Who Should Pay to Fix the Roads?

A new report suggests that to prevent sprawl, we should up the taxes on those who have the longest commutes.

By JUNE FLETCHER Wall Street Journal

Should the cost of driving to our suburban homes go up?

Yes, according to a report released by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young called Infrastructure 2009: Pivot Point. Those who drive the furthest to work should bear the biggest responsibility for paying for roads.

"We should shift the funding from taxpayers to users," said Michael Lucki, global leader of infrastructure and construction at Ernst & Young and, one of the studies co-authors, at a press conference last week.
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But the report also suggests that those who live in the outer suburbs should pay a larger share to maintain better roads and bridges. The authors maintain that higher gas taxes or charges for vehicle miles traveled, as well as more highway tolls, will discourage car use, driving people to "adjust driving patters, including where they live and work, to gain economic advantages." Freeways, they conclude, "can no longer be free."

I have a big problem with that idea, since land prices—and therefore housing prices—are usually much cheaper in exurbia than in close-in areas. So developers put projects targeted to young families, low-paid public servants like police, firefighters and teachers, and retirees on fixed incomes, on the fringe of suburbia. Why should these people, who are already paying impact fees and higher taxes because they live in newly developed areas, have to shoulder even more of the burden to maintain our roads?

A more equitable solution may be to have developers take on more of the infrastructure costs. More than half of the developers surveyed in ULI and Ernst & Young's report said that less than 10% of development costs go for infrastructure. If officials increased the amount that developers had to pay for the privilege to build on the fringe, builders might do more with the urbanized core. And they might even start building affordable housing suitable for a variety of age groups—and not just the singles and empty-nesters who are attracted to high-rise living.

Sure, it's more time-consuming and problematic for developers to acquire old houses and tear them down or rehab them, but by doing so, we can all take better advantage of roads and other infrastructure that's already in place—and at a lower cost to both our pocketbooks and psyches.

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