Treat Streets as Utilities

Recalibrate Thinking on Street Usage: Streets are a vital part of transportation infrastructure and have long been available to users without true usage-based charges. This type of thinking has led to the stance that streets are a free public good and has limited the opportunity for cities to generate the revenue needed for street maintenance and improvements. Treating streets as utilities, similar to how we consider our water and electric infrastructure, clarifies the fact that streets are a limited resource and that they are costly to build and maintain. It also allows a shift towards usage-based charging that can help incentivize more sustainable and efficient travel modes. However, a shift toward usage-based charging also has the potential to create greater inequities and adversely impact lower income communities. Any shift in policy would have to include measures that address this potential hardship.  

Consider Both New and Existing Modes Equally: As new mobility options have rolled out, some cities have created usage-based fee programs to mitigate their impacts. While these programs are good models for how charges can impact travel patterns and new mobility use, existing mobility modes are typically not considered in these fee structures. Personal automobiles have, by far, the largest impacts on the transportation systems, yet they currently use these systems for minimal costs and with little to no relationship between use and impacts. As new mobility modes are being charged and regulated for their impact on the transportation system, doing the same for existing modes would have a larger effect on mitigating the impacts that new mobility fees are meant to address.

Anticipate Reductions in Gas Tax Revenue: In most cities, a significant portion of street maintenance and improvement funds originate from gas tax and other car-based fees. As new mobility modes and options grow, the anticipated decline in personal vehicle use and ownership will also decrease the amount of car-based tax and fee revenues. Thinking ahead to these revenue declines and pricing street usage accurately across all modes now can help create alternative revenue streams that will offset decreased gas tax revenues going forward.