Opinion: A Penny for County Roads: A Modern Fix for a 70-Year-Old Problem

January 18, 2026
by Travis Ranson, Cass County Judge

Over a five-year period, TxDOT data shows a consistent and alarming trend: nearly 7% of all traffic fatalities in Texas occur on county roads each year. That’s a significant share of the state’s roadway deaths occurring on roads that counties struggle to maintain with limited and outdated resources.

One of those outdated resources is the Lateral Road Fund, created to support county roads. But the funding mechanism hasn’t changed since 1954. For more than 70 years, counties have received a flat $7.3 million per year, drawn from the state motor fuels tax.

To put that in perspective:

  • Texas collects roughly $3.8 billion annually from the state fuels tax.

  • The county share—$7.3 million—is less than two-tenths of one percent of total fuel tax revenue.

  • Meanwhile, counties maintain over half of all public road miles in Texas.

A funding level set in 1954 cannot meet the demands of 2025. County roads carry school buses, emergency vehicles, farmers, ranchers, oil and timber haulers, and everyday commuters. They are the backbone of rural Texas, yet they’re being maintained with revenue levels frozen since the Eisenhower administration.

If Texas allocated just one penny of the existing 20-cent state motor fuels tax—5%—to counties, it would:

  • Increase county road funding from $7.3 million to nearly $190 million per year

  • Reduce counties’ reliance on property taxes

  • Improve safety on roads where Texans are statistically at higher risk

  • Modernize the Lateral Road Fund for the first time in seven decades

  • Strengthen rural infrastructure without raising taxes

A single penny of the motor fuels tax would multiply county road support more than twenty-fivefold, giving counties the resources to address safety, maintenance, and growth demands.
Texas prides itself on conservative, common-sense governance. Updating a 1954 funding model using existing revenue—especially where lives are at stake—is as common-sense as it gets.