WacoTrib.com
By Michael W. Shapiro Tribune-Herald staff writer
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
For the last two decades, Texans have paid to keep up and expand the
state’s highway system through a 20 cents-per-gallon gas tax. But with
gas-tax revenues drying up, transportation officials are looking at
another way to fund road projects.
The Texas Transportation Commission last month tasked the Highway
User Fee Exploratory Committee with examining the idea of charging
drivers based not on how much fuel they pump but how many miles they
travel.
Several local officials said gas-tax shortfalls, which have stalled
several local road projects indefinitely, warrant taking a long, hard
look at a mileage-based tax, often referred to as a
vehicle-miles-traveled, or VMT, tax. With drivers in the state
switching to more fuel-efficient vehicles — a trend that is expected to
increase in the coming decades — Chris Evilia, director of the Waco
Metropolitan Planning Organization, says a VMT tax is all the more
important.
Though the TTC recently agreed to allot almost $1.1 billion in
voter-approved bond money to widen five stretches of Interstate 35 in
Central Texas, Evilia said everything else that’s not paid for with
stimulus money is on hold... FULL ARTICLE
Posted on
Tue, December 15, 2009
by Crystal Drwenski