EDITOR:
Our roads keep us moving. But these roads are now at a crossroads of their
own.
Due to many factors, road funding is declining. Yet, as our needs continue
to grow, we must work to maintain the current roadway system.
In upcoming years, Nevada will be billions short in funding road
construction and maintenance for the following reasons and others:
- Hybrid/electric vehicle use is increasing. While an important positive for
our environment, these alternative vehicles pay limited fuel tax to support
roadway construction and maintenance, but are still using the same highways.
- Vehicle fuel efficiency will increase to an average 35 miles a gallon by
2020. This leads to less road funding for vehicles that are traveling the
same amount on our highways.
- Current funding for road construction, maintenance and operations comes
from fuel taxes. Today, due to inflation, these fuel taxes cover less than
half of the road construction and maintenance costs that they funded when
last raised in 1992.
To potentially help overcome this, the Nevada Department of Transportation
is embarking on a vehicle miles traveled fee study.
The study will evaluate vehicle miles traveled fees as a potential fuel tax
replacement. In this system, users are charged a fee based on the number of
miles driven, and are not paying per-gallon fuel taxes. This is not an
additional tax. It is a potential replacement for current taxes paid at the
pump.
For the study, a sampling of volunteers will have their vehicles outfitted
with systems to test these potential vehicle miles traveled fees. Conducted
by University of Nevada researchers in Reno and Las Vegas, the study will
look at privacy, policy, technology, administration and equitability. Is
this the best system for Nevada? How will privacy be completely secured? How
will taxes be equitably applied to all road users? These are just some of
the questions that will be evaluated.
In the end, what the study means is that, should the fuel tax need to be
replaced with another funding source in the future, Nevada is ready with an
equitable and proven option that has been shown to work in this state.
To provide information on the concept and this study, as well as gather your
views and feedback, a public meeting will be held 4-7 p.m. March 30 at the
Reno-Sparks Convention Center. All interested members of the public are
invited to learn more by attending the meeting or logging onto
www.vmtfeenv.com.
Nevada has been funding highways from fuel taxes since Calvin Coolidge was
president in the 1920s. Fuel taxes are not keeping pace as a viable
mechanism for funding transportation needs and that is why the state has an
obligation to explore other funding options. The vehicle miles traveled
study is the first step in evaluating options to do just that.
