Sue Lani Madsen: Paying roads tax by the mile holds promise
City dwellers with short trips look like obvious winners. People with a 40-mile round-trip commute to town are worried.
In reality, everyone is already paying per mile measured on fuel economy. At the right tax rate per mile, rural residents might come out winners. How much are you currently paying in taxes per mile driven? And why do we need to change how we collect our transportation taxes?
Gas taxes were broadly instituted in the 1920s as cars became more numerous, even if good roads had not. It was a simple luxury tax on the rich. The vehicle fuel tax in Washington was not tied to road infrastructure until 1944. The rapid expansion of car ownership and pleasure driving after World War II helped revenue and construction cost keep pace.
Then came the 1973 Arab oil embargo, and gas prices shot up. The first federal fuel economy standards were imposed in 1975 to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, with a side effect of reducing gas tax revenue. The standards have increased steadily, with a target of 54 mpg in 2025, allowing Americans to drive the same distances and pay less in gas taxes.
The vehicle fuel tax money originally tied to highways has now been stretched to cover increased spending on mass transit and human-powered transportation. This broader view of transportation is intended to cut miles driven, ironically cutting revenue collected while simultaneously reducing the dollars available for non-car infrastructure as well as highways.
Revenue will be further reduced as alternative-fuel vehicles nibble away at the market without paying their share toward building and maintaining roads and bridges. The Washington state Transportation Commission anticipates fuel economy improvements alone will cut gas tax revenue by 45 percent in the next 20 years.
A pattern of reduced revenue and increased spending is a system destined to fail. The failure already shows up in appalling structural ratings for bridges and the obvious deferred expansion and maintenance of our road system.
According to AAA, the average fuel cost per mile driven is 11 cents, with a range of 9 to 14 cents depending on your vehicle. The calculations are based on gas prices at $2.855 a gallon, which includes state gas taxes of 44.5 cents a gallon. For the average driver of the average midsize vehicle, the current gas tax paid is about 2 cents per mile. The driver of a typical older pickup is paying about 3 cents per mile in gas taxes.
Until there is a giant leap forward in battery technology, electric vehicles aren’t practical outside of metropolitan areas, so gas taxes will continue to fall more heavily on rural drivers and long-distance commuters.
The system will have to change, and miles driven looks easy. We drop the gas tax at the pump, charge everyone 2 cents per mile driven regardless of fuel source, everybody pays and rural drivers get a break.
The problem is measurement. A system of odometer readings at license renewal doesn’t account for miles driven out of state or by out-of-state drivers. Solving the out-of-state vehicle challenge might be possible using a surcharge on gas purchases.
GPS tracking technology is currently used by some, but not all, commercial truck fleets as a way of monitoring their drivers’ speed and safety. GPS service would have to be expanded consistently across the state, with its own infrastructure costs. Data would not be available from out-of-state vehicles lacking GPS systems.
The major objection is Big Brother at the Department of Revenue collecting driving data. If the NSA found telephone records irresistible, imagine their fascination with access to records of every citizen’s daily movement. The violation of the principle of citizen privacy has no practical solution.
The barriers to change are high, and we need to avoid knee-jerk partisanship. Everybody benefits from safe roads, adequate for traffic load and well-maintained. The revenue issue is how to equitably share the burden among all transportation users.
Contact Sue Lani Madsen at rulingpen@gmail.com.