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Drivers test paying by mile instead of gas tax
Larry Copeland, USA TODAY
Beginning early next year, drivers in six states will begin testing a new way to pay for roads and transit: Commuters will be charged for the miles they drive rather than paying taxes on gasoline purchased.
Researchers from the University of Iowa Public Policy Center will install computers and satellite equipment in the vehicles of 2,700 volunteers – 450 each from Austin, Baltimore, Boise, San Diego, eastern Iowa and the Research Triangle region of North Carolina.
Over the next two years, the drivers will get sample monthly bills for the number of miles they’ve driven. They can compare what they now pay in gasoline taxes with what they would have paid in per-mile fees.
…The nation is reassessing the way it pays for roads and transit. Since 1956, the Highway Trust Fund, financed by the federal tax on gasoline, has been a primary source of money for highway projects. But the National Governors Association and other groups and planners involved in road building have concluded that this method, supplemented by state gasoline taxes, no longer is adequate.
Americans are driving cars that get better mileage, and more are driving vehicles that use fuels taxed at lower rates than gasoline, such as ethanol, or making their own fuel and not being taxed. That means gas tax revenue isn’t growing nearly as fast as the number of miles driven.
In addition, the costs of road construction materials have skyrocketed because of heavy demand from India and China. Congress and many state legislatures are reluctant to increase gas taxes, especially at a time of high prices at the pump. The federal gas tax of 18.4 cents a gallon has not been increased since 1993; 24 states have not raised their gas taxes since 1997, according to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.
That has made a mileage fee more attractive to some agencies.
…Privacy advocates worry about the use of satellite navigation technology to track drivers’ movements. “Where you go is something that, for the most part, people consider private,” says Lee Tien, an attorney who specializes in privacy issues for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation.
(21 September 2007)
Comments from the Drumbeat on The Oil Drum:
stax
… This doesn’t seem to be a good idea to me. Apart from the privacy problems it brings, it won’t get any cheaper to maintain the roads. And while it might seem more fair, because one pays for the use of the road, at the same time it discourages the use of fuel efficient cars, because one will pay the same tax for a 20 mile round trip, no matter if one’s using a Prius or a Hummer. Thus, in order to keep the same total amount of tax money coming, it will get more expensive to drive a fuel efficient car or a car which runs on subsidised alternative fuels, while it will get cheaper to drive around in gaz guzzlers.
Leanan
I think it’s a horrible idea. People should not be penalized for buying fuel-efficient cars, or for not using gasoline. It’s the opposite of what we should be doing.
Let alone the additional complexity of monitoring how far each car drives, and the privacy nightmare that would be. …
Buffett: Red hot about railroads
Associated Press
Warren Buffett’s interest in railroads certainly isn’t waning.
The legendary investor’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (Charts, Fortune 500) reported in a SEC filing late Thursday that it has call options to buy 392,378 more shares of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (Charts, Fortune 500), the nation’s second-largest railroad.
…Buffett has said he was slow to realize what a good investment railroads are because of past poor performance in the industry. But the legendary investor said railroads are healthier today than in past years, making them an appealing investment.
(21 September 2007)
Return to the bike? Hard sell in Beijing
Peter Ford, Christian Science Monitor
As Beijing marks car-free day for the first time, an entrepreneur pushes citywide rental scheme.
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Beijing – Few cities on earth are in such dire need of a solution to their traffic problems as Beijing. Drivers here are so accustomed to choking on exhaust fumes, stuck for hours in tailbacks that they scarcely even complain.
So the Beijing city council’s decision to join this year’s World Carfree Day for the first time would seem to be a cause for rejoicing.
Don’t cheer too loudly, though. The centerpiece of the authorities’ plan for Saturday is to temporarily ban private cars from two stretches of downtown street, each about 250 yards long. That’s 0.003 per cent of Beijing’s roads.
It is not exactly the courageous blow for a livable city that Wang Yong, an energetic bicycle enthusiast and entrepreneur, had hoped for. But Mr. Wang has his own plan to tame Beijing’s streets and perhaps make some money, too.
The Beijing Bicycle Rental Co., Mr. Wang admits, is a bit of a David in the face of the capital’s Goliath-like traffic monster. But he has high hopes that as Beijingers’ frustration levels rise, the seductive charms and status of driving an automobile will seem less tempting, and that they will return to the bicycles they have deserted by the millions in recent years.
“We Chinese have a special feeling for bicycles, and cars have brought catastrophic damage to our society and our environment,” Wang says. “Every civilized citizen has to be aware … that we have to bring bikes back into our daily lives.”
His business is simple: customers pick up a bike at one of the company’s rental stations – a straightforward model adapted to Beijing’s sometimes bumpy streets – leave a 400 yuan ($53) credit-card deposit, and whiz away. When they are finished, they drop the bike off at another station and get their deposit back.
(21 September 2007)
Similar bike rental schemes have popped up in Paris and Barcelona. -BA
