A road map to better US roads

It sounds Orwellian, the idea of tracking drivers from space, then taxing them based on miles traveled. But taxing miles instead of gasoline is a more reliable way to pay for America’s highways. And it’s not the Big Brother intrusion it appears to be.

Gas taxes


As vehicles become more fuel-efficient, they’ll drink less gas, and thus produce less revenue to maintain and improve America’s aging roads and mass transit. Add electric cars to the mix, and this revenue stream turns to a trickle.

This is one reason why a bipartisan blue-ribbon panel this week unanimously recommends replacing the federal gas tax with a tax on “vehicle miles traveled” (VMT) by 2020