My understanding is that the roads are, were, are supposed to be, used to be, might be, etc. paid for in part or in total by gasoline taxes, maybe called the Highway Trust Fund (maybe at times dipped into for various other purposes) which seems fair enough.

Also for the 100%, there are some toll roads and bridges where the users pay for use of the roads which looks like users paying and not a subsidy.

There's likely another issue, a law about 100 years old passed in part to slow down US West water resource projects to "make the desert bloom" -- yup, can do that, but the question was, do the benefits exceed the costs?

So, the law established that a Federally funded project needs to pass cost-benefit analysis. So, add up all the costs and all the benefits "to whomsoever they accrue", and then to go ahead with the project the benefits have to be higher than the costs.

Well, maybe passenger rail can pass cost-benefit analysis in some cases and, there, justify a subsidy, but the one case I heard about was in a lecture on the Baltimore Subway. It was all built and ready to go. So, for the cost-benefit analysis, just call the construction cost $0.00 -- seems generous enough!

Then have to count the operational costs and consider the ticket revenue. Well, the ticket revenue from the estimates of what people were willing to pay and the number of such people still didn't cover even the operational costs. The lecture ended with the optimal solution -- brick up the openings and walk away.

That seemed a bit extreme: Instead why not take out the tracks and use the rest as underground parking? Warehousing?

Your understanding is a bit deficient then because the gas tax revenues do not even begin to cover road building and maintenance. In California for example the transportation budget is $17 billion per year, $14 billion of which is for roads, but the fuel tax revenue is only $6 billion and the vehicle license and registration fees are $3.2 billion. The remainder is provided from general revenues, that is to say it constitutes a subsidy.

At the federal level, Congress has been transferring money from general funds into the Highway Trust Fund every year since 2001, because the fuel tax has gone down in real terms every year since 1993.

Tolls are nice but only account for 5% of road funds in the US. To use the pejorative applied against transit projects, the "fare recovery ratio" for roads ranks below literally every transit agency in the nation.

In short, roads are highly subsidized from general revenues.

My impression is that local roads are paid for heavily local real estate taxes, state roads are paid for via state gasoline taxes, state license fees, and tolls, Federal roads and bridges are paid for via the Federal gas taxes and tolls. My impression is that the Federal Highway Trust Fund is funded by Federal gas taxes and gets used also for purposes other than Federal highways and bridges.

But I don't have good data. I want good data but don't have it.

E.g., there are a lot of roads and bridges that are not Federal, e.g., not the Interstate highway system. So, when I hear that the gas taxes don't pay for all the roads and bridges, I think, of course not -- e.g., my local roads and bridges are paid for heavily, maybe mostly, by local real estate taxes, and in my area that is fair -- everyone here needs the local roads and bridges.

The whole point of this discussion is that the benefits of rail are not mere ticket revenue. You mentioned cost-benefit three times, yet only came up with one benefit?

No, the way the benefits are to be calculated is not necessarily from ticket revenue. A benefit is something of value that "whomsoever" may get, and maybe quite different from ticket prices.

I don't see anything online about that happening to the Baltimore subway. Source?

In an effort to avoid politics as much as I can, roads tend to escape scrutiny about government subsidies because they are a baseline, bring-your-own-vehicle requirement, which doesn't smell nearly as 'subsidized' to people who then have to provide their own cars to use them.

In the 'equity' vs 'equality' debate, roads are 'equality': everyone is given the same road to succeed, but of course not everyone has a vehicle to make use of it properly.

But this debate pops up in areas when tolls, euphemistic "usage fees", or increases in fuel taxes are proposed to pay for new roads.

Yes, but the road itself always loses 100% of the money, except for toll roads. It is considered to be an external benefit to the economy that people can move around, even if they have to bring their own vehicles. Therefore it is true in the case of roads that we collectively believe subsidies lead to a better economy. It is not nonsense to extend that belief to railroads.

Perhaps it can be generalized as 'people tend to support only things that are directly and immediately beneficial to their current life circumstances, and demonstrably non-detrimental to their real or perceived future lifestyle prospects'.

Gas taxes are the user fees people pay to use the roads. In no sense is it true that roads always loose 100% of money.

The last gas tax raise was in 1993 and it's not inflation adjusted. The federal highway fund is out of money, bridges are crumbling. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/opinion/sunday/raise-the-g...

100% is an exaggeration, but it's not far off. Our roads aren't just failing from a lack of maintenance, they're failing in one generation, they're failing to be paid for from usage taxes before they need full replacement.

In New York, less than half of the cost of roads is borne by drivers via the gas tax. In California, drivers pay less than a quarter of the cost.

There are no states in the US where gas taxes cover more than 60% of the cost of roads.

This is another form of racism/classism. White people have no problem paying for white people transport (cars!). They object to "city" transport which often carries poor and other-colored people.

If only there was a way to charge for the privilege of driving on the road. Maybe we could stamp out steel plates to affix to vehicles. Those plates could signify that the owner has paid an annual fee for using the road.

As I understand it, cars can be fairly expensive. Maybe some kind of tax on the sale of each one could bring in a few bucks.

Here at HN, your point could convince a lot of people if you gave some solid references to original sources for your statements about costs and how they are covered.

I'm in NYS and have been for 20+ years, and what I've seen in the last time or two I renewed the license on my car was that I paid a surtax to support the commuter trains, the MTA. So, it looks like the car owners are supporting the trains whether they use the trains or not. Only once did I ever get on one of those trains. And I'm proud to say that I've never been on a NYC subway.

E.g., I live on a nice street in the suburbs. There is maintenance on the streets and snow plowing in the winters. My impression is that my local town is paying for that out of real estate taxes -- if so, then that's fair since everyone in the suburbs needs the streets, even if they shop at Amazon and get deliveries via FedEx or some such.

But passenger trains? People in the suburbs don't need passenger trains so much, and even if they do they still need the local streets to go between the trains and the doors. So, again, using real estate taxes to pay for the local streets is fair enough.

I don't have good data on what the costs are for Federal highways, bridges, trains, capex, opex, and how those costs are being covered, but my impression is that the gas taxes and tolls pay for what the cars and trucks use and that in the US it's just hopeless for the train tickets to pay for what the trains cost -- but again that's just my impression.

Since I'm not in either the car or train business, I haven't gotten the data.

But if you are for trains and want to convince people, then having the data on costs and how they are being covered would help, really, is crucial.

Uh, writing this, it occurs to me that to be fair the Federal gas taxes should need to cover only the Federally supported highways and bridges, e.g., the Interstate highways. In that case, sure, local real estate taxes and not Federal gas taxes may be the main source of funding for local streets.

If you consider that passenger trains remove other people from the road, drivers actually do benefit from their construction. It's not necessary for the train to serve you personally for it to be beneficial. It just has to remove enough people from the road that driving is easier for you.

Why is never having ridden the subway a point of pride.

You can argue roads are subsidized, but no where near 100% subsidized. Federal and state gas taxes are user fees for road use.

100%? Only if you ignore fuel taxes.