Virginia maps out optional per-mile road fee program for 2022 launch

&gt; The goal for the revamped funding system, which also includes a higher gas tax rate and lower baseline vehicle registration fees, is to make sure drivers contribute their fair share to the costs of maintaining the roads they use<p>The &quot;fair share&quot; most small cars - especially fuel efficiency focused designs that remove as much mass as possible - should be paying approximately <i>$0</i>. Road damage per-axel is proportional to the weight carried by the axel <i>raised to the fourth power!</i> A fully loaded 5 axel tractor trailer does <i>thousands</i> of times more damage than one of the small electric cars they are worried about taxing.<p>The &quot;fair&quot; solution where maintenance costs are paid in proportion to the actual sources of damage would be to ignore most carts entirely and raising the registration fees on the vehicle actually damaging the roads the heavy trucks. As vehicle weight grows, their responsibility for maintenance costs <i>exponentially</i>.

I&#x27;m not a transportation or tech expert, but the idea that detailing in law the protection of user data will somehow make it come true is absurd. This said, not sure what the alternative is.<p>From the article: One challenge may be convincing drivers there’s a benefit to installing a mileage tracking system in their vehicle and easing any privacy concerns about the device creating a data trail showing where they’ve been. The state work group recommends giving users the option of using either a GPS or non-GPS tracking system and shoring up data protection laws to safeguard any location-based information, similar to an existing law that shields information on vehicles passing through tolls.<p>“Legislation passed to protect this data can be tailored to address when and how the information can be shared and used and can increase customer confidence that personal information is protected,” the interim report says. “Confidence in the protection of the data generated may enhance customer willingness to participate in the program.”<p>Jonathan Gifford, director of the Center for Transportation Public-Private Partnership Policy at George Mason University, said the privacy issue is “a live one” but he thinks it can be resolved by giving users options about how their mileage is tracked and what happens to their data.<p>“Some of the options out there do have a device that is plugged into your car’s data port and keeps track of when and where you drive but it doesn’t share that information,” he said. “It’s sort of a tracking device but it doesn’t share the data.”

Rant: Whenever I read the words “pay their fair share” when it comes to tax I stop reading, it’s clear the author doesn’t think for themselves.<p>The goal posts of what is fair are so arbitrary&#x2F;subjective as to have no meaning when it come to taxes.<p>Just say what is happening, one group (rightly or wrongly) wants another group to bear more of the burden for paying for something.

The general idea of charging road users partly in proportion to miles traveled makes a lot of sense. But why, every time this is proposed, do people talk about fancy tracking mechanisms? Why can&#x27;t we just use odometers?<p>I mean, yes, the odometer cannot measure how much of your mileage is in Virginia versus other states, or how much is on what kinds of roads, but it is so much cheaper to implement that I would expect it to still work out much better?

The site is not available in your country.<p>Bypass: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20210902052154&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.virginiamercury.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;09&#x2F;02&#x2F;virginia-maps-out-optional-per-mile-road-fee-program-for-2022-launch&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20210902052154&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.virgi...</a>

Driving to work is not a choice for a lot of people particularly lower class. Our cities our built around cars. As people move out of the city to save money, that makes driving even more necessary and makes public transit less of a viable option. This program relies on a very naive belief that people can control their amount of driving, but we don&#x27;t control sprawl at an individual level, we don&#x27;t control infrastructure. Who is this going to benefit but the bougie Tesla owners who work remotely anyway?

Whilst the initiative is good, in practice the real impact will be upon those who need a car due to location or health reasons. So their merge mileage will be just as impacted per mile as those who do excess mileage and gets down to those that can pay, pay for it.<p>Equally this takes into no account, how heavy the vechile is, or indeed how impacting enviromentally it is. It add&#x27;s no incentive at all, and equally, a light small efficient vehicle will be less impacting upon road upkeep than a heavy HGV.<p>Now - what I feel is needed is a quota system in which you get a mileage quota and if you go over that, you pay per extra mile.<p>What are the impacts beyond this - well, this does lay down the foundation to make roads in effect virtual toll-roads and that may well for good or bad, may well incentive private roads now a consumer base has been more conditioned to paying for usage of a road.

Oh hell no I’m not installing a GPS tracker in my car.<p>I love Virginia but they can fuck off with that:

When the world needs higher carbon taxes, policymakers want to sniff out the small glimmer of a carbon tax that currently exists. More fuel efficient vehicles is a good problem to have. It seems like a no brainer to keep raising the gas tax to further incentivize fuel efficiency.

Is it just me or does a classic tolls based program seem a lot more fair and less convoluted?