WASHINGTON — As America's
road planners struggle to find the cash to mend a crumbling highway
system, many are beginning to see a solution in a little black box that
fits
The devices, which track
every mile a motorist drives and transmit that information to
bureaucrats, are at the center of a controversial attempt in Washington
and state planning offices to overhaul the outdated system for funding
America's major roads.
The usually dull arena of highway planning has suddenly spawned intense debate and colorful alliances.
Libertarians have
joined environmental groups in lobbying to allow government to use the
little boxes to keep track of the miles you drive, and possibly where
you drive them — then use the information to draw up a tax bill.
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The
tea party is aghast. The
American Civil Liberties Union is deeply concerned, too, raising a variety of privacy issues.
And while
Congress
can't agree on whether to proceed, several states are not waiting. They
are exploring how, over the next decade, they can move to a system in
which drivers pay per mile of road they roll over. Thousands of
motorists have already taken the black boxes, some of which have GPS
monitoring, for a test drive.
"This really is a must for our nation. It is not a matter of
something we might choose to do," said Hasan Ikhrata, executive director
of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, which is planning for
the state to start tracking miles driven by every California motorist by
2025. "There is going to be a change in how we pay these taxes. The
technology is there to do it."
The push comes as the country's Highway Trust Fund, financed with
taxes Americans pay at the gas pump, is broke. Americans don't buy as
much gas as they used to. Cars get many more miles to the gallon. The
federal tax itself, 18.4 cents per gallon, hasn't gone up in 20 years.
Politicians are loath to raise the tax even one penny when gas prices
are high.
"The gas tax is just not sustainable," said Lee Munnich, a
transportation policy expert at the University of Minnesota. His state
recently put tracking devices on 500 cars to test out a pay-by-mile
system. "This works out as the most logical alternative over the long
term," he said.
Wonks call it a mileage-based user fee. It is no surprise that the
idea appeals to urban liberals, as the taxes could be rigged to change
driving patterns in ways that could help reduce congestion and
greenhouse gases, for example. California planners are looking to the
system as they devise strategies to meet the goals laid out in the
state's ambitious global warming laws. But Rep.
Bill Shuster
(R-Pa.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, has said he,
too, sees it as the most viable long-term alternative. The free
marketeers at the Reason Foundation are also fond of having drivers pay
per mile.
"This is not just a tax going into a black hole," said Adrian Moore,
vice president of policy at Reason. "People are paying more directly
into what they are getting."
The movement is also bolstered by two former U.S. Transportation
secretaries, who in a 2011 report urged Congress to move in the
pay-per-mile direction.
The
U.S. Senate
approved a $90-million pilot project last year that would have involved
about 10,000 cars. But the House leadership killed the proposal, acting
on concerns of rural lawmakers representing constituents whose daily
lives often involve logging lots of miles to get to work or into town.
Several states and cities are nonetheless moving ahead on their own.
The most eager is Oregon, which is enlisting 5,000 drivers in the
country's biggest experiment. Those drivers will soon pay the mileage
fees instead of gas taxes to the state. Nevada has already completed a
pilot. New York City is looking into one. Illinois is trying it on a
limited basis with trucks. And the I-95 Coalition, which includes 17
state transportation departments along the Eastern Seaboard (including
Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida), is studying how they
could go about implementing the change.
The concept is not a universal hit.
In Nevada, where about 50 volunteers' cars were equipped with the
devices not long ago, drivers were uneasy about the government being
able to monitor their every move.
"Concerns about Big Brother and those sorts of things were a major
problem," said Alauddin Khan, who directs strategic and performance
management at the Nevada Department of Transportation. "It was not
something people wanted."
As the trial got underway, the ACLU of Nevada warned on its website:
"It would be fairly easy to turn these devices into full-fledged
tracking devices.... There is no need to build an enormous, unwieldy
technological infrastructure that will inevitably be expanded to keep
records of individuals' everyday comings and goings."
Nevada is among several states now scrambling to find affordable
technology that would allow the state to keep track of how many miles a
car is being driven, but not exactly where and at what time. If you can
do that, Khan said, the public gets more comfortable.
The hunt for that technology has led some state agencies to a small
California startup called True Mileage. The firm was not originally in
the business of helping states tax drivers. It was seeking to break into
an emerging market in auto insurance, in which drivers would pay based
on their mileage. But the devices it is testing appeal to highway
planners because they don't use GPS and deliver a limited amount of
information, uploaded periodically by modem.
"People will be more willing to do this if you do not track their
speed and you do not track their location," said Ryan Morrison, chief
executive of True Mileage. "There have been some big mistakes in some of
these state pilot programs. There are a lot less expensive and less
intrusive ways to do this."
In Oregon, planners are experimenting with giving drivers different
choices. They can choose a device with or without GPS. Or they can
choose not to have a device at all, opting instead to pay a flat fee
based on the average number of miles driven by all state residents.
Other places are hoping to sell the concept to a wary public by
having the devices do more, not less. In New York City, transportation
officials are seeking to develop a taxing device that would also be
equipped to pay parking meter fees, provide "pay-as-you-drive"
insurance, and create a pool of real-time speed data from other drivers
that motorists could use to avoid traffic.
"Motorists would be attracted to participate … because of the value
of the benefits it offers to them," says a city planning document.
Some transportation planners, though, wonder if all the talk about
paying by the mile is just a giant distraction. At the Metropolitan
Transportation Commission in the San Francisco Bay Area, officials say
Congress could very simply deal with the bankrupt Highway Trust Fund by
raising gas taxes. An extra one-time or annual levy could be imposed on
drivers of hybrids and others whose vehicles don't use much gas, so they
pay their fair share.
"There is no need for radical surgery when all you need to do is take
an aspirin," said Randy Rentschler, the commission's director of
legislation and public affairs. "If we do this, hundreds of millions of
drivers will be concerned about their privacy and a host of other
things."
evan.halper@latimes.com
