I started this thread knowing the disparity that exists between road funding and HSR funding. It has been the US policy to expect HSR lines to be built with private capital and operate at a breakeven mark.
However, such is not the case with roads. The current $0.184/gallon federal gas tax, which pays 80% of road capital costs, only equates to a user fee of $0.006/mile. Trucks pay a slight bit more but have a user equity ratio of 0.80, in other words they do more damage than they pay for, so I have assumed cars fill their spots.
$0.006/mile, so what you say....
Well, in the case of new interstate construction this "user fee" hardly covers the cost of the construction. Consider that most rural interstates have 25,000 AADT, yielding only $55,000 in revenue to repay the 80% capital match.
Since the state gas tax is fully committed to maintenance and whatever construction costs now that they have a mature network there really isn't anything left on their side but maybe to get the 20% match by putting off other projects. The state costs also would not account for uninsured motorist hospital treatment and other direct costs to the states.
So, $55,000/year at a 30 year 5% rate would be $845,488 in capital. Divide this by 80% and the total construction cost could only be $1.057 million a mile.
However, a
4 lane rural interstate, such as the proposed I-69 in Indiana is going to cost $27 million a mile at the last estimate.
25 times the capital that can be afforded by the gas tax. Urban interstates might have 100,000 AADT but they cost a lot more to build and rebuild.
Of course since the federal gas tax hasn't been raised since 1993 we could use an inflation adjusted number of $0.24/gallon but that still only yields $1.403 million a mile.
The National Transportation Revenue Study Commission just released a
report today calling for an increase in the gas tax of around $0.24/gallon (per radio report). I assume this would be the Federal gas tax. But even the resulting $0.40/gallon would only yield a capital of $2.340 million a mile. So new construction would still be around 8 times as expense as the "user fee" pays for.
Were does the remainder of the Highway Trust Fund money come from? Mostly from taxing fuel used on local roads maintained or built with local or private funds. That money belongs to the people not to highway interests only!
If trailer based rail intermodal can contribute to $3.000 million in capital alone, while removing the maintenance burden on interstates, saving fuel and labor, avoiding more deadly accidents, and providing a ROW for the use on intermediate speed passenger rail this makes for an excellent counter to the construction on new interstates. More importantly the public actually wants this and is just looking for a funding mechanism.