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The Strong Towns Podcast is a weekly conversation on the Strong Towns movement, hosted by Strong Towns Founder and President Charles Marohn and frequently featuring special guests. The podcast explores how we can financially strengthen our cities, towns, and neighborhoods and, in the process, make them better places to live. Join Chuck in examining how everything from urban design to economics to systems theory to psychology helps inform this core question.
Episodes
Jul 27, 2026
Jul 27, 2026
52 min
The Highway Trust Fund brings in roughly $45 billion a year and spends closer to $80 billion. Congress keeps the system running by borrowing the difference and moving that money into a program still treated as if road users fully fund it. Rebecca Higgins, vice president of policy at the Eno Center for Transportation, explains how the fund reached this point and why the gap keeps growing. She and Chuck examine the choices lawmakers have avoided for decades, including higher taxes, lower spending, new fees, or a smaller federal role, and what happens when highway funding begins competing with other underfunded national priorities.
Additional Show Notes
- Rebecca Higgins (LinkedIn)
- The Eno Center for Transportation (Site)
- The Last Exit: Fixing the Highway Trust Fund while Solvency is still Solvable (Report)
- 'We Built the Best Interstate System. Now It’s Falling Apart.' (Video)
- Mission Accomplished Report (Site)
- Chuck Marohn (Substack)
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.
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