Proposal would tax drivers based on how much they drive

Los Angeles Times | November 22 2004

LOS ANGELES -- Tax motorists based on the number of miles they drive?

The concept is gaining currency among the think-outside-the-box crowd as a way to bolster sagging transportation coffers while eliminating the politically unpopular tax on gasoline. But it may be an idea that only a policy wonk could love.

"It's absolutely horrible," said Nancy Mooslin, an artist who divides her time -- and drives -- between downtown Los Angeles and Newport Beach.

"It's the craziest idea I've ever heard," said Judy Heiser, who manages a gas station in North Hollywood.

This week, talk-show tongues wagged and e-mail lists buzzed with the news that Joan Borucki, appointed Monday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to head the California Department of Motor Vehicles, wants the state to consider tracking how far motorists drive and tax them accordingly.

She's not the only advocate. Among transportation planners, similar proposals abound: The state of Oregon is developing a pilot program to put satellite tracking devices in cars to monitor their mileage and tax them on it; Germany is preparing to do something similar.

At the behest of Congress, the U.S. Transportation Research Board recently set up a committee to look at ways to raise money for roads without a gasoline tax. Just this week, committee members met to discuss a per-mile road user fee for the United States.

"It's not an idea to be taken lightly," said Martin Wachs, director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who said 88 mileage tax experiments were being conducted worldwide. "It's revolutionary."

In California, Schwarzenegger administration officials are quick to point out there is no active proposal to switch to such a system. Even if the idea gets beyond the talking stage, it would face tremendous hurdles in the legislature, where lawmakers are hesitant to impose new taxes and keenly aware of privacy issues.

In response to a question at a news conference earlier in the week, Schwarzenegger said he did not know enough about the mileage fee to comment.

Borucki also would not comment. But earlier this year, as chairwoman of the transportation section for the state governmental reform study, the California Performance Review, she urged the state to develop a pilot program for taxing motorists based on the number of miles they drive.

On its face, the tax seems simple: If you track where people go, you can charge them for their use of the roads, and use the money to build and repair streets and highways. Some supporters even envision a time when global positioning systems would be used to manage traffic, signaling to a state databank when a motorist was driving at rush hour, and charging that person more than drivers who travel off-peak hours.

It would work by linking up the tracking device with the car's odometer. When a driver went to fill up the tank, the fees would be added to the price of gas.

Supporters, whose ranks include academics, urban planners and many transportation leaders, say the tax on gasoline has not kept up with inflation. The tax has been stuck at $0.18 per gallon in California since 1994, and the additional federal tax is also about $0.18. And as cars and trucks become more fuel efficient, it could become more difficult to collect enough funds to keep up with road construction costs.

The mileage tax would be more of a direct user fee, said Elizabeth Deakin, professor and director of the University of California Transportation Center, a statewide program. People who drive more, she said, would be taxed more, and the money could go to building and repairing roads.

But if a sampling of motorists interviewed for this story is any indication, the idea gives the average person the creeps.

"It's a Big Brother thing," said McNatt, 46. "Everybody is going to have a monitor in their car."

At the Van Nuys office of the Automobile Club of Southern California, where McNatt sat among about a dozen people waiting to renew vehicle registrations or purchase car insurance, drivers also worried about the logistics of a new system.

Tulio Ortiz, Sr., predicted that a new system would be difficult to set up and police.

"It would be a nightmare just to keep track of the user fee," the 64-year-old said. Car owners, he suggested, would dismantle the equipment or register their cars out of state.

Others feared that a mileage tax would eliminate incentives for motorists to buy fuel-efficient cars by charging the same rate to the driver a hybrid car such as Toyota's as to the owner of a Hummer. However, UC Berkeley professor Wachs said the system could be adjusted to reward drivers of fuel-efficient cars simply by charging them less per mile.

But the biggest concerns by far involved privacy.

"People are naturally wary of these kinds of schemes," said Michael Curry, a geography professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has studied the privacy implications of tracking devices. "You have to wonder how these data could be used for other purposes."

Curry ticked off a list of potential abuses: in lawsuits and criminal cases, in custody disputes, in divorce proceedings, even perhaps in tracking political dissidents.

Supporters say that the system could be designed in such a way that protects privacy and addresses other issues. The voluntary Oregon pilot program, for example, will not track the time of day or specific roads where a person drives. But the limited system to start late next year will be designed to note when a driver leaves the state and not tax the vehicle for miles outside Oregon.

Between inflation and the prevalence of fuel-efficient cars, income from the gas tax buys one-third of the road improvements that the revenues would have purchased in the 1960s, said Brian Taylor, director of the UCLA Institute for Transportation Studies.

As a result, he said, policymakers continue to look at replacing the gas tax with a mileage tax -- while trying to work out its numerous kinks.

Still, winning approval for such a proposal may be decades off in the United States, several experts said.

"There's a long, long way from an academic theory to public acceptance," said Dan Beal, policy analyst for the Automobile Club of Southern California, which has not taken a position on the mileage tax. "There are a lot of obstacles to overcome."

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