Just got my first annual registration bill from the DMV

Nothing has changed, actually it has gotten worse in Austin.

Yeah Austin, the crown education capitol of Texas has so many potholes in its city roads (freeways are ok), many existing for months & years on end, we collect the shit out of taxes, even an extra 1% not collected anywhere else in Texas specially for "Capitol Metro", we have a super high standard of living and should be able to afford this yet I'm not sure where the billions go but it is not towards pothole repair.

Very sad and yet the AMDs, Motorolas, Apples, IBMs, Oracles, Dells, Microsofts and now Telsas of the world come here and grow, grow, grow along with our potholes! City leaders must have No Shame.

Isn't shame and fear of embarrassment enough to motivate someone into doing a good job? Apparently not anymore.

 

Taxes, if they don't get it one place they'll get it in another.

 

Just paid annual Charleston County property tax on a 2019. $450

 

I paid about $80 to register my Tundra here in Texas last month.

As a Transportation engineer working and living and Texas my entire life I have to disagree with some of these post. At the state level Texas does a really good job of keeping up freeways and highways. The cities responsible for residential roads not so much but it’s because they can’t afford it. Point the finger at the material producers for price gouging. They have gotten requirements for “eco friendly” materials passed and charge 4x the amount for them.

If you want to find potholes go where the trucks are, by that I mean 18 wheelers. The weight of your Tundra (6,000 lbs) or any other passenger car as no effect on the roads. It’s the tractor trailers that weight 30-80k pounds that tear up the roads. Midland/Odessa oilfield is a great example so is Laredo with all the border crossing/trucking. Asphalt really struggles to handle these weights, concrete does much better but is much much more expensive.

Texas also has more roads than any other state in the US. It’s the second largest by land area next to Alaska and that’s all wilderness. Twice as many miles of paved road in Texas as in California which is second.

Our biggest problem is trying to keep up with growth and traffic volume. Hence all the road construction. Every time I am out west I am amazed by the amount of California license plate cars pulling Uhauls coming into the state. Most are going to Austin, Dallas, Houston areas.

Cost of roads are astronomical, a typical 4 lane highway with a grass median is about $1 million per mile in new construction. At least those are the values we used when doing design projects in grad school a few years ago. Set the cruise at 70Mph on the highway, after an hour your have driven over $70 million worth of road.

I do agree property taxes suck here.

 

Not looking forward to transferring my truck to Colorado. Florida was $50 a year, thanks to all the snowbirds and Disney lovers.

Toll revenue in Florida from the turnpike alone;
(...$956 million for 2020, compared to $1.05 billion in 2019...)

Not counting all the other county toll roads, bridges, parking etc...