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ShareThisReport Calls for New Direction in Transport Policy
Bipartisan group seeks 'comprehensive' reform of federal policy, links transportation to energy, environmental goals
A bipartisan think tank is calling for sweeping reform of U.S. transportation planning, infrastructure funding and federal oversight as part of this year’s highway bill.
The National Transportation Policy Project on June 9 introduced its proposals for transforming surface transportation policy. The group hopes to convince Congress to adopt its recommendations and include them in the next surface transportation reauthorization bill.
The proposals add momentum to efforts to use the next highway bill to reform the federal transportation establishment, reinventing DOT and radically altering the way the federal government distributes transportation money to states.
For starters, the group wants to pare the number of federal transportation funding programs from more than 100 to just six core programs that fund “system preservation” and “capacity expansion.” Funding formulas would be driven by new criteria.
Successive highway bills have created “a federal program that is larger than ever in terms of size, legislative complexity and regulation, but still lacks a clear and distinct purpose,” NTPP, a project of the Bipartisan Policy Center, said in its final report.
The group, steered by three former members of Congress — two Republicans and one Democrat — and with a former Democratic mayor of Detroit, wants to change that.
The NTPP proposes centering national transportation policy on five broad goals: economic growth; national connectivity; metropolitan accessibility; energy security and environmental protection; and safety.
And it calls for performance standards for federal programs and performance metrics to measure them.
“Given this recession, measuring performance is even more critical,” said NTPP co-chair and former U.S. congressman Martin Sabo. “The user needs evidence of the true cost of transportation,” the Democrat from Minnesota said.
The NTPP proposed measuring performance in several areas: improved access, the efficiency of the national network, reduced corridor congestion and fuel consumption, reduced emissions and reduced fatalities and injuries from vehicle accidents.
Infrastructure would be funded by a variety of methods, including a national vehicle mileage tax, as revenue from the federal fuels tax declines, said Sabo.
“We need to this year begin the process to put a VMT in place for the future,” he said.
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A road use tax for "miles driven" will address the issue of wear and tear on roads and highways caused by more fuel efficient vehicles, and by vehicles that do not use gasoline such as electric vehicles, and vehicles that use propane, compressed natural gas and hydrogen.
For the non-gasoline fueled vehicles, the road use tax can be 1 cent (or more) per mile driven that is paid at the time the vehicle is purchased by paying, for example for electric cars, $200 for 20,000 miles to be driven; with a cut-off switch on the ignition when the 20,000 miles are driven with warning lights on the dash to alert the motorist that the road use tax mileage will run out soon.
For liquid fueled vehicles, a bar code is installed on the vehicles to reflect the EPA miles per gallon rating for the vehicle, and a scanner is installed on the pump hose handle, after safety issues are addressed, to read the bar code. The road use tax of 1 cent per mile, or more, is calculated by the pump to reflect the gallons of gas pumped according to the EPA rating for the vehicle.
The road use tax for trucks will be 5, 10, or more cents per miles depending on their weight.
These methods of obtaining revenues for highways can be phased in over a period of time to allow the refitting of vehicles and fuel dispensing vendors to taxing fuel for "miles driven". The present 'tax per gallon' will not be paid by motorists who pay this road use tax for "miles driven". Eventually, the present 'tax per gallon' will be repealed.
In the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization bill in Congress, these new methods can be enacted to address the future of surface transportation funding.
- By forthebestusa on 6/11/09
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A mileage tax, although clever and directed exactly where the money is needed, is absolutely counter productive to the current need for more fuel efficient vehicles. If Joe Carowner is looking at a gas guzzler and will pay $0.40/ mile for fuel + mileage but the efficient vehicle gives up the same $0.40/mile for less comfort, range, towing, etc. then the decision is predictable. Net loss of progress gained toward more effective transportation. The gas tax, regressive as it is, accomplishes both needs with a mechanism already in place.
I say electric vehicles SHOULD be rewarded by paying no road tax... especially since most of their use is in urban environments where the road tax isn't applied... property taxes pay for those.
If you must have a mileage tax, do it at annual vehicle registration.