US drivers need to pay more gas taxes and new user fees to fix crumbling roads and bridges and ease congested highways, a transportation commission is set to recommend to Congress later this month.
US gasoline taxes should be raised 10 cents a gallon to help fund improvements, at least until new systems are created to charge drivers for how much they use roads, according to a draft copy of recommendations from the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission.
"We've basically had a 30-year experiment in this country in under-investing in surface transportation infrastructure," said Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and chairman of the commission.
Atkinson said the gasoline tax hike combined with more aggressive use of tolls and "congestion pricing" would help cover those costs. Some estimates say federal, state and local governments would need to spend about $80 billion per year more than current levels to begin to reduce congestion, improve roads, and expand transit, Atkinson said.
The commission will recommend that Congress implement the gas tax hike, a 15-cent increase in the federal diesel tax, as well as tax increases for other fuels as short-term measures to raise nearly $20 billion more each year than is currently collected, the draft report said. The Highway Trust Fund, the federal government's primary source for transportation infrastructure, is mostly funded through federal gasoline taxes.