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Page 13

Table 1

Alleged Annual Subsidies to Autos

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Cost

Subsidy

($ billions)

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General tax subsidies to build roads

21

Police and safety services

6.1

Highway administration

4.9

Interest and debt service

5.5

Loss of tax revenues from free parking

21.2

Military presence in Persian Gulf

25

Annual cost of Strategic Petroleum Reserve

1.5

Costs of traffic congestion

100

Air pollution and health costs

9

Casualty insurance premiums

99

Total

293.2

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Source: Stephen B. Goddard, Getting There: The Epic

Struggle between Road and Rail in the American Cen-

tury (New York: Basic Books, 1994), p. 255.

(estimates based roughly on 1989 figures).

But Goddard's

estimates are riddled with errors.

General Tax Subsidies.  Goddard says that gas taxes and

motor vehicle fees "cover only about 60 percent of the $53.3

billion that all levels of government spend [on highway

construction and maintenance] each year.  The remaining

$21.3 billion comes from general tax revenues that state and

local governments assess on drivers and nondrivers alike."

Goddard's arithmetic, which is based on 1989 figures, misses

four important points.

First, in 1989 highway user fees spent on highways

totaled $44.3 billion.  That was only $9 billion less than

the $53.3 billion cost of construction and maintenance, not

$21.3 billion as Goddard claims.12  Apparently Goddard got

his value for the difference from a source that he did not

realize had added to the total costs of construction the

costs of police, administration, and debt servicing.  In

other words, he did not acquire construction costs and user

fees from the same data series.  That means that he double