Transportation Finance Mechanisms

"As traditional sources of funding for the nation's surface transportation system fail to keep pace with demand, proposals for new sources have proliferated. New funding strategies, such as pricing the use of new and existing roads, and new institutional arrangements, such as public-private partnerships, have emerged over the past few years. As with all transportation policies, these strategies raise questions about equity. To address these concerns, the Transportation Research Board convened an expert committee to provide guidance to public officials about assessing the equity of evolving transportation finance mechanisms. The committee's findings are presented in this report. They are organized under the following chapter headings: (1) Equity and Transportation Finance; (2) How Transportation is Funded and Who Pays; (3) Equity Through Different Lenses; (4) Transportation Finance Equity: Evidence and Experience; (5) Equity and Decision Making: Experience with Road Pricing; and (6) Findings and Recommendations."--pub. desc.

"TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 129: Local and Regional Funding Mechanisms for Public Transportation explores a series of transit funding mechanisms with a primary focus on traditional tax- and fee-based funding; and common business, activity, and related funding sources. The report includes an online regional funding database that provides an extensive list of funding sources that are in use or have the prospect of being used at the local and regional level to support public transportation. A user manual for the database is also available online"--Publisher's description.

TRB Special Report 303: Equity of Evolving Transportation Finance Mechanisms addresses the equity of alternatives to current transportation finance mechanisms, notably mechanisms based on tolling and road use metering (i.e., road pricing).

Argues the case for road tolls becoming the preferred means of financing roads.

This report lays out the long term funding strategies and corresponding steps that our nation must take in order to sustain and improve upon our world-class transportation system for the next fifty years.