Hacker News Reader

Comment by u801e | Hacker News Reader

Collecting money via tolls has a higher administrative cost compared to collecting money via the gas tax [1]. The infrastucture to collect the gas tax is already in place. In contrast, there are a lot of things that need to be done before tolls can be put in place (legal, contracting, setting up collection points, etc). Plus, the public-private partnerships that some governments get into for these types of toll roads don't always work out [2] [3] [4]

It would make a lot more sense to just raise the gas tax to achieve the same effect.

[1] https://www.thenewspaper.com/news/24/2438.asp

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-09-22/indiana-t...

[3] http://kxan.com/2016/03/02/company-that-runs-sh-130-toll-fil...

[4] http://www.virginiaplaces.org/transportation/pocaparkway.htm...

View on HN

I wish it was that simple. Raising the gas tax isn't the solution. The gas tax will not work for to much longer because it doesn't accurately correlate to the number miles traveled.

- A old compact car from 2007 may only get 20 mpg while a new car from 2017 may get 40 mpg.

- Someone would a plug-in hybrid such as a Chevy Volt may only fill up their tank once every few months as they start off with a 50 mile battery range each morning.

- And those with pure electrics like a Tesla do not get taxed at all.

Raising the gas tax also unfairly punishes the lower income bracket who often drive older vehicles with worse MPG.

Is that a bad thing? There is a reason the government subsidizes pure electric cars and requires car manufacturers to make electric cars (albeit they only do it to meet the quota).

I understand it's going to punish those who really can't afford a decent car, but for ~$4000 in the bay area you can get a pretty decent used car that will get you 30+ mpg.

Any car that's sitting in stop and go traffic isn't going to get nearly the mileage they would get when driving at free flow highway speeds. As the vehicle fleet transitions to higher mileage vehicles, the gas tax can be adjusted to compensate based on overall usage and the number of registered vehicles.

And making those adjustments would cost far less money compared to setting up additional tolls or a VMT based taxation scheme.

>Raising the gas tax also unfairly punishes the lower income bracket who often drive older vehicles with worse MPG

Like with any tax, this can be made up as a deduction tied to income.

It's not the same effect as dynamic tolling, which can change depending on traffic.

That is true, but a similar effect can be achieved via stop and go traffic that occurs under congested conditions. Gas mileage, for most vehicles, drops when that occurs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com