AASHTO Journal, 28 June 2013
A report highlighting the findings from a national survey on tax options to support transportation infrastructure was released by the Mineta Transportation Institute this week, suggesting that a majority of Americans might support a gas tax increase with certain conditions.
The 5th annual survey asked more than 1,500 adults across the U.S. a range of questions including whether or not they supported various federal tax initiatives with certain conditions or explanations. The survey found that 67 percent of respondents would support a 10-cent federal gas tax increase if revenue was spent to maintain streets, roads, and highways – a 9 percent increase from 2012 – and 62 percent supported that same tax if the funding was spent on projects to reduce accidents and increase safety.
Those numbers, however, plummet with different taxes and conditions. Only 23 percent of survey respondents said they would support a 10-cent gas tax when the money was not explicitly tied to roadway maintenance and improvement projects (demonstrating the desire to know where that gas tax increase is going). When exploring other revenue options, only 19 percent of those surveyed approved of a mileage tax with a flat rate of one cent per mile.
“In most cases the support for a tax varied by five or fewer percentage points from 2010 to 2011 to 2012, a change too small to suggest a meaningful change in support,” according to the report. “However, Americans were modestly more willing to support most of the tax increases in 2013 than they were in the previous three years.”
The report also discussed attitudes toward public transit funding and revenue generation. While 64 percent of respondents said they supported spending gas tax revenue on transit, raising additional revenue for transit was an issue. Survey respondents exhibited low levels of support for raising the gas tax for transit and also for raising transit fare rates.
“Policymakers seeking new funding for transit will likely find that their programs are similarly popular to more traditional priorities like reducing traffic congestion, but nevertheless face the same obstacles as other transportation programs in finding new tax revenue sources,” the report says.
The 110-page report is available here.