West coast debate

Highways Neg

AT: IHS Deterioration

IHS deterioration is exaggerated

Highway conditions improving

Local roads not the IHS are in danger

This doesn’t mean there are no problems with highway infrastructure. Local roads and bridges seem to be in poorer shape than state- owned ones. Local bridges, for example, are 60 percent more likely to be structurally deficient than state bridges. While the roughness index is not available for different ownerships, Table 2 indicates that interstate freeways are considerably smoother than other arterials. Since interstates are all state owned and other arterials are more likely to be locally owned, this suggests that local roads are rougher.

AT: Solvency – Federal Funding Fails

Federal highway funding is misallocated and tied regulations undermine solvency

Today, the interstate highway system is long complete and federal financing has become an increasingly inefficient way to modernize America's highways. Federal spending is often misallocated to low-value activities, and the regulations that go hand-in-hand with federal aid stifle innovation and boost highway costs.

Federal highway funding is counterproductive – it reduces innovation and increases inefficiencies

This essay reviews the history of federal involvement in highways, describing the evolution from simple highway funding to today's attempts to centrally plan the transportation sector. It describes why federal intervention reduces innovation, creates inefficiencies in state highway systems, and damages society by reducing individual freedom and increasing highway fatalities. Taxpayers and transportation users would be better off if federal highway spending, fuel taxes, and related regulations were eliminated. State and local governments can tackle transportation without federal intervention. They should move toward market pricing for transportation usage and expand the private sector's role in the funding and operation of highways.

Aff solvency is only theoretical – Federal highway spending is misallocated in practice

Today, gasoline taxes and other revenues flowing into the FHTF total about $36 billion annually. Congress spends the money on highways and many other activities, often inefficiently. The following sections discuss six disadvantages of federal highway financing, and thus indicate the advantages of devolving highway financing to the states and private sector. 1. Funds Used Inefficiently and Diverted to Lower-Priority Projects Federal aid typically covers between 75 and 90 percent of the costs of federally supported highway projects. Because states spend only a small fraction of their own resources on these projects, state officials have less incentive to use funds efficiently and to fund only high-priority investments. Boston's Central Artery and Tunnel project (the "Big Dig"), for example, suffered from poor management and huge cost overruns. Federal taxpayers paid for more than half of the project's total costs, which soared from about $3 billion to about $15 billion.22

AT: Solvency – Federal Funding Fails

Earmarking for pork barrel projects undermines solvency

Money allocated for highways will get diverted to non-highway uses

Since 1982, increasing amounts of revenues from the FHTF have been diverted to non-highway uses. The Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 raised the federal gas tax by five cents, with one-fifth of the increase dedicated to urban transit. The 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act substituted "flexibility" and "intermodalism" for the "dedication" of fuel taxes to highways. That wording change meant that any transportation-related activity could lay claim to highway money. Under the most recent highway authorization—SAFETEA-LU of 2005—transportation scholar Randal O'Toole figures that only about 59 percent of highway trust fund dollars will be spent on highways. Funds from the FHTF will go to mass transit (21 percent), earmarks (8 percent), and a hodge-podge of other activities such as bicycle paths (12 percent). Note, however, that some of the earmark funds will also go to highways. The main diversion is to rail transit, which can be a very inefficient mode of transportation, as discussed in a related essay. Most Americans do not use rail transit and should not have to subsidize expensive subways and rail systems in a small number of major cities that prohibit the use of more modern and effective transit methods, such as shared taxis. As the FHWA table (www.fhwa.dot.gov/safetealu/safetea- lu_authorizations.xls) indicates, Congress allocates highway money to truck parking facilities, anti-racial profiling programs, magnetic levitation trains, and dozens of other non-road activities. O'Toole finds that the House version of upcoming transportation authorization legislation would reduce the highway portion of FHTF spending to just 20 percent. It would add high-speed rail at 10 percent, fund transit at 20 percent, and provide about 50 percent of the funds to the states to spend on "flexible" projects and earmarks.

AT: Solvency – Federal Funding Fails

Federal funding undermines solvency because it’s inherently tied to wasteful regulations

AT: Solvency – Federal Funding Fails

Supporters of federal highway spending use flawed statistical data

Federal funding trades off with private highways that solve better

By subsidizing the states to provide seemingly "free" highways, federal financing discourages the construction and operation of privately financed highways. A key problem is that users of private highways are forced to pay both the tolls for those private facilities and the fuel taxes that support the government highways. Another problem is that private highway companies have to pay taxes, including property taxes and income taxes, while government agencies do not. Furthermore, private highways face higher borrowing costs because they must issue taxable bonds, whereas public agencies can issue tax-exempt bonds. The Dulles Greenway is a privately financed and operated highway in Northern Virginia, which cost investors about $350 million to build.3The Greenway must compete against nearby "free" state highways. It has been tough going, but the Greenway has survived for 15 years. Typical users of the Greenway pay 36 cents in federal and state gasoline taxes per gallon to support the government highways, plus they pay Greenway tolls, which range from $2.25 to $4.15 per trip for automobiles using electronic tolling. If the Greenway and other private highways were credited the amounts paid into state and federal highway funds, their tolls could be lowered and more traffic would be attracted to them. That would make better use of private capacity as it could develop in coming years and relieve congestion on other roads. Unfortunately, the proposed version of new highway legislation by the chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure would add new federal regulatory barriers to toll roads in the states.Section 1204 of the bill would create a federal "Office of Public Benefit" to ensure "protection of the public interest in relation to highway toll projects and public-private partnership agreements on federal-aid highways." This new office would be tasked with reviewing and approving or disapproving proposed toll rate increases on these projects, among other interventionist activities. This would completely flip around the idea of road tolling as a decentralized market-based mechanism and turn it into a central planning mechanism.

AT: Solvency – Federal Funding Fails

Federal funded highways prevent HOT lanes that solve the case better

AT: Congestion

Congestion isn’t a problem – it’s an indication of a healthy economy not a threat

Highway congestion isn’t key to overall congestion

Freeways form the backbone of nearly every metropolitan transportation network in the US. While they comprise only a small fraction of metropolitan street and high- way mileage, freeways carry more than a third of all vehicular travel. When people speak of congestion in cities, they typically mean freeway congestion, and most studies of metropolitan congestion focus mostly, if not exclusively, on freeway delay. But freeway delay may not be a meaningful way to measure how congestion affects people. Consider the following example. A commuter walks from her front door to her car, parked in her driveway. She drives a quarter mile on local streets to a larger collector 10 street, and then a half mile to a large arterial street. She then travels on the arterial for a couple miles to a freeway on-ramp. Once on the freeway, she drives in congested conditions for six miles, exits onto another arterial, and drives another mile and a half before entering a parking structure at her worksite. She makes three loops up to the third level of the structure, where she parks. Then she walks fifty yards, waits for an elevator which takes her to the first floor, enters another building, and waits for another elevator to take her to her fifth-floor office. In this example, the drive on the congested freeway accounts for well over half the travel distance, but much less than half the travel time. So even a dramatic fifty percent increase in travel speed on the congested freeway link of this trip would reduce the time of this sample commute by only five minutes—less than fifteen percent.

Non vehicle delays are more costly than highway congestion

AT: Solvency - Congestion

Congestion is inevitable – it can’t be solved

Impossible to build enough roads to solve congestion

2. Greatly expand road capacity. The second approach to reducing congestion is to build enough additional road capacity to simultaneously accommodate all drivers who want to travel at peak hours. But this “cure” is totally impractical and prohibitively expensive. We would have to turn much of every metropolitan region into a giant concrete slab, and the resulting huge roads would be grossly underutilized in noncommuting hours. Although there are many occasions when adding more road capacity is a good idea, no large region can afford to build enough to completely eliminate peak-hour congestion.

Building more roads brings more traffic – can’t solve congestion

However, more roads will not bring an end to congestion. Instead, they will bring more traffic. The American economist Anthony Downs put forward this hypothesis more than four decades ago. He called this idea the “fundamental law of highway congestion”. According to an amazing paper by two Canadian economists, Downs really had a point. Gilles Duranton and Matthew Turner, both affiliated to the UniversityofToronto, empirically analysed the relationship between road building and traffic volumes and came to a very sobering conclusion: “increased provision of interstate highways and major urban roads is unlikely to relieve congestion of these roads.”

AT: Solvency - Congestion

Can’t solve congestion because of the principle of triple convergence

Building more roads can’t solve congestion

1. Build more roads. Highway advocates claim we need to build more roads and expand many existing ones, but opponents say we cannot build our way out of congestion because more highway capacity will simply attract more travelers. Triple Convergence shows this is true for already-overcrowded roads. But large projected population growth means that we will need a lot more lane miles just to cope in growth areas. However, building roads will not eliminate current congestion, nor prevent it from arising on new roads.

Congestion will get worse no matter what counter-measures are taken

Politics Links - Congress

Conservative GOP factions make highway spending politically infeasible

But privately, GOP aides said leadership had come to terms with the fact that parochial divisions within the Republican Conference, united Democratic opposition and a conservative faction opposed to federal highway spending had made the measure politically unwieldy.

Increasing highway spending will be hugely controversial – congress is looking to make cuts

Yet infrastructure spending is unlikely to increase. The current Congress is poised to either keep spending at current insufficient levels or make cuts. The Senate majority recently passed a short, two-year extension of the transportation funding bill that continues spending at current levels. Reports on the draft-stage House majority transportation bill indicate that it will significantly reduce transportation funding, particularly for transit. Similarly, the forthcoming budget plan for fiscal year 2013 from the House majority cuts tens of billions of dollars in discretionary spending, which includes infrastructure spending, every year compared to the president’s budget while cutting taxes for the wealthy. The plan would reduce transportation infrastructure investment per capita by 28 percent from 2010 levels. Significant increases are not on the table in large part because of strong opposition to raising taxes to pay for the spending. The wealthy place a much higher priority on keeping taxes low than does the middle class, according to a number of academic studies.

Republicans will oppose new spending on highways

Politics Links - Public

A majority of Americans oppose new highway spending

The public overwhelmingly thinks highway spending is ineffective

Massive public opposition to increases in gas taxes needed to pay for highway spending

Most Americans support more investment in highways, bridges and transit systems but are solidly opposed to raising the national gasoline tax as a funding option, according to a national survey released by the Rockefeller Foundation. The study helps explain the impasse in Washington as President Barack Obama calls for transportation investments: Many lawmakers agree on the need for more highway spending but are averse to taking politically risky steps to raise funding. The survey was conducted jointly by Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies between Jan. 29 and Feb. 6, and has a 3.1 percentage point margin of error. Seven in 10 said they wanted elected leaders to seek compromise, rather than hold fast to their position, on legislation for transportation infrastructure. That’s a higher portion than those who urged compromise in addressing the federal budget deficit, tax cuts, entitlements and other issues. Two-thirds of respondents–including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents–said that improving transportation infrastructure is “important.” And 80% agreed that federal funding to improve and modernize transportation systems would boost local economies and create jobs. But only 27% said that raising the federal gasoline tax would be an “acceptable” way to provide more highway funding. The 18.4-cent federal tax on a gallon of gasoline provides most funding for transportation projects, and many groups, including the Chamber of Commerce, have called for raising the gas tax. Instead, most survey respondents supported more private investment as an acceptable option for raising more transportation money.

Spending Links

Just repairing IHS bridges will cost hundres of billions of dollars

Highway repair and expansion will be incredibly expensive – prices for raw materials and oil have inflated construction and maintenance costs

One reason for the backlog is that funding for highway repair and improvements hasn’t kept up with rising construction and maintenance costs, which have far outstripped the overall inflation rate. The biggest reason: strong global demand for building materials like steel and concrete have pushed up prices of those raw materials. Higher oil prices have raised the cost of asphalt and the diesel fuel need to power road-building equipment.

Costs will escalate out of control – the big dig proves

Spending Links

Aff costs can’t be offset by gasoline taxes and other charges

Economic benefits from highway spending do not outweigh costs

Highway expansion is incredibly expensive

The Mayors are absolutely right that highway expansion should be a low priority - because highways as we have traditionally built them in this country have been perceived as free of charge. 80% of Mayors feel this way most likely because in 80% of cities, it would be a gross misallocation of public resources to invest in brand new "free" highways. In many urban cores, highways can be a disruptive, expensive, and inefficient way to move people. This is why, ultimately, many legs of the Interstate System (where tolls are prohibited) within cities were never built.

States CP

Federal highway management fails – states would do a better job

Devolving highway control to the states solves best –one size fits all solutions fail

The principle of “subsidiarity” postulates that government decisions should occur at the lowest practicable level, for example locally rather than nationally. This principle suggests that it is indeed time to relieve the federal government of the burden of financing transportation infrastructure, and of the onus of having to raise the required fees or taxes, and return these responsibilities to the states. The following reasons come to mind: 1. The purpose of federal financing — completion of the Interstate Highway System — has been virtually achieved, and it is difficult to identify other advantages from federal financing. 2. The disadvantages of federal financing — increased costs and intrusive regulation — are evident and substantial. 3. Congress, unable to increase the taxes dedicated to roads, seeks to use general funds to finance some of the transportation expenditures it considers necessary, thus abandoning the US traditional “user pays” principle for roads. 4. Congress keeps deferring long-term road legislation and substituting short-term-extensions of previous (2005) legislation, thus hindering long-term planning of transportation projects. 5. New methods to pay for road use — such as mileage-based user fees to replace fuel taxes — are more likely to succeed as a result of innovations sought by different states, than if imposed by a federal government seeking a “one size fits all” solution.

States solve better for highways

We’ve argued in the past that responsibility for generating highway funds should ‘devolve’ to the states, but now that’s a largely ‘defacto reality’ as declining HTF revenues are forcing the states to look for new ways to generate the monies they need,” Scriber told Fleet Owner. Scriber said the members of the policy panel – Adrian Moore, Ph.D.,vp-policy with the Reason Foundation; Gabriel Roth, research fellow at the Independent Institute; and Randall O’Toole, senior fellow with the Cato Institute – largely agreed that the federal government should remove itself from the highway funding process and let states take over. “It’s inherently more efficient for the states to handle this rather than add in the extra step of the federal government collecting and then redistributing fuel taxes,” Scriber pointed out. “Also note that Congress has not increased federal fuel excise tax rates since 1993. Since then, inflation has eroded the buying power of those tax dollars by more than one-third. This has pushed the HTF to the brink of insolvency, yet none of the proposals pending before Congress address this imminent threat to our nation’s surface transportation infrastructure.”

Privatization CP

Congestion, disrepair, and accidents all prove government mismanagement of highways – privatization solves

The free market ensures highest quality roads – government control is incompetent

It is not only that government has been staffed with incompetents. The roads authorities are staffed, sometimes, with able management. Nor can it be denied that at least some who have achieved high rank in the world of private business have been incompetent. The advantage enjoyed by the market is the automatic reward and penalty system imposed by profits and losses. When customers are pleased, they continue patronizing those merchants who have served them well. These businesses are thus allowed to earn a profit. They can prosper and expand. Entrepreneurs who fail to satisfy, on the other hand, are soon driven to bankruptcy. This is a continual process repeated day in, day out. There is always a tendency in the market for the reward of the able and the deterrence of those who are not efficient. Nothing like perfection is ever reached, but the continual grinding down of the ineffective and rewarding of the competent, brings about a level of managerial skill unmatched by any other system. Whatever may be said of the political arena, it is one which completely lacks this market process. Although there are cases where capability rises to the fore, there is no continual process which promotes this. Because this is well known, even elementary, we have entrusted the market to produce the bulk of our consumer goods and capital equipment. What is difficult to see is that this analysis applies to the provision of roads no less than to fountain pens, frisbees, or fishsticks.

Privatizing roads would provide better transportation infrastructure at lower costs

Lest you think your money would be going up in exhaust fumes, remember that market firms, who must please customers to stay in business, provide everything better and less expensively than government, without that nasty moral hangover of forcing people to pay for things they may not use or want. Your gasoline price already includes forty to fifty cents per gallon in taxes for road building and maintenance. This means I’m paying twenty-five to thirty-three dollars per month for road use now. With privatization of roads, that cost would go down, probably considerably. It happens every time anything is moved from government hands into private hands.

Privatization CP

Privatization solves highway congestion

Anyone who wanted to build a new interstate would face the huge task of buying up land crossing perhaps hundreds of miles. Widening existing highways would be more likely. In Los Angeles and other large cities where traffic is consistently choked, road owners would have the incentive, and plenty of funds, to buy property along highways so they could widen them. Owners would also have incentives to improve interchanges, such as Spaghetti Junction in Atlanta. Roads would improve overall. (I interviewed a county road engineer years ago, and he told me they design circular entrance ramps deliberately with varying radii—experienced as odd changes in the curve, which force you to constantly readjust the steering wheel—to “keep drivers awake.” How many of us have trouble keeping focused for fifteen seconds on a curving entrance ramp?)

Privatization solves highway pollution

The counterplan spills over – demonstrating free market success fuels further privatization

VMF CP

Text: The United States Federal Government should phase out federal gas taxes and implement a vehicle-mile fee system for Interstate Highways

VMF reduces congestion and creates a sustainable funding source for highway improvement

To fix these and other problems with gas taxes, this paper proposes an affordable vehicle-mile fee system that preserves traveler privacy, eliminates nearly all traffic congestion, adequately funds all federal, state, and local roads, and does so in a revenue-neutral manner after eliminat- ing gas taxes and local road subsidies. In fact, in the long run the proposal may even reduce total road costs and fees because it would give road agencies incentives to operate more efficiently.

Price measures key to solve congestion – however gas taxes can’t keep up with inflation and need to be replaced

This congestion is related to several other problems with America’s system of high- ways, roads, and streets. First, the system of financing roads using gasoline taxes fails to keep up with inflation and increasingly fuel- efficient cars. After adjusting for inflation, the amount of gas tax motorists pay for every mile they drive is only one-third the amount paid in 1956, the year Congress created the Interstate Highway System.

VMF raises enough revenues to maintain highways and establishes a deterrent to congestion

VMF CP

Reliance on federal funding creates incentives for local governments to defer maintenance – VMF solves

VMF solves congestion – increases highway mobility

VMF reduces congestion and create more effective government spending on highways

VMF CP

Pricing is the only way to create a sustainable solution to congestion and highway maintenance

VMF can double highway capacity

Congestion-pricing advocates rarely mention the subtle effect of congestion: the hours of delay after traffic flows fall below the maxi- mum flow capacities. By using tolls to prevent congestion, highway capacities can be nearly doubled for several hours of the day, thus making it possible for many people to shift their departure times back to times they would have considered preferable were it not for the congestion. In other words, paradoxically, tolls actually increase highway capacities and allow more people to travel when they want to travel.

Multiple empirical examples prove VMF solvency