Councilman Joost: Why I Oppose Extending the Gas Tax

[Debbie Thompson]

The registration idea/how many miles have you driven sounds good on the surface, but doesn't account for Clay, St. Johns and Nassau residents that drive Duval roads every day.  Two Clay County residents both live in Orange Park, and drive 20,000 miles that year.  One drives to a job in Jacksonville every day.  The other one drives most of the 20,000 miles in Clay County, but makes two vehicle trips to New York state to visit mom (say 5000 miles).  How do you determine which county gets the revenue?

GPS could help, but that's where the privacy concerns come in. Red flags all over.  No one has any business knowing where I'm driving.

[strider]

Just a quick read makes me think that the issue is as simple as extending the gas tax with a new index rate/ increase every year and doing it for only five to ten years so that we can find a better way. Or improve how it is indexed so that costs are being covered. While there are other means of taxing the use of cars and trucks, like annual fees, mileage based, ETC, one also has to look at the ratio of the cost of implementing and monitoring a new system compared to what you get.  Even if the collection potential is higher with a different system, is the cost associated with collecting it higher so that you end up at the same place?  The gas tax is in place, and so has that as a benefit. 


Like mentioned, gas tax seems like the easiest and perhaps the cheapest way to collect a road "user" fee and frankly, it is pretty fair for the vast majority of the time.  Cars like the Volt and Prius should have a fee attached anyway due to the carbon footprint issue and frankly, look at the purchase/ future repair price, maybe they sort of do anyway.  Diesel, which heavy trucks use, can be more heavily taxed (it might be anyway) and if there is a big switch to natural gas, then that certainly can be taxed per pound with the same results as taxing gas by the gallon.

Hmm,maybe no better solution has been offered because there isn't one?

[mvp]

Update on Oregon:

"The 2013 Oregon Legislatures passed Senate Bill 810, the first legislation in the United States to establish a road usage charge system for transportation funding. SB 810 authorizes the Oregon Department of Transportation to set up a mileage collection system for 5,000 volunteer motorists beginning July 1, 2015. ODOT may assess a charge of 1.5 cents per mile for up to 5,000 volunteer cars and light commercial vehicles and issue a gas tax refund to those participants. This will not be another pilot program but rather the start of an alternate method of generating fuel tax from specific vehicles to pay for Oregon highways."

http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/RUFPP/Pages/ruc_overview.aspx

[edjax]

Will the extension also include a similar tax on the natural gas being used as fuel now?  Also similar tax for electric charging stations? Not prevalent now but will be by time it would expire and needs to be included now. 

[urbanlibertarian]

Tolls collected through automation on arterial roads and highways.  Other roads maintained with sales tax revenue.

[finehoe]

Make acquiring one of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-ZPass part of the automobile registration process, and then just have collection points spread all over the county.

[tufsu1]

^ that would be a SunPass here in Florida

[southsider1015]

The registration idea/how many miles have you driven sounds good on the surface, but doesn't account for Clay, St. Johns and Nassau residents that drive Duval roads every day.  Two Clay County residents both live in Orange Park, and drive 20,000 miles that year.  One drives to a job in Jacksonville every day.  The other one drives most of the 20,000 miles in Clay County, but makes two vehicle trips to New York state to visit mom (say 5000 miles).  How do you determine which county gets the revenue?

GPS could help, but that's where the privacy concerns come in. Red flags all over.  No one has any business knowing where I'm driving.

What are your privacy concerns?  Google/Amazon/etc. already knows where you surf and what you search.  The banking and credit world knows where you spend your money.  The government knows what you do, where you live, where you go to school, where you vote, if you vote, and just about every other facet of life.  Do you own an Iphone?  How about Android?  Do you specifically turn off the GPS feature on your phone?  Do you leave your phone on?  And speaking of your car, do you have a navigational unit in your car?  How about Facebook?  You might be shocked to know that it really wouldn't be hard to determine your driving habits if someone really wanted to know.  In fact, I'd be surprised to know if government/big brother/etc. didn't already know where I drive.

I'm more concerned about "big brother" (whom ever that is) knowing my spending habits more than my driving habits.  But then again, I use Google, click on hyperlinks, use a credit card to shop online, and almost NEVER use cash.

I think the paranoia is VERY misdirected when it comes to GPS and DRIVING A CAR. 

[dougskiles]

I'm surprised nobody has brought up the question of who is going to build these roads.  Because JTA hasn't had any money to build roads recently, they have been more focused on transit (or so it appears).  I would like to see them stay that way.

I wouldn't be against spending some form of revenue (sales tax, VMT, etc) on rebuilding our ridiculously overdesigned urban street corridors (make them context sensitive streets).  But, I would prefer for that work to be done by the City's public works department.  Lately, the City has shown themselves to be more reasonable in listening to the goals of the community than JTA has in the past.

[JayBird]

I'm surprised nobody has brought up the question of who is going to build these roads.  Because JTA hasn't had any money to build roads recently, they have been more focused on transit (or so it appears).  I would like to see them stay that way.

Kind of hard to agree with this when the majority of their annual budget this year and every year has been to roads building/maintenance/design and not their buses/Skyway operations.

 But I agree, they need to be two separate agencies in order to actually improve anything.

[exnewsman]

The point of passing the LOGT now is to starting bonding out while rates are still low. IF you wait until 2016 when the tax sunsets rates most likely will be higher and the funding for those construction projects will not go nearly as far.

The other thing is that we keep wanting JTA to do a better job with transit. And that must happen. Better bus service (more frequent service with longer hours); commuter rail; more equitable fair structure; and more.

Some of these things are in the works. JTA is pursuing CNG technology to run its buses. The entire bus system is undergoing a major re-do. So things are changing. But without a dedicated funding source like the gas tax - transit services here will take a major blow and thousands of people will be without transportation. That's not good for anyone. Businesses will suffer when their employees can't get to work. Students won't be able to get to school. It will be a mess.

Then there's the construction projects that the city wants finished. That funding must come from somewhere. The BJP is gone. Sales tax revenues didn't allow completion of some of those projects.

The gas tax is certainly not the ideal situation. Like others that said - better fuel economy means less gas sold and less gas tax dollars. But there is also no solid replacement source for those dollars. The Mayor hasn't given any answers and neither did Councilman Joost. It's easy to say no. Harder to say no, here's a better way. Haven't heard that yet.

[exnewsman]

I'm surprised nobody has brought up the question of who is going to build these roads.  Because JTA hasn't had any money to build roads recently, they have been more focused on transit (or so it appears).  I would like to see them stay that way.

I wouldn't be against spending some form of revenue (sales tax, VMT, etc) on rebuilding our ridiculously overdesigned urban street corridors (make them context sensitive streets).  But, I would prefer for that work to be done by the City's public works department.  Lately, the City has shown themselves to be more reasonable in listening to the goals of the community than JTA has in the past.

Don't think this should be an either or. The JTA has the ability to do both and should as the needs warrant. That flexibility can be helpful. I mean the did start as the Jacksonville Expressway Authority after all. The didn't add transit until COJ begged them to do back in the 1970s when all the private companies starting failing.

If you take a look a the BJP projects - all of the JTA projects were on time and at budget. We know with the courthouse debacle - that cannot be said about COJ.

[dougskiles]

My observation has been that transit suffered greatly when they were in heavy road building mode.  I don't doubt that they did a good job with the BJP projects.  If they are going to continue as a road building agency, then perhaps it is time to create a separate transit agency.

As long as they are a road building agency their focus will be chasing road dollars, at the expense of possible transit funding.

[thelakelander]

If you take a look a the BJP projects - all of the JTA projects were on time and at budget. We know with the courthouse debacle - that cannot be said about COJ.

JTA blew their chance at $100 million in BJP funds for rapid transit by taking to long to utilize the money.  That cash ended up helping cover the cost of the courthouse.  That was a major black eye in my book.

[exnewsman]

My observation has been that transit suffered greatly when they were in heavy road building mode.  I don't doubt that they did a good job with the BJP projects.  If they are going to continue as a road building agency, then perhaps it is time to create a separate transit agency.

As long as they are a road building agency their focus will be chasing road dollars, at the expense of possible transit funding.

Also a different administration too. Nat Ford has more of a transit background and it seems that he gets the need to make the improvements in the transit system. Unless there is another BJP that comes along, I don't see the JTA working on 30+ road/bridge projects. There just won't be funding for that. There needs to be a better balance of roads and transit. Don't think you can drop either one and be successful. The two must work together.