3 ms·

That may be true generally - I have no idea - but it definitely isn’t in Illinois. The tolls stay in the system and don’t support any non-tolled roads. If anyt

That may be true generally - I have no idea - but it definitely isn’t in Illinois. The tolls stay in the system and don’t support any non-tolled roads. If anything the subsidies go the other way, since cities will pay to have a ramp built that will then generate tolls for the main highway. I have no idea what percentage of the toll goes to collection costs. As far as un-egalitarian, I respectfully disagree. I’m sure there are people who can’t afford the toll costs, but “pay for what you use” seems perfectly reasonable to me. I guess that may be different if money is taken from the toll road as you described.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
"Pay for what you use" in the case of roads would be the incremental amount of road damage caused by each vehicle, rather than the total road cost divided by the number of vehicles. The large majority of road maintenance costs are attributable to weather and semi trucks. (Road damage from vehicles is the fourth power of vehicle weight, so one semi does as much damage as thousands of cars.) Moreover, the problem with allocating the fixed cost (weather) portion of road maintenance to cars, or the cost attributable to large trucks, is then you over-deter use of the road. You don't want an inefficiency where you deter someone from using the road even though they value their use of it more than the cost to the state of allowing them to, because then you waste idle road capacity for which the fixed construction costs must be paid either way. Doing that also requires the amount of the toll to be even higher, because then you have to amortize the fixed costs over fewer vehicles. You end up with tolls much higher than the efficient level per vehicle even if the tolls do only pay for road maintenance, because of the over-deterrence. The better solution is to pay the fixed cost portion from general taxes and only charge the marginal cost for usage. But if you charge only the marginal cost for "light" passenger vehicles then the amount is so small as to not even be worth collecting.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

"Pay for what you use" in the case of roads would be the incremental amount of road damage caused by each vehicle, rather than the total road cost divided by the number of vehicles. The large majority of road maintenance costs are attributable to weather and semi trucks. (Road damage from vehicles is the fourth power of vehicle weight, so one semi does as much damage as thousands of cars.) Moreover, the problem with allocating the fixed cost (weather) portion of road maintenance to cars, or the cost attributable to large trucks, is then you over-deter use of the road. You don't want an inefficiency where you deter someone from using the road even though they value their use of it more than the cost to the state of allowing them to, because then you waste idle road capacity for which the fixed construction costs must be paid either way. Doing that also requires the amount of the toll to be even higher, because then you have to amortize the fixed costs over fewer vehicles. You end up with tolls much higher than the efficient level per vehicle even if the tolls do only pay for road maintenance, because of the over-deterrence. The better solution is to pay the fixed cost portion from general taxes and only charge the marginal cost for usage. But if you charge only the marginal cost for "light" passenger vehicles then the amount is so small as to not even be worth collecting.