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Oregon Testing Pay-Per-Mile Driving Fee To Replace Gas Tax

Posted by Soulskill on from the their-way-or-the-highway dept.

schwit1 tips news that Oregon will become the first U.S. state to test a program to replace their gas tax with a fee for each mile citizens drive on public roads. The 5,000 people voluntarily participating in the test will be charged 1.5 cents per mile. Revenue from gas tax has been on the decline as vehicles get more fuel efficient and as hybrids and electric cars become more popular. This measure is an attempt to raise the amount of money the state takes in to pay for infrastructure projects. Many owners of those hybrid and electric vehicles are upset, saying it specifically targets them and discourages environmentally-friendly transportation. Others point out that those who drive electric vehicles need the roads maintained just as much as people still driving gas-powered cars.

5 of 837 comments (clear)

  1. It's the semi's that destroy the roads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    My dad is a retired materials science engineer; a road with infinite life for a car, will have a lifetime of something like 10 years for a fully loaded semi... They are the problem, not the cars. Tax the semis much more for the damage done to the road, vs mile driven.

  2. Re:Vehicle Weight by haruchai · · Score: 5, Informative

    If they're not taxing trucks by weight, they're doing it wrong. The wear by heavy trucks is exponentially greater than a number of smaller vehicles of total similar weight.
    For example, the wear & damage caused by a single tractor-trailer of 80,000 lbs is several thousand times greater than that of 20 2-ton passenger cars.

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  3. Fourth power rule of thumb by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    Road wear is often estimated as the fourth power of axle weight. So I imagine the final regulation will include road wear as a factor. Incidentally, this rule of thumb is sometimes cited as why cyclists aren't taxed. A 200 pound* bicycle causes one ten-thousandth of the wear that a 2000 pound car causes, which means cyclists' contribution to road wear would likely be too small to collect.

    * Occupied weight

  4. Re:Tolls? by knightghost · · Score: 5, Informative

    The rich live close while the poor have to commute (NYC tried something similar). Not to mention this encourages less efficient cars. It's a very, very regressive tax.

  5. Re:Vehicle Weight by Lost2Home · · Score: 5, Informative

    Semis create 80x the road wear compared to cars, not thousands.

    Actually he was correct. The actual number based on US Dept of Transportation reports is 9600x for a semi compared to a passenger car - source.