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SkiingAway t1_j7ufoze wrote

Reply to comment by KrissaKray in Want passenger rail in Manchester? Make your voice heard by PurpleSubtlePlan

Roads get massive subsidies. How do you think all of the road work is paid for? The gas tax(es) don't come anywhere close to paying for it.

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KrissaKray t1_j7ug0nj wrote

Are you forgetting the massive registration fees each year? Tolls? Property taxes?

edit: I'm all for preventing people who dont pay those things from using the roads lmao

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SkiingAway t1_j7uh4f5 wrote

> Are you forgetting the massive registration fees each year? Tolls?

No. Still doesn't cover the cost. Roughly half of road spending in the country comes from general funds, not user fees (gas tax, registration, license, other costs you only pay for driving).

> Property taxes?

Are not a tax paid by drivers specifically - the use of that money to subsidize rail is no different from using it to subsidize roads.

Either they're both "failing business models", or looking at basic transportation infrastructure through the lens of profit/loss is a dumb idea....in both cases.

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KrissaKray t1_j7ui1h0 wrote

Where do the funds come from? I’m asking because you seem like the expert in this.

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SkiingAway t1_j7upwn9 wrote

NH actually does better than the average state, to be clear - it's around #13 - about 60% of road costs were covered by those kinds of user fees in FY 2016 Source.

> Where do the funds come from? I’m asking because you seem like the expert in this.

Other "general" tax revenues.

Especially at the federal level. The infrastructure bill that's sending billions in $ to NH, is not coming from the gas tax.

The normal federal share of road infrastructure projects is increasingly not coming from gas taxes. The federal highway trust fund that pays for those is theoretically funded by the gas tax....but the tax hasn't been increased since 1993, things clearly cost more today than 30 years ago, and so Congress transfers billions per year of general revenue (income taxes and the like) to plug the gap.

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TarantinoFan23 t1_j7uyq0t wrote

Soild facts and logic are often completely ignored by the person you are trying to inform. They cannot change their view. Some sort of primitive brain malfunction.

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