The nation’s interstate system is nearing its 50-year design life meaning in the next couple of decades it’s all going to need to be replaced. This will, of course, come with a very hefty price tag. A new study released by the Reason Foundation suggests allowing states to put tolls on interstate highways could provide enough to fund massive upgrades to the nation’s roads and bridges.
Implementing all-electric tolling and charging cars 3.5 cents per mile and trucks 14 cents per mile would fund 99 percent of the $983 billion cost needed to rebuild the nation’s existing interstate highways and widen certain heavily trafficked corridors according to the study. “This study shows that alternative financing, via electronic tolling, is a feasible way to transform the interstate system,” said Robert Poole, the foundation’s director of transportation policy. Although it is facing opposition, this innovative approach to solving transportation funding could end up on the highway bill that Congress must pass sometime in the next year. Other suggestions for funding a new infrastructure include increasing federal fuel taxes. As with any issue involving funding and spending, lawmakers are at a gridlock on how best to solve the problem.
The full tolling study can be found on the website of the Reason Foundation at www.reason.org.
