Why are so many rest stops closed?

bgum wrote:
The federal gas tax was last raised in 1993. Those taxes are not indexed to inflation. Inflation has gone up 65 percent. Consumption has held steady rather than any dramatic increases as stated earlier. Now cost of everything has gone up 65 percent value of income from taxes has gone down 65 percent how would anyone run a household like that? Keep drinking Grover Norquist's cool aid and your bridges will fall and your highways will crumble. Oh wait they already are.

I'm begging you to please refrain from political points of view on this thread. I'd hate to see it shut down because of political views. Let's discuss the gas tax, but not politicians or political party leaders.

The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon on diesel but don't forget the state and local taxes. You can add another 30.4 cents of tax on top of that. The state taxes are imposed on gallons or percentage and usually both.

The feds have not raised the gas tax since 1993. In 1993 we used 2.3 million million gallons of fuel. In 2013 we used 3 million million gallons so yes, the amount of money the feds have received has gone up 30%. It's not enough to keep up with the 60% inflation you noted (source please) but it's still way up. I would have thought that road work would have gone down in cost, however, because of the new tools and techniques used to work on roads today.

So I don't think your post tells the whole story or why rest stops are closed. I also don't know how the costs of the rest stop are allocated between the state and federal governments.