VMT MEANING DRIVER
VMT MEANING PLUS

Time miles – Similar to congestion miles, but not tied to specific traffic patterns, just the time (and not necessarily the amount of time) of the beginning and/or end of the trip – middle of the night low or no tax, mornings a tax, etc.Congestion miles – a lower tax on any driving during “off-peak” hours, but miles driven during typically heavy traffic times for that specific roadway would be taxed (think the toll lanes in Orange County).Highway/major artery miles – no (or a lower) fee for driving around town but the tax would start when one entered a freeway and/or major artery (think Wilshire Boulevard).Straight miles – turn the car on, drive 10 miles – no matter where or when – and pay 10 miles in taxes.There are five basic ways the fee could be calculated: That is the basic top-line proposal – but exactly how it would work has as many possible twists and turns and off-ramps and on-ramps and side streets as the Orange Crush in southern California being combined with Lombard Street in San Francisco. Most VMT concepts so far have floated a per-mile number in that range as their target.

VMT MEANING PLUS

At a miles per gallon figure of 25, that means that – at $1.19 per gallon (the state, fed, sales tax plus fees like cap and trade total) – a typical motorist will pay $618 per year, or 4.8 cents a mile, in taxes (again these are averages of typical personal vehicle and do not reflect trucks, commercial vehicles, taxis, the use of diesel fuels, etc.). Proponents say it is intended to be “cost neutral” for the typical driver.įor example, right now – and these are general AVERAGES – Californians drive each personal car about 13,000 miles per year. (Please note – we hope not to get as far into the weeds as a Mendocino County national forest and the impacts may be larger than they appear in the mirror).īasically, a VMT would be just that – a tax based on how many miles a vehicle moves over the roadways instead of paying a tax every time the gas tank is filled. Oregon declared the effort a success (though it should be noted the participants were highly-motivated volunteers) and is now moving forward on the possibility of a mandatory program.Īs this issue will be definitely coming to the fore very shortly, we’ve put together a primer on the terms and concepts that will be bandied about in the coming months and years. The first state to dip its toe in the gas pool was Oregon, which signed up about 700 people who tracked their mileage and then submitted the records to the state for reconciliation.

VMT MEANING DRIVER

The reasoning took a few different paths, mostly centered around the issue of the fairness of “user fees” compared to purchase taxation, an idea that was boosted by the proliferation of non-gas using vehicles like electric cars (why am I paying gas taxes for the roads when the Tesla driver pays nothing?, etc.)Ī very few states have already and/or are conducting pilot programs to test the idea and California and the federal government are in the process of evaluating how a VMT tax would work. For some years the idea of replacing the pay-at-the-pump gas tax with a “vehicle miles traveled” system has been floating in the civic ether.

Vmt meaning