Over the past several decades, the transportation revenues available from state and federal gas taxes have fallen significantly, especially in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars per mile travelled. At the same time, the transportation system requires critical–and expensive– system upgrades. Among other needs, a large portion of the national highway system requires major rehabilitation, and there is growing desire at all levels of government to substantially upgrade and expand infrastructure to support public transit, walking, and bicycling. This dilemma of growing needs and shrinking revenues can be resolved in only two ways: either the nation must dramatically lower its goals for system preservation and enhancement, or new revenues must be raised. If the latter is to happen, legislators must be convinced that increasing taxes or fees is politically feasible. One portion of the political calculus that legislators make when deciding whether or not to raise new revenues is, of course, considering likely public support for–or opposition to–raising different kinds of taxes. This report contributes to the understanding of current public sentiment about increasing transportation taxes by presenting the results from the sixth year of an annual telephone survey investigating public opinion about a variety of transportation tax options at the federal level. The specific taxes tested were ten variations on raising the federal gas tax rate or creating a new mileage tax, as well as one option for creating a new federal sales tax. In addition, the survey collected standard sociodemographic data, some travel behaviour data, and respondents’ views on the quality of their local transportation system, and their priorities for government spending on transportation in their state. All of this information is used to assess support levels for the tax options among different population subgroups. The survey questionnaire described the various tax proposals in only general terms, so the study results cannot be assumed to reflect support for any actual proposal put forward. Nevertheless, the results show likely patterns of support and, more important, the public’s likely relative preferences among different transportation tax options. In the 2012 survey (the third year), questions were added to probe public perceptions related to public transit, including knowledge and opinions about federal taxes to support transit. Several new transit-related questions were added to explore respondents’ knowledge of whether different levels of government help to pay for transit, their opinion about whether gas tax revenues should be spent on transit, and their support for different Congressional options to raise additional revenues to support improved and expanded transit. Because the survey is the sixth year of a project to assess how public support for federal transportation taxes may change over time, most of the questions are identical to those in the earlier surveys carried out in the fie prior years. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting