I stumbled upon great public transportation blogger, M1EK's blog about automobile drivers paying for new roads and road improvements. Exactly how are we collecting money to pay for new roads in the ever-urbanizing city limits of Austin? There was a national study on Streetsblog, which I didn't bother to read. I'm more interested in an analysis of where our road money comes from within the city limits of Austin.
Someone break that shit down for us.
My first attempt at posting failed to show up - either because I had cookies off or because of moderation or whatever. Basically, browse my "Funding of Transportation" category for most of this stuff - the summary is that urban drivers get screwed, urban non-drivers get really screwed, and suburban drivers get delicious candy.
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If you read that category "Funding of Transportation", you'll eventually get all of it, but basically:
Anything with a route shield on it: mostly gas taxes, but a healthy chunk of sales/property taxes from Austin and Travis County bonds.
Anything without a route shield on it (which for Austin is MOST of our major arterial roadways): Property/sales taxes only.
County roads (with/without numbers): Travis County dollars - mostly property taxes (levied on Austin residents at the same rate even though we also need to pay for our own major roads).
CAMPO distributes a chunk of federal gas taxes, of which nearly all goes right back into state highways (route shields only); a tiny amount gets spent on bike/ped projects (tiny compared to the monies mentioned above).
Summary: Urban drivers get screwed. Urban non-drivers get screwed worse. Suburban drivers get the delicious subsidy pie.