What is the “HEB test”?
In central Austin, most people drive (or even, gasp, WALK!) from their home to the closest major grocery store (i.e. non-convenience store) without driving one inch on a roadway which is part of the state highway system because most major roads in central Austin are city-funded streets – not so in Round Rock or other bedrom communities; the vast majority there would not only choose to but MUST head out to FM 620 or 1825 or 685 or even I-35 to shop for anything of consequence.
For instance, from my house north of UT, these major grocery stores are the ones we shop at more than once a year. We drive to EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM without using any part of the state highway system (yes, we shop at all of these, in order of frequency). (We sometimes walk to a couple of these, and have biked to one):
- Central Market (38th/Lamar)
- HEB at Hancock Center
- Randall’s on 35th
- Whole Foods (6th/Lamar)
- Fresh Plus on Duval/43rd
- Randall’s at Exposition across from Casis
- Randall’s at Exposition/Lake Austin
- Wheatsville Co-op (Guadalupe/30th)
Try the same test sometime in your neighborhood. When applied over a set of neighborhoods in a geographic area, I think the “HEB test” is a good indicator of how much (or how little) of your major street network is funded by the state. (Remember! Roads which don’t have a route shield on them, like FM 1325 or US 183, are not parts of the state highway system, and thus are ineligible for all state gas tax money and most federal gas tax money!)
This test is a useful proxy for the claim (made by me and others knowledgeable about urban planning) that gasoline taxes effectively subsidize the suburbs – the typical dweller of the suburbs spends a much higher percentage of his “drive” on roads which actually get money back from the gas tax than does the corresponding center-city resident.
