Paying your road taxes in the future might depend more on how much you drive than how much gasoline you pump. Texas is among a group of states researching how to replace the fuel tax with a fee based on the number of miles traveled — making every road a virtual tollway. Transportation officials from across the world discussed the concept here at last month's annual meetings of the trade groups representing the highway and tollway industries. Fees for miles traveled would be measured by Global Positioning System receivers embedded in vehicles. The system would track which roads a motorist uses so the virtual tolls could be distributed to the appropriate agency. Each jurisdiction could set its own per-mile fee. Data would be downloaded from vehicles monthly for billing, or could be transmitted at service stations in lieu of the gas tax.
How about an alternative plan of cancelling the gas tax altogether? No politician would dare propose it, but if it came to be it would cause massive growth in the economy. |