Check out a great article entitled "America’s Highways Are Not Self-Financing," posted on the Midwest High Speed Rail Network website. It explains:
"Despite a widespread impression to the contrary, the nation’s highway system does not support itself. There is a large shortfall between highway-user revenues — generated by tolls, fuel taxes, excise levies, and other charges — and highway spending, on a combined federal-state-local basis. . . .
In the year 2000, the gap amounted to $26.87 billion, or 21%, according to the Federal Highway Administration. . . . Taxpayers subsidize a sizable portion of this difference between highway user-generated revenues of $100.59 billion and spending of $127.46 billion.
The revenue-to-spending figures take on special significance now, when Amtrak is threatened with dismemberment because it is not on track to break even. The figures raise the question of whether Amtrak is being measured against an unattainable standard that the nation’s well-established highway system does not meet. . . .
Even while recognizing the large and partially unpaid costs of roads and autos, no sensible person would contend that the nation can do without a highway system to promote mobility and commerce. But a look at the costs reinforces two fundamental points:
- Transportation systems do not pay for themselves, and that includes highways.
- By encouraging transportation balance, government subsidies to intercity rail and transit can mitigate the current and future costs of autos and highways.
These fairly simple underlying ideas need to be kept firmly in mind during the current complex debate over the future of Amtrak."