Paying for Roads

"The administration has inherited a system that can no longer pay for itself," according to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. He was talking about an expected shortfall in the federal highway trust fund -- a problem the administration has actively been seeking to make worse.

The trust fund gathers revenue principally from gasoline taxes. Like Virginia's own gasoline tax, the federal tax of 18.4 cents per gallon is not pegged to inflation, so it has lost purchasing power over time. If it had kept pace with prices generally it now would stand between 25 and 30 cents per gallon.

There is another factor to consider: fuel efficiency. With great fanfare, the administration announced earlier this year an accelerated schedule for imposing higher mileage standards on automakers -- the obvious object of which is to reduce the consumption of gasoline. The result will be to slow the trickle of money into the federal highway fund even further.

Policymakers -- both nationally and in Virginia -- are aware of the problem, and are considering other means of charging road users, such as a mileage tax that uses GPS technology to keep track of how far you drive. The idea is worth exploring. But so is an even more radical proposal: If Americans really ought to be driving less, then in certain instances -- primarily those contributing to sprawl -- perhaps one way to keep them off the road is not to build it in the first place.