State undertakes pilot study to replace gas tax with a road user charge

[TexasTowelie]

The Washington State Transportation Commission is undertaking a pilot study on the feasibility of replacing the gas tax with a per-mile “road user charge.”

The commission is hoping to enlist 2,000 drivers from different parts of the state, including Eastern Washington, to experiment with the user charge idea.

Earlier this month, the commission approved a plan to launch the pilot project in 2017.

Vehicle owners would pay the state based on how much they use streets and highways, not by how much fuel they buy.

Read more: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/dec/26/state-undertakes-pilot-study-to-replace-gas-tax-wi/

[liberalmike27]

1. Proof in the Pudding

It really depends on how they do it. For the most part, this seems to penalize those who've bought economy vehicles--I heard a while back they were thinking about a per-mile charge. Great, you're penalizing those who bought economy cars?

Now were they to charge more b weight, more for larger cars than smaller ones, way more for MAC Trucks, plus a mileage component, where a smaller car, perhaps even a deduction for cars that don't buy and pay gasoline taxes, then it'd be OK.

I'm pretty sure this is just a way to punish those who are trying to be good for the environment, and place another regressive tax on folks. I wish they would can gasoline taxes and toll roads, and just raise taxes on the rich. It would be good for the economy, as the poor would then save the money they once paid in gasoline and diesel taxes.

[stevebreeze]

2. you can drive passenger cars for decades without doing much damage.

Drive an overloaded semi down the road and you can do as much as thousands and thousands of cars.

[doc03]

4. That's a fact, we have a lot of oil and gas drilling around this area. The drillers come in before

they drill and pave and many times upgrade the county and township roads they use to service their rigs. During the drilling and fracking several thousand sand and water trucks reduce the road back to dust by the time they finish. The drillers do repave the roads when they are finished though. Now the main state roads they are also destroyed and I don't know if the state gets compensated for
that that.

[HassleCat]

3. You better believe this will be bad.

Those of us who drive small, fuel efficient vehicles that do little damage to the roads will pay more than our share. Want to know the solution? Raise the fuel rax! Show some goddamned courage to instead of caving in to bitching. Or don't fix the roads. But make a decision.

[Ron Obvious]

5. Awful idea

It removes an incentive to buy fuel-efficient vehicles, it has to create an enormous infrastructure overhead to administer, which will take a cut out of the money raised, and there are privacy concerns in that it has to record wherever you drive. Sure, they'll guarantee that that information won't be shared with law enforcement for now...

We already have a system in place for collecting the gas tax, so increase it already if it's not raising enough money.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. Don't think it would be popular in rural areas

Especially those with few transportation options.

Some parts of eastern WA one has to drive at least an hour to get to the next town. Not so intolerable though due to less congestion.

In the Puget Sound region it's quite another matter. Due to congestion it usually takes longer to travel a similar distance.

I think the people in the metro area would benefit and have less incentive to buy a fuel efficient vehicle.