this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
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[–] [email protected] 252 points 2 weeks ago (27 children)

Gasoline prices are heavily subsidized in the US, the gas price you complain about is cheap compared to other countries.

[–] Zak 42 points 2 weeks ago (26 children)

The commodity price for gasoline right now looks to be about 2 USD per gallon. Retail gasoline in the USA is at least a dollar more due to taxes and markup.

Subsidies may play a role as well, but the taxes in some countries are extreme by American standards. My take on it is that a fuel tax is effectively neutral if it brings in enough revenue to pay for the road system.

[–] meco03211 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

What state do you live in that the road system is funded adequately? I never hear someone comment positively about the general state of road conditions.

[–] Pieisawesome 4 points 2 weeks ago

Adequately is a difficult determination.

Is it adequate if there are state maintained dirt roads? In some states, the state or county chooses not to pave all of their roads.

Is it adequately funded if they have potholes? Due to weather conditions, some states are notorious for potholes.

Is it adequately funded if the road gets washed out or carried away by flooding? California gets mudslides that take out sections of roads, other states get sinkholes or hurricanes/tornados destroying their roads

How long can one of these issues plague a road before we consider them underfunded?

My opinion is that the US has too many roads. Most roads are maintained by county or municipalities, and are funded through infinite growth model.

When a developer creates a new subdivision, they pave the roads. Once done, they usually relinquish these roads to the county/city who are responsible for maintaining the roads.

Typically maintenance is low until they require replacing. The cities and counties don’t save money or plan well for replacing these roads and rely on new tax revenue to fund replacing them.

It builds a slowly ballooning road maintenance cost that someone will have to pay. I believe someone made a video about this very fact. I don’t have the link handy

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