Who Tore Up the Tracks? · Episode 4 of 24 · 23 min
Roads for Free: The Asymmetric Subsidy
A railroad built its own right-of-way, maintained it, and paid property tax on it, while its competitor's road was built by government, partly with railroad tax money. The episode follows the Good Roads movement into the 1916 and 1921 highway acts, the gas tax as a low user fee, and trucking's regulatory head start, showing how the deck was stacked by law.
Who's who
- Roy StoneCivil War veteran who headed the federal road office in 1893
- Logan Waller PageDirector of the Office of Public Roads; advocate of state highway departments
- Thomas H. MacDonald+1 more episodeRan the federal Bureau of Public Roads from 1919 to 1953
- Woodrow Wilson+9 more episodesSigned the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916
- John BankheadAlabama senator, co-sponsor of the 1916 act
- Dorsey ShacklefordMissouri representative, co-sponsor of the 1916 act
- Lawrence PhippsColorado senator who sponsored the Federal Highway Act of 1921
- Warren G. HardingPresident who signed the Federal Highway Act of 1921
Where it happens
- Oregon+2 more episodesFirst state to tax gasoline, in 1919
- Washington, D.C.+31 more episodesFederal road agencies and Congress
Timeline
- 1893Office of Road Inquiry created in the Department of Agriculture
- July 1916Federal Aid Road Act signed: $75 million over five years
- February 1919Oregon enacts the nation's first gasoline tax
- November 1921Federal Highway Act concentrates aid on a system of principal roads
- 1932First federal gasoline tax, not dedicated to roads
- 1935Motor Carrier Act brings interstate trucking under ICC regulation
Still debated
Whether the gas tax made drivers pay their way is an accounting dispute, with modern estimates putting user-fee coverage near half of total road spending. How much the Good Roads movement was really an auto-industry lobby is also debated, as is what caused the streetcar crisis.
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