>Still, to this layman it seems like a colossal engineering cost to build all those bridges and ramps for relatively modest gain.
IMO, maybe Texas does this because Texas gets a lot more taxes than they talk about (through high property taxes), and don't really want to spend them on anything else (like socialism!), so instead they build 10 lane highway systems for the billion cars and trucks every american should own.
One-third of the Texas DPS highway budget comes from federal sources.
Another third comes from revenues from oil & gas.
About a quarter comes from state gasoline sales tax and registration taxes.
So a little more than 90% of the funding for freeway projects in Texas comes from non-property tax sources.
But even then, a lot of the recent major highway projects in Texas had some kind of toll component to them whether that just directly be toll roads or tolled "express lane" projects which often have parts of those toll revenue backed bonds going to fund things like highway interchanges and on/off ramps for the freeways.
The vast majority of the property taxes I pay go towards the schools, the public parks, the fire/police/public service, libraries, and local roads. City+County taxes are ~0.710%, just the ISD and community college is ~1.16%. A massive chunk of those city/county taxes are roads and public service people, with a bit of parks department and other things like that thrown in.
The state gets its cut mostly by sales taxes though. 6.25% is the state sales tax, with things like groceries exempted. Cities can levy up to 2% additional, for a max rate of 8.25%. Of that 2% my city levies, half of that goes to public transit.
I think this is spot on, but also keep in mind that Texas is a state built for cars, not people. There are very few places where you can safely live and get around to the things you need, and the state is so big that it’s all very high speed highways. I was just there driving from DFW to Austin and it’s 75mph, and then drove to El Paso where it’s 80 mph most of the way. The scale of highways in TX is unmatched anywhere else I’ve been. It’s pretty incredible and sad to be there. There’s not much care for aesthetics or design of roadways. So there’s some cost that’s gotta be paid because everyone needs a car just to exist in such a big sprawly place. Very catch 22, but no going back at this point. DFW takes over 3 hours to drive acrosss, Houston 2 hours. The metro areas are massive there.
IMO, maybe Texas does this because Texas gets a lot more taxes than they talk about (through high property taxes), and don't really want to spend them on anything else (like socialism!), so instead they build 10 lane highway systems for the billion cars and trucks every american should own.