Higher Fuel Efficiency=lower Fuel Use, Lower Fuel Taxes. Welcome To Toll Roads.

[RUCRAYZE]

Well, jacking the fees around to sock it to the heaviest traffic period users, as in the Seattle example, doesn't seem to fair to me. And $3.00 plus to cross a bridge seems kind of steep. But then I remember when the Tappan Zee was a quarter, and the Mass Pike cost $1.90 from one end to the other.

Forget the Tap- just check out the GWB $14.00 (FREE westbound!!!)

 

[Gas-Powered Awesome]

My Electric car doesn't pay any gas taxes at all. Washington State's solution? An extra $85 fee when I go to get my tabs renewed each year.

I'm betting that's way, way cheaper than the amount of fuel tax paid by a Toyota Yaris, and yet your electric car causes as much, maybe more because it's heavier, damage to the public roads. So you are getting a big discount. Should you get to use the roads for free?

 

[Ekh]

Forget the Tap- just check out the GWB $14.00 (FREE westbound!!!)

OMG!

 

[Ekh]

Forget the Tap- just check out the GWB $14.00 (FREE westbound!!!)

It's free westbound because they know you have no money left after being in Manhattan for a day.

 

[Jambe]

Forget the Tap- just check out the GWB $14.00 (FREE westbound!!!)

Can you get into NY on a different (free) bridge?

 

[Gizmo]

It's free westbound because they know you have no money left after being in Manhattan for a day.

Nah. It's free to leave cuz they don't want ya to stay too long.

 

[Sethodine]

I'm betting that's way, way cheaper than the amount of fuel tax paid by a Toyota Yaris, and yet your electric car causes as much, maybe more because it's heavier, damage to the public roads. So you are getting a big discount. Should you get to use the roads for free?

I just checked and your right, the Leaf is about 1,000 lbs heavier than the Yaris. But that wasn't my point. I understand the need to pay for the roads, so I'm not against that. My point was, as we create more fuel efficient vehicles, we will need to find a new way to pay for the roads besides gas taxes. The flat registration fee seems more like a workaround than a scalable solution.

 

[Gas-Powered Awesome]

[...] My point was, as we create more fuel efficient vehicles, we will need to find a new way to pay for the roads besides gas taxes. The flat registration fee seems more like a workaround than a scalable solution.

You are right on all counts. It's a sticky wicket. The current fuel tax system is great because it's totally anonymous and impossible to cheat. Impossible to cheat unless you don't use a fuel that has a road tax, e.g. electric and home-made biodiesel...

Current proposals of GPS-tracking, per-mile taxation will build a huge government database of our private travels that inevitably will be abused to target and suppress the "different people" and political enemies of whatever party is in power. Any other way of measuring and taxing use without tamper-proof records (impossible) will be rampant with fraud. Both types of systems should be vehemently opposed. Toll roads using EZ-Pass have already been abused for political ends.
Here's what Motorists.org has to say about toll roads and user fees: http://www.motorists.org/tolls/

We may end up with a tax like we have for public schools, where everybody in a locale pays regardless since everybody benefits from an educated population. That might mean pothole-free roads in high-traffic, high-population-density places like New York City!