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In the US, we tax roads by usage via fuel (gasoline and diesel) tax [^1]. It's a simple solution: the more miles you drive, the more fuel you use; the more fuel
by Willamin 3y ago
In the US, we tax roads by usage via fuel (gasoline and diesel) tax [^1]. It's a simple solution: the more miles you drive, the more fuel you use; the more fuel you use, the more tax you pay. Vehicles that use more fuel per mile driven tend to be larger and thus cause more wear on the roads.
It's not without its faults though. Fuel usage isn't directly related to cost of road maintenance, it's just a very rough approximation. Fuel usage has mattered less and less over the past couple of decades with hybrids and EVs – though this is addressed in some places by imposing an extra EV tax (since EV drivers would pay no fuel tax but would still cause wear on the roads).
[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_State...
- arcticbull 3y agoA lot more wear on the roads in a lot of cases, as it's exponential (~fourth power) with respect to weight and EVs weigh a lot (~30% more than a comparable ICE car).
- dghlsakjg 3y agoA minority of roadbuilding funds come from fuel taxes in the US. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/states-road-funding-2019/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/states-road-funding... The additional problem with this is that road wear scales a lot faster than fuel usage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law