Roads had always been a state and local concern in America until 1956, when the feds got into it with the interstate highway system, which was supposed to be paid for with the gasoline tax.
It’s time for the feds to get out of the road business, argues economics professor James T. Bennett in this Independent Institute article.
Why? For one thing, much of the money that is supposed to be spent on highways is being diverted to other purposes. Bennett explains that, “In the 1970s, Congress began diverting a portion of the Highway Trust Fund to public mass transit, light rail buses and bike lanes. Today, about 20% of Highway Trust Fund monies are diverted to other purposes. The percentage going to mass transit — 12.8% on average during fiscal years 2010 through 2019, according to the nonpartisan Eno Center for Transportation — is more than two-and-a-half times the percentage of Americans who use mass transit, 40% of whom live in just one city: New York.”
Bennett argues that road building and maintenance should be returned to states, localities, and private enterprise. Doing that would more fairly apportion the costs and improve efficiency.