Washington, DC—With deteriorating American roads costing everyday drivers $167 billion annually, Consumer Reports (CR) today released a new report to help policymakers create an infrastructure funding system that is fairer, simpler, and more effective for the public.
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers 2025 report card, the United States currently has grades of D+ and C for road and bridge infrastructure, respectively. Driving on degraded roads costs drivers roughly $725 a year in extra vehicle repairs, accelerated wear and tear, and wasted fuel.
These infrastructure challenges are driven by an unsustainable funding model. CR analyses show that due to a combination of increasing construction and maintenance costs, rising vehicle fuel economy, and sales of new electric vehicles, the federal government’s purchasing power from gas tax receipts has diminished by 81% since 1993.
“It’s clear to Americans that our roads and bridges are crumbling, and we need adequate, dependable public funding to fix them. This new report provides a consumer-centered blueprint for how policymakers can step up to address this challenge,” said Dylan Jaff, policy analyst at Consumer Reports. “Consumers across the country deserve a safe, cost-effective, and reliably funded transportation system to meet their needs, regardless of what kind of fuel their car uses. In the face of increased construction and maintenance costs, a changing vehicle market, and a federal gas tax that hasn’t budged in 33 years, it’s critical for policymakers to find better ways to fund road transportation—and we have a few ideas.”
Policy Principles for Transportation Funding Strategies
To better evaluate the different strategies federal and state policymakers could use to fund transportation infrastructure, CR set forth five key policy principles to serve as a rubric for examining the different road funding strategies and a guide for policymakers as they consider new fees and taxes for transportation funding:
- User pays proportional to impact: Any user fees should reflect the actual impact a user or vehicle has on the system.
- Fairness between consumer and commercial vehicles: Consumers should not be forced to subsidize commercial road users through inequitable funding schemes.
- Ease of collection: User-related fees or taxes should be simple for drivers to pay, without imposing unnecessary administrative burdens.
- Privacy protection: Any funding system should be designed to minimize the amount of consumer data collected and retained.
- Revenue stability: Solutions should maintain revenue stability as vehicle fleets and fuel types change.
CR recognizes the importance of reevaluating how we sustainably fund safe and dependable transportation infrastructure, particularly as the vehicle market shifts. With a stagnant gas tax and a vehicle market that includes more efficient and electric vehicles, policymakers have floated a variety of new tactics to collect funding for transportation infrastructure, including electric vehicle (EV) registration fees, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) fees, EV charging station taxes, and tolls.
Conversations are occurring in Washington about adding a $250 annual federal tax on electric vehicle owners. While fixed fees can potentially be part of a comprehensive road funding solution, they must be sized appropriately to avoid penalizing those consumers who choose to drive more efficient and electric vehicles. Previous CR analysis found that a $250 annual fee would result in the average EV driver paying more than three times as much in annual federal vehicle taxes as the average owner of a new gasoline-powered vehicle, and would be especially harmful to seniors who drive less on average.
“Our analysis has found that EV drivers are only contributing about 2% to the shortfall of the federal highway trust fund,” said Chris Harto, manager, sustainability advocacy at Consumer Reports. “EV drivers should pay into the road funding system, but taxes on EV drivers alone—no matter how excessive—won’t solve the larger problem of transportation funding shortfalls. We look forward to working with policymakers to put our principles into practice as they develop more equitable and comprehensive solutions to this important challenge.”
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Media Contact: Emily Akpan, emily.akpan@consumer.org