> A VMT tax is a true usage fee - the more you drive on
> the roads, the more you pay for their upkeep. This used
> to roughly work with the gas tax, but as has been pointed
> out, more efficient vehicles have upset this balance.
=v= It roughly worked modulo one qualification: since it's
per-gallon rather than a percentage of gas prices, higher
prices have a devastating effect on the upkeep. They lower
the VMT of gas-consuming/exhaust-spewing vehicles (which is
good) but they also lower the revenue available to handle the
damage the same vehicles do to the roads. Upkeep of roads
is also very dependent on gasoline, so these expenses go up.
The shortfall, already heavily-subsidized from other sources,
is subsidized even further.
> I am all for people switching to smaller and more efficient
> vehicles, but we need a new system to fund the infrastructure
> we have as people make this switch.
=v= Damage is said to be a function of speed and the 4th power
of the vehicle's weight, times VMT. (Some think the 4th power
is an underestimate, by as much as an order of magniguted.)
<_Jym_>
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