Source?
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
Federal spending on transportation is just at 2% compared to Social Security (15%), Medicare (12%), Income Security (14%), etc.
That 2% includes spending on all forms of transportation.
Do we complain users of other modes of transport or social goods benefit from taxes? Why single out cars?
What is wild is that these arguments only consider gas tax and forget DMV fees, sales taxes on cars, tolls, etc.
US - build houses such that every individual needs a car.
US - build everything far away from each other so that each road gets a ton of mileage.
......
Also US - ours roads are crumbling and underfunded !
An obese man who eats 10000 calories a day will feel underfed if they don't get all 10000. But the lack of food is hardly the problem....
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/rural-america....
2. The other 20% don't matter?
SF, Atlanta and Seattle grew rapidly in the last few decades. None of them have taken advantage of this demand to build transit or transit suitable housing. Instead, new sprawling suburbs are the only form of infrastructure that gets funded. All while the central arterial roads (101, 280, i5, i90 etc) get more and more crowded.
Existing dense cities also have subpar public transit. The NYC metro area falls short of metro areas of Tokyo, Paris or London. Boston, Philly, DC and Miami can't make it to the leaderboard when compared to any peer European city of similar density. Not even going to mention China whose tier 2 cities embarrass tier 1 American cities.
> The other 20% don't matter?
Only as much as rural areas anywhere in the world. Just because you have to use cars in rural areas, doesn't mean there should be a red carpet highway dropping cars to the middle of Manhattan. These are different worlds. Changing 1 doesn't affect the other.
> An obese man who eats 10000 calories a day will feel underfed if they don't get all 10000. But the lack of food is hardly the problem....
Great insight and source of data. Let me also provide some data.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
Federal spending on transportation is just at 2% compared to Social Security (15%), Medicare (12%), Income Security (14%), etc.
That 2% includes spending on all forms of transportation.
E.g., we constantly tax road users to "fund" other schemes and infrastructure (but even those ending needing even more money magically)
Example: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/bridge-toll-hik...