gas tax

Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation under George W. Bush, Mary Peters recently told the Austin-San Antonio Corridor Growth Summit that the country needs to move toward a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax to replace the failing gas tax. At the same time, a new survey conducted by the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University shows drivers warming to a mileage tax if lower emission vehicles get discounted rates. At issue is how to pay for maintenance and expansion of roads and transit systems after 40 years of vast growth in system use, and looking toward a tricky double-whammy. More population and jobs in coming decades will strain metro-region surface transportation systems, while flattening per-capita miles driven and greater fuel efficiency are curtailing growth in the per-gallon gas tax revenues that have traditionally been the prime source for surface transportation funding.
Broad implementation of the mileage tax is at least 10 years off, maybe 15. In the nearer term, variable-rate, electronically tolled express lanes are needed aside free lanes on major metro region highways, along with expanded opportunities for public private partnerships and other local and regional funding tools. Eventually, the mileage tax could be levied for travel on arterial and feeder roads, plus highways, with discounts for less congested routes, and possibly, lower emission vehicles. Incentives such as pay-per mile car insurance and meter-less, ticket-less parking could help compensate for privacy concerns. With a slew of VMT pilot projects, technical studies and surveys completed and more underway or coming, this bold policy initiative continues to gain momentum. Here’s the San Antonio Express-News on Peter’s remarks:

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Among the pressing legislative priorities facing Congress this autumn — besides the headline-grabbing health care and climate change bills — is an extension of the federal surface transportation program. The program authority expires on September 30 and its renewal is essential to keep federal transportation money flowing. The House and Senate have been on divergent paths in their approach toward renewing the program. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, under the leadership of Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN), has been intent on passing a six-year $500 billion surface transportation measure ($450 billion for highways and transit, $50 billion for high-speed rail) during this session of Congress. In late July, a bill to this effect was reported out by the House Highways and Transit subcommittee. Chairman Oberstar announced at the time that he would hold a full committee mark-up soon after the House returns from its summer recess.
The Senate, on the other hand, has been working toward an 18-month extension of the existing surface transportation program. Its rationale for doing so was succinctly stated by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), ranking minority member. There simply is no way, the two senate transportation leaders concluded, that Congress could pass a multi-year authorization of the surface transportation program before the program’s expiration at the end of September. “There are just too many big questions left unanswered, not the least of which is a lack of a consensus on how to pay for it,” Boxer and Inhofe stated. A better approach, they said, would be to pass an 18-month extension as recommended by the Obama Administration.
Left unsaid were probably two other motives for wanting to postpone enactment of a long-term legislation.

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In a significant return to a controversial topic – the positive mention of which once earned him a sharp public rebuke from President Barack Obama’s press secretary – U.S. Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood today in Chicago reiterated the possibility of vehicle mileage fees to help pay for mounting U.S. surface transportation needs. His remarks indicate a softening of Obama’s official position against the idea. Underscoring evolving bipartisan support, Republican U.S. Rep. John Mica, the ranking minority member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, explains to a Florida paper today why the mileage tax makes sense, long-term. No such policy will be enacted anytime very soon, but could begin to move more seriously toward eventual mainstream adoption as part of Read More ›

Jarred into action by the tragic I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007, the Minnesota legislature in early 2008 proudly passed a $6.6 billion surface transportation funding bill including the state’s first gas tax hike in 20 years, plus optional sales tax hikes, a major bonding program and other measures. But 18 months later, according to its new transportation policy plan, the North Star State faces a $50 billion gap in paying for surface transportation projects over the next 20 years. Of $65 billion in needed work, only $15 billion is currently expected to be available, with three-quarters of that targeted for preserving existing roads and bridges. Officials say safety won’t be compromised. But mobility and pavement condition will. The executive summary from the report reveals (pp. 14-15) the full battery of envisioned projects are to meet system performance targets as the population grows, mainly by improving mobility in inter-regional corridors and mitigating congestion in the Twin Cities, Rochester and St. Cloud areas.
Chapter 4’s discussion of state trends affecting transportation provides more detail. Population is projected to rise 25 percent from current levels by 2035, which would be 50 percent since 1990. Congestion in the metro regions is expected to grow due to more population, a high rate of solo driving on all trips, greater commuting distances and high use of inter-regional corridors. (State highway map here). Needed projects are detailed in the accompanying statewide highway investment plan (full report here; Twin Cities district here). Given the wide funding gap between needs and resources, leaders want to encourage new ways of maintaining roads, pricing limited peak-hour highway capacity, deploying in-vehicle technology, and funding system improvements. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports:

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When Congress passes a new $450 billion six-year surface transportation reauthorization sometime in the next 18 months or so, it would directly yield $90 billion per annum, split nationwide over its term. That probably sounds like a lot of money, but it’s not. As the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s blueprint for the reauthorization bill notes on p. 7, needed U.S. road and transit projects require $225 billion to $340 billion per year in public and private investment over each of the next 50 years – this according to the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. Even scaled-down needs identified by the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure and Finance Commission – also cited in the committee’s reauthorization blueprint – are sizable: $200 billion per year in public investment to maintain and improve the most essential components of the nation’s highway and transit systems.
The expected $48 billion in 2009 ARRA stimulus bill spending on transportation makes only a minor dent in either amount. Despite the possibility of some additional leveraged funding via an envisioned infrastructure bank that could be rolled into the reauthorization bill, it’s increasingly clear that manna from Washington – though important – isn’t a stand-alone solution.
That’s because of deepening maintenance and construction needs resulting from four decades of robust growth in passenger and freight vehicle miles traveled, plus simultaneous under-investment in infrastructure, and continuing population growth. And so across the U.S., more and more states and regions are grappling with difficult political choices to pay for fixing eroded transportation infrastructure, and for building new capacity and instituting other strategies to ease traffic congestion as the economic recovery unfolds in the next several years.
The first step is realizing you have a problem. There’s a fair amount of that going around.

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Congress has adjourned for the summer recess with neither house taking action to extend the federal surface transportation program. Hope for a timely enactment of a long term transportation bill this year all but vanished when Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, acknowledged that he does not favor raising the gas tax at this time to pay for the $500 billion transportation authorization ($450 billion for highways and transit, $50 billion for high-speed rail). He made this admission in testimony before a hearing of a House Ways and Means Subcommittee on July 23. “Although increasing and indexing the gasoline and diesel user fee is a viable financing mechanism,…I do not believe that the user fee should be increased during the current recession,” Oberstar stated, echoing the posture previously taken by the White House.
Instead, the T&I Committee chairman and Peter DeFazio (D-OR), chairman of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, suggested several  potential  sources of additional revenue to supplement the gas tax and close the funding gap.

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Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee unveiled a blueprint for the next surface transportation authorization bill on June 18 to generally positive reviews (long version of blueprint here). However he left two key questions unanswered: Can the bill be enacted this year? and, Where will the money to fund the ambitious $500 billion program come from?
The first question has been pushed to the forefront by the Obama Administration. Last Thursday, Transportation Secretary LaHood surprised the transportation community and members of Congress with an unexpected announcement:  the Administration will seek an 18-month extension of the current surface transportation authorization. An estimated $13-$17 billion will be needed to fund the program extension.

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U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Rep. James Oberstar (D.-Minn.) says, enough already with studies and pilot projects. Why not just phase in over the next two years the controversial vehicle mileage tax, in order to supplement and eventually replace the flailing gas tax? More from Associated Press: ..Oberstar…(pictured, right) said he believes the technology exists to implement a mileage tax. He said he sees no point in waiting years for the results of pilot programs since such a tax system is inevitable as federal gasoline tax revenues decline. “Why do we need a pilot program? Why don’t we just phase it in?” said Oberstar, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman. Oberstar is drafting a six-year transportation bill Read More ›

When I was nine I liked to poke a stick into ant nests I’d find in sidewalk cracks. Ants scattered in every conceivable direction. They ran in circles, they ran over and through each other. They screamed without logic. I was fascinated.

The state of professional transportation opinion in the US today is pretty much the same. The stick poked at the nest in this case was the report released by the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Finance Commission this February. The opening ant-scream was the spanking Obama’s Press Secretary Gibbs gave to Transportation Secretary Lahood. We professionals cringed in unison. Gibbs was in turn spanked next day by Congressman Oberstar, chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. We cheered. Of course the press went in every ant-direction imaginable for that and for the release of the NSTIFC’s Paying Our Way report 5 days later. Joe Motorist will have gleaned no real insight, and after fears were supplanted by next days’ tedious economic headlines will have simply forgotten, secure in the fact that opinion was sufficiently variable that no leader could possibly find a coherent position.

It seemed to me that in the weeks following the release of the report, US transportation professionals were – among friends – largely in favor of the key message in the report: “The gas-tax is a clever and simple idea whose time has run out and paying-for-use is the tax-shift to fix it.” We mocked Gibbs, commiserated with LaHood, and delighted in Oberstar’s defense – which had just vindicated all of us. On the whole we nodded in unison at the work of Rob Atkinson’s Congressional commission. Of course we would not all recommend spending the revenue the same way, but we all seemed aligned with the principles: meter all road use and pay according to number of miles traveled weighted by when and where the driving happened and of course by type of vehicle used.

With that in mind, I attended the April 14-15 Symposium on Mileage-Based User Fees (updated web page here) hosted in Austin by the Texas Transportation Institute’s University Transportation Center for Mobility, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, and Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota. This would be about my 20th symposium dealing with Road Use Charging in five years.

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Reuters reports that U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told a senate committee the administration of President Barack Obama will not sign off on any hike in the increasingly ineffective federal gas tax, though Congress may propose that. LaHood’s declaration signaled that the Obama administration will take the same stance as former President George W. Bush. Revenue generated by the tax of 18.4 cents on each gallon of gas sold in the country goes into the Highway Trust Fund to fix U.S. roads and public transit. That fund has already been depleted once and Congress had to pass emergency measures last summer to replenish it. The tax has not been raised since the early 1990s… The Bush administration also opposed a Read More ›