoline and diesel, tire and vehicles taxes, vehicle and driver licensing fees, and sales and property taxes.

 Only tolls are a direct charge for road use. Their application has been limited until recently by the difficulties and expense of toll collection. With advances in RF transponders, GPS and cameras we can now directly charge for road use and use pricing and markets to harness capital, guide investment decisions, manage traffic flow, provide the benefits of competition, and in other ways 'normalize' roadspace services in the modern economy...

Here is the extended argument for wider use of tolls and road pricing:

see http://www.reason.org/ps359.pdf

If the work has a more measured tone than you get here credit editor Robert Poole.

TOLLROADSnews 2007-05-05