Raise property taxes in order to fund infrastructure.
Would we even need to raise more funding for infrastructure if we quit building and maintaining ridiculousness? Think about how many sidewalks, bike lanes, and buses we could pay for if we move everybody closer together, stop building 10 lane freeways, and pay less on healthcare when everybody builds a little light exercise into their daily routine.
I think these are two seperate issues that are only tangentially linked. We certainly need funds to spend on infrastructure, but replacing, rebuilding and expanding many of our existing road systems is a fairly short-term thinking. Perhaps Kriegsspeil was implying that a larger fuel tax and property taxes could fund the construction of a completely new transportation system? I'm not sure...
As I see it, it's unrealistic to think that everyone is going to suddenly stop moving to low density suburbs. Also, the low density suburbs already exist. So there are a few angles here. Unless you just want to rip out the entire suburb and start over, you'll need to maintain the roads so that you have something to densify as time goes on and zoning is loosened. Current property taxes might not even cover maintenance, let alone new infrastructure. So just to keep what you have, you would have to increase taxes. There are examples at
strongtowns.org. It seems to me that the starting point is to make people pay the true costs of their lifestyles.
So, the people that still want to live in suburbs will either stay in them as they densify, or they'll move even further out. Again, raising their taxes so that they pay for their location might cause fewer of them to do it in the first place. Alternatively, they could opt for continued low taxes with equivalently low infrastructure, like gravel roads, which is the current situation
in Vermont. Participatory budgeting is also a theme in John Michael Greer's
Retrotopia series on his Archdruid Report blog.
Nereo, I just mentioned increasing the gasoline tax just in order to fund the interstates. Like Travis mentioned, the current system doesn't pay for the maintenance on interstate highways (see attachment [EDIT: from
this video]). Interestingly,
this Congressional Budget Office report suggested a system much like the Retrotopia scheme:
Charging drivers specifically for using roads would increase economic output by
allowing highly valued transportation to move more quickly and more reliably. Such
pricing could take the form of per-mile charges (also known as vehicle-miles traveled,
or VMT, charges), congestion charges, or tolls on Interstate highways. When faster
travel and avoiding delays were a priority, drivers could opt to pay for the use of a less
congested road, and when travel speed was less important, they could use a road with
a lower fee or avoid paying a fee by using a road without one. Charges that varied by
time of day or that differed by road would also affect economic activity by limiting
congestion.
Besides affecting travel, such pricing would raise revenues, which could be used to make
repairs, expand capacity, or substantially renovate the Interstate System or could be put
to other purposes. It would also provide important information for spending decisions
by showing how much drivers value the use of a road, helping to set priorities for future
improvements. Over time, with more use of pricing, spending could shift from less
productive to more productive uses of highways. Such shifts could boost economic
growth—or they could allow spending to be reduced without affecting overall growth.
According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), widespread use of
congestion pricing, for example, could reduce the amount of capital investment
needed to meet a given set of goals for performance of the highway system by roughly
30 percent.
I'm not sure why they think economic output would increase by charging people to do what they are currently doing, though.
Anyways, getting back to dougules, I just think it's more practical to maintain what we've already built as much as possible, so that the option to improve it remains an option. Obviously if everyone says "Screw this, it turns out it IS too expensive to live 40 miles away from everything!" well... I guess that area would just be fucked...
Ceasing new construction I agree with, if anything because it's not even practical in the first place.