Well ... one thing I suspect here in Oklahoma, with the amount of money that is in this state (or rather, NOT in this state) ... is that we would be soon driving on dirt and gravel roads here ... LOL ...
OR ... the other thing that would happen is that I would be paying a TOLL fee every time I drive to the neighborhood grocery store ... :-) ...
Already in Tulsa, there are more TOLL ROADS here than I’ve seen in any other area. There’s a toll going south out of town, there’s a toll going east out of town, there’s a toll going west out of town, there are several tolls around town! It’s already crazy with the present funding the way it is.
The Federal grubs handling highway money is always defended by pointing to States that need help.
In reality, though, it's not disbursed according to need as much as according to where the party that's run the country for the past eighty plus years gets the most political return on their investment in a given year.
If they feel a traditional district of theirs is a bit wobbly, more money goes there. If a State Governor is meeting more resistance than usual, that State is suddenly in need of an extra allotment. Some City Mayor in trouble politically? Federal money for the "critical" streets or an infusion of Mass Transit funds for new or existing Mass Transit will show up a hurry. Did the democrat party loose a Governorship? Well, that State doesn't need as much as it had been getting and may suddenly find out they've been "overpaid" in the past so there will be a noticeable drop in cash from the Federal government for a good while, probably about four years.
I could see a small tax somewhere for the Interstate Highways only but there's no such thing as a "lock box" or any other assurance the Federal government makes that keeps various things from quietly being included in one budget item as opposed to another. Interstate Highway only funds would wind up in environmental study grants, community grants, and so on, no matter what the law actually intends.
You can't reduce the size of the eggs a Golden Goose lays and expect that to keep unstoppable thieves from stealing the eggs. You have to either get rid of the Goose laying those golden eggs or put up with the thieves stealing all they can and keep forcing the Goose to lay faster until it finally dies of exhaustion.
And don’t forget, you’re still paying federal gas taxes.
Interstate transportation ping
Compare Oklahoma’s highway funds with things like the”Big Dig” in Boston(a billion dollars per mile) and commuter rail and subway expansion at hundreds of millions per mile.