1.5 cents per mile instead of gasoline tax

FYI: Road damage rises steeply with axle weight, and is estimated "as a rule of thumb... for reasonably strong pavement surfaces" to be proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight. This means that doubling the axle weight will increase road damage (2x2x2x2)=16 times

Gross axle weight rating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

the fuel tax at least partially accounts for that, the mile tax totally ignores it.

 

OK, correct me if I am wrong 1.5 cents per mile is the same as 30 cents per gallon with a real 20 mpg vehicle (not necessarily epa). The people getting more than 20 mpg pay more under this "fair" scheme in taxes, and the extra money goes mainly to pay the taxes of those getting less than 17 mpg (those who chose guzzlers shouldn't have to pay extra taxes, that's not "fair") and the rest to pay the overhead of the program.

On the next price spike, will that guy with the 15 mpg SUV complain that its not fair that he needs to pay more for gasoline, not just taxes than the guy in a prius or volt, or shiny new Tesla. I mean that isn't fair. Should property taxes be raised so that everybody just pays a little for gasoline, it would be more fair to those SUV and truck drivers that get hurt when oil price spikes happen, wouldn't it. Or maybe the spikes hurt more because they made a poor choice, and it would be fair to change them more in taxes so the next time they get a more efficient car. Evil capitalism fair, instead of the nice everyone pays the same. Aren't I rotten. You can cover the super efficient with higher registration fees, but still lower costs than this tax.

Oregon Tax Is a Drag on the Open Road - Bloomberg View
Overhead of the trial is 40%, overhead of state gas tax according to this is 0.6% and included in you cost for gas. Remove the state gas tax and I BET that cost to stations becomes a profit, not an amount returned to customers.

 

Concervator in me is saying that if anything we need higher gasoline taxes with flat end of the year credit to encourage switch to more efficient cars.

This is of cause if we care about national trade deficit and energy independence. Better yet dont give it back, use excess to pay off public debt.

 

Virginia would love the OReGO system, because the rural repubs are really irked that Prii pay less gaso taxes. But why green Oregon? But sounds like CA is proposing to increase $75/yr on registration so that basically hits everybody for something, and then they are adding 6 cents to pump taxes. So gaso users have quite a lot of tax to pay at the pump and also $75, and EV's just get $75. That would not fly in Virginia but CA I guess it flies.

 

If a gas or mileage tax is meant to cover the cost of roads then it only makes sense that people that drive more miles should pay more since they are using the roads more than people that drive less. In that sense charging a flat fee per mile driven makes sense and is very fair.

 

It would make sense if every car caused the same road damage. But heavier cars cause more damage per mile, thus should pay more. Right?
Separately, gas cars cause more air pollution than EVs, for example. So they should pay more for the damage to the air quality, I would think.
The existing gas tax is a good proxy for both of the above. Heavier cars get less mpg, thus pay more per mile. Bigger, heavier cars get lower mpg and emit more smog per mile as well.

Mike

 

The weight function is of such high order that on roads built to allow commercial trucks, the weight element of common cars and SUVs is negligible. It makes sense to charge them only for their share of congestion, aging, weathering, etc.

 

Roads are built to handle 120,000 lb semi trucks. The difference between a 3500 lb car and 4500 lb SUV is negligible. The majority of wear caused by passenger cars and trucks in Oregon is due to the use of studded tires.

Air pollution is a different subject than paying for road construction and maintenance.

That works until you factor in a natural gas powered garbage truck that get the equivalent of single digit mpg but pays no fuel taxes.

Among passenger vehicles:

Telsa Model S: 4647 lbs
Ford F150 4x4 Supercrew: 4696 lbs

 

So under OreGO they will pay as much as 1970lbs Mitsubishi Mirage and 1680lbs Smart? very appealing, indeed!

 

This is probably going to be a state-by-state thing, unless the Feds step in.
California is going to want to shift the tax burden to gasoline/diesel users as an incentive for alternate fuels cars.

Virginia/Idaho etc probably want to go the opposite direction, and make sure alternate fuels cars including hybrids pay the same gaso tax as a FORD F350.

One would think Oregon/Washington would fall in line with CA policy.

 

BUT.. there is no government bureaucracy!

 

BUT.. we all know gov'ment is bad and private business is good, right?

 

Only half of us know that. The other half of us know the opposite.

 

Actually no. Statistically for every rep there's 1.2 dem but this belongs to FHoP forum.

Agree with wtracy states need federal guidelines otherwise this will end up haywire. Problem is what are the chances of that happening in election year?

 

California and Washington are also thinking about switching to a fee per mile to replace the gasoline tax. California has authorized a trial similar to Oregon's: California Road Charge Pilot Program - Technical Advisory Committee (TAC)

 

It also "makes sense" that people that use more fuel are driving a bigger (and using more limited resources) vehicle or driving farther with the vehicles they have. That makes perfect sense from a road support need. Even more interesting is the "Trip to Disney World" question. It seem more fair that the states roads being used should be the states getting the funding. This is naturally solved with energy taxes instead of states collecting out of state mileage for their coffers (and leaches). What am I missing in this concept?

 

The actual price of gas was estimated at $15/gal. It is only fair that gas guzzler owners are subsidized more.