A VMT tax would be a sort of radical change — one that could require millions of cars to be retrofitted — with privacy implications, but how can we fund our surface transporation infrastructure without a radical change?

Precisely. I’m not fully convinced with the idea of a VMT tax, but I’m alright with it. I’m a very private person but I’m not paranoid enough to think that the government will be tracking my every move using GPS… Still, for the administration to swiftly get rid of the idea is a little wrong to me. Wasn’t the President the one who urged for fairness, change and bipartisanship? I still support him, I’m just doubting a bit on that judgment call.

BNSF Debuts Natural Gas Hostler Trucks to Reduce Emissions at Nation’s Busiest Rail Intermodal Facility

Note the little factoid near the bottom that BNSF carries enough coal to produce 10% of our electricity. Until electricity comes from nuclear electric cars and trains do little to decrease the world consumption of fossil fuels. Brazil manages to create ethanol from it’s large sugar crop but the US Bio Diesel from corn and soy were never sustainable.

According to Green Car 20% of all new orders are for buses powered by CNG. As crude oil gets increasingly expensive to recover (the easy stuff has largely been sucked up already) natural gas will start to replace diesel.

Israel vows to introduce electric cars by 2011

The neat thing about the Shai Agassi plan is that it is based around a distribution network where you have the option of exchanging battery packs if you don’t have the time to recharge. It’s not a plan that’s geared at long distance driving but for some markets (like Hawaii) it can work.

Besides, cyclists *decongest* roads (translation: lower maintenance costs), use no energy, and have no harmful emissions (as long as you’re not riding behind them after a stop at Taco Del Mar). Why would you want to deincentivise such a green mode of transportation by taxing it?

I do agree with the fast lane to rail conversion.

In the end, I think raising the gas tax and finding a way to tax-for-infrastructure electricity is a better, cheaper short term solution to funding infrastructure.

Recommend including a flat fee based on 10,000 miles per year to the existing annual registration renewal fee. If you drive more than 10,000 miles, you pay extra for the additional miles. If you drive less than 10,000 miles, you get the same rate subtracted from your registration bill. The mileage would have to be verified by an employee at the office. If it is during a sale, the new owner should also sign off on the miles.

This is a simple, effective system that requires no new employees or infrastructure.

I think we’ve had this debate before, but I’d like to see us maintain our bridges but shrink our roads by replacing fast lanes with rail. Peak oil is real and will hit us soon.

“cars are going to around for a very long time particularly outside of urban areas.” Really? I would guess that cars will only be around for a very long time around urban areas. Long-distance driving is difficult and expensive using batteries. Biofuels are a non-starter unless we make major breakthroughs, since it now takes about as much fuel to grow your feedstock as it produces.

I strongly disagree with your characterization of legislators. We have roads, we need to maintain them, what else would you do if your revenues dropped dramatically, but usage didn’t? You would do the same in their position.

But there’s more to this. When fuel prices are low, people make choices that lock them into consumption for significant future periods of time – like buying a car, or buying a house in the suburbs. When prices go up later, it hurts, but our brains don’t really predict that way.

With a VMT tax, gasoline conservation happens through limiting sprawl. I suspect it’s actually more effective in the long run – a marginal increase in the price of fuel doesn’t do much when fuel is $4/gallon, but choosing to work closer to home because you pay based on your odometer reading can result in you living in a place where you take more walking trips rather than driving trips.

We can’t raise the gas tax. We keep trying, it keeps getting shot down. Reps and Senators do like their jobs – that’s a career limiting move.

It’s an easy arguement to make that cars should pay ‘full share’ of their expenses, without all the hidden subsidies, and a per mile tax certainly accounts for wear and tear on the roads — the more you drive the more you pay.
But now that oil has hit it’s peak, and will only continue to become more expensive, it also follows that driving more will cost you more, both in gas tax, fuel and maintenance cost, insurance, depreciation, etc. That’s a major incentive to purchase vehicles with higher fuel ecconomy, or just shift to public transportation. As vehicle drivers make up the vast majority of all tax payers, I wonder just how the tax burden would shift, if VMT tax is on egual footing with a per gallon tax.

Any radical change in the tax structures could have unintended consequences. Less money for transit is at least a possible outcome of too much tinkering.