Gas Tax or Tollways?
Adding tolls or managed toll lanes to existing state highways is an idea that is gaining support, since the Texas Department of Transportation passed rules allowing regions to charge tolls on state highways to raise money for other road projects.
A recent Dallas Morning News analysis, however, suggests that more tolls will never have the funding power of pay-at-the-pump gasoline taxes. Gasoline taxes haven’t been raised in a decade in Texas, and state leaders don’t fancy the idea of raising the current 20-cents-a-gallon tax statewide.
Editorial: Traffic Solutions
Gas tax for North Texas region merits discussion
Dallas Morning-News February 29, 2004
But a local-option transportation tax should at least be on the table as a topic of conversation by those studying the mounting problems of mobility in North Texas. No one has more at stake in this issue than residents of Collin County, where dramatic growth has quickly outstripped the area’s roads.
Area policy-makers are understandably skeptical of any proposal that takes money out of constituents’ pockets. And a proposal to increase gas taxes only in our region would surely raise the ire of drivers of SUVs and other gas guzzlers. Still, it ought to be part of the debate.
Such a proposal would require legislative action, and it has some support in Austin. Bills are expected to be introduced in the next session. If approved by the Legislature, a local-option transportation tax – increasing the gas tax in certain counties – would work much like a bond election.
A county, or several counties, could identify projects that would be funded and ask for voters to increase the gasoline tax by, say, 5 or 10 cents. Residents of a multi-county region could even fund a regional transit authority this way.
Advocates of more highway funding, such as Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, co-chairman of the Texas Urban Transportation Alliance, say the state’s highway system and transportation funding have been neglected for several years. The chickens have come home to roost.
Here are the facts:
Texas has only enough gas-tax revenue from state and federal sources to pay for about one-third of its highway construction needs.
Texas ranks in the bottom third of all states on raising money for roads.
Texas ranked 42nd in fuel tax raised per capita in 2001.
While state leaders are reluctant to hike the tax on motor fuel for all Texans, the day may come when people at the local level will say it’s worth a nickel increase in the gas tax not to have to sit in traffic for hours or drive on rural roads that ought to be highways. Let’s not be afraid to talk about new and different solutions to our mobility problems – as painful as those solutions may be.