Mileage Tax (inspection, vehicles, emissions)

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by LTCM

I just don't see the need to create completely new infrastructure to collect a new mileage tax. If the gas tax isn't enough then increase it. Avg fuel mileage goes up, increase the tax. Unless CA plans to eliminate the taxes at the pump, I fail to see how two separate taxes, which both go to the same purpose but are collected in completely different manners, is optimal.

Problem is gas tax is not going to cut it as we transition towards alternative fuel / electric vehicles. Even conservative projections expect them to be the majority of new vehicles in the coming decades.

Regardless of if we keep the gas tax or not, roads will need a new funding source. Of course if we want to encourage a faster transition to alternatives we should keep it.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by cqholt

What about the working class poor who cannot afford to live close to work or transit and therefore must spend a huge sum of their income on transportation and housing? These are the drivers who cannot afford to have state minimum car insurance and still feed their families. This is the results of a society built around car ownership.

Yeah true but if we have a city of 6 million + people in a non car dependent city and lived in an ultra dense environment where transit and walking was more realistic and feasible wouldn't the cost of living (housing, resources, ect) just rocket through the roof in that general area? People literally wouldn't be-able to afford to live there.. and no - price caps alone will not resolve that issue. For what its worth New York and Chicago technically have limits as to how much landlords can charge for rent but those caps also have to move in accordance to demand otherwise you get a complete massacre.. so technically either way you're going to pay.. ..the flip side of a car dependent city is, you have privacy, more freedom, peace of mind, and inevitably less crime in one central location.. of course regardless of what you do..there will ALWAYS be consequence, there is NO perfect solution for transportation in any given Metro otherwise we would all have it by now.

..as for the mileage tax..

I understand the reasoning behind it, simply adding more tax on gas won't be enough in the future when vehicles shift to electric .. but right now.. I still think its too soon. Maybe when atleast 40% of the vehicles are EV's I could see it but it would be more of a penalty to the general public than of help at this time...too many people will literally be being charged twice for driving.

[LTCM]

Originally Posted by cqholt

What about the working class poor who cannot afford to live close to work or transit and therefore must spend a huge sum of their income on transportation and housing? These are the drivers who cannot afford to have state minimum car insurance and still feed their families. This is the results of a society built around car ownership.

cqholt, your transportation knowledge is unrivaled on city-data. Maybe even the entire city. And you bring up some very important issues facing the metro today. If you'll allow me, I'd just like to point out that the cause, and solution, to the problems you list lie in areas completely separate from the gas tax.

For example, if the working poor cannot afford to live close to work, maybe we need to build more housing to satisfy their need and lower transportation cost in the process. I just don't see the need to "solve" the problem of inequality in discretionary income by manipulating the taxes for road maintenance.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by LTCM

cqholt, your transportation knowledge is unrivaled on city-data. Maybe even the entire city. And you bring up some very important issues facing the metro today. If you'll allow me, I'd just like to point out that the cause, and solution, to the problems you list lie in areas completely separate from the gas tax.

For example, if the working poor cannot afford to live close to work, maybe we need to build more housing to satisfy their need and lower transportation cost in the process. I just don't see the need to "solve" the problem of inequality in discretionary income by manipulating the taxes for road maintenance.

It's alittle more complicated than just "building more houses" -- its more so supplying homes that are affordable to the public that are also near job centric locations and the two generally never go hand in hand. On top of which job centric hubs also tend to be more dense and land is generally not available for just homes meaning apartment or condo's are the only real hope and alot of people are simply not going to settle for that.

[flyonpa]

I paid $200/yr on my EV when I lived in Georgia + Sales Tax on the Electricity I used to "Fuel" it.

If i had the Gas Equivalent car, I would have paid $91 in Gas Tax vs the $200+ I spent on "EV Tax"

[LTCM]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Problem is gas tax is not going to cut it as we transition towards alternative fuel / electric vehicles. Even conservative projections expect them to be the majority of new vehicles in the coming decades.

Regardless of if we keep the gas tax or not, roads will need a new funding source. Of course if we want to encourage a faster transition to alternatives we should keep it.

Smart states, including GA, have already begun to solved the majority of this issue by collecting an annual payment from EVs for the purpose of road maintenance. What they charge is VERY close to what an average driver pays in fuel tax.

Of course, charging EVs a single annual payment is orders of magnitude easier than charging every single car a variable fee based on miles, which need to be accurately tracked.

I'm not arguing that a mileage tax isn't in the future. I'm just saying that it's not the present and wont be for a while. And that having the infrastructure for both a fuel and mileage tax is inefficient.

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Setup up odomoter checking sites, then residents will have to visit a site once a year? What about the vehicles passing thru who use the infrastructure, but do not fund it's maintenance?

Perhaps at the same time emissions are inspected now. As for passing through - I would expect that generally to be a wash amongst the states.

[flyonpa]

When they do emissions they record your mileage,

Outside of the Atlanta "Clean Air" region, there are no inspections, So they could do a "Drive Thru" at DDS maybe. Or do it on the "Honor" system, and self report, with some audits for compliance, or when you sell the car at the end. With some penalty for 3x the mileage tax for under reporting.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

Perhaps at the same time emissions are inspected now. As for passing through - I would expect that generally to be a wash amongst the states.

Well, there's two issues with doing that. The number one issue is there's no way to differentiate the miles driven in Georgia and outside of Georgia (especially an issue for people who live in Augusta, Savannah, Columbus, just outside of Chattanooga).. second issue is...it's not incredibly difficult to adjust an odometers mileage.

[red92s]

Originally Posted by LTCM

Smart states, including GA, have already begun to solved the majority of this issue by collecting an annual payment from EVs for the purpose of road maintenance. What they charge is VERY close to what an average driver pays in fuel tax.

Baloney. Most current generation EV's on the road can't cover the 20k miles a year an average Atlanta driver does, because they are range limited. The $200 annual fee is several-fold higher than someone driving a conventional car would pay in gas tax over the distances most EV's actually rack up.

Loss of revenue from EV's are a drop in the bucket compared to the increasing fuel economy of the average car on the road today. As more and more older gas guzzlers are put out to pasture, and replaced with more fuel efficient cars, revenue from the gas tax goes down. Even a fullsize pickup these days is getting 30% better mileage than it was a decade or so ago. That's a 30% drop in gas tax collections, with the same number of miles covered. Raising taxes is a political hot potato, but the gas tax really should be pegged to some metric like CAFE standards so that collections to maintain the roads increase along the the miles covered for a gallon of gas.