Last month, in a blog post we mentioned that
California has one of the highest gas taxes in the nation and we wondered if it
wasn’t time for a rethink in the way we finance our roads. Other West Coast states are apparently
way ahead of us.
In July, Oregon became the first
state to establish a voluntary road usage
charge
system for transportation funding.
The system, which goes into effect in 2015, will allow up to 5,000
Oregon motorists to pay a 1.5 cent per mile road usage charge to Oregon Department
of Transportation (ODOT) rather than the 30-cent per gallon gas tax. (Participants in the program must apply
for a refund of the gas tax and also can seek a refund for miles driven on
private property.)
It’s
a fact that Californians are buying less gas. With the pressure on carmakers to make even more efficient
hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles, gas consumption is only going to go
lower. And, with the advances in
smartphone applications and GPS technology, it’s far easier to track actual
vehicle miles traveled from outside the car. That’s why alternative funding mechanisms like the program
adopted in Oregon may become are likely to be the rule, rather than the
exception, in the future.
The
time is now in California for a broad discussion of how best to finance
our future transportation needs in our ever-changing world, including
such innovative ideas as Oregon's road usage charge.
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