ODOT Set to Test Gas Tax Alternatives

Oregon Department of Transportation has been dependent on one single source of revenue to help maintain roads, and that’s the gas tax.

While it’s been effective, its not very fair to all cars.

This fall, ODOT will test new options to change that, including using your smartphone to count your miles.

As people get cars that go farther with less gas, that means there’s less gas bought, and less money coming into ODOT.

With some new alternatives, the department is hoping to make the tax fair, while also making it easy for people.

The Road User Fee Task Force, a group appointed by the governor and speaker of the house, came up with different alternatives the ODOT could use instead of a gas tax.

Now ODOT will be testing those choices in the fall.

“The whole approach now is to find options that the members of the public will be comfortable using,” said James Whitty, funding manager for the Office of Innovative Partnerships and Alternative Funding. “And design the system around those options.”

ODOT doesn’t want to make the same mistake it made in 2006, when it came up with a decision to put a box in the car, essentially a GPS tracking system that drew public criticism.

“We’ve abandoned that approach completely,” Whitty said. “People do not want a government box.”

So this time, the options don’t include a GPS.

“The most important thing is that they are going to have choices,” Whitty said. “Some are technological and some are not.”

The electronic version would use a smartphone app to connect with a device that plugs into your car and reports your miles driven.

“Only find out after the distance as been traveled,” said Peter Murphy, ODOT spokesman. “As opposed to while you are on your way, which is what the issue was with the GPS tracking system.”

A new alternative is what ODOT is hoping for, as their revenue is shrinking because of new fuel-efficient cars.

“Just imagine that we were 100 percent electric cars and still dependent upon the gas tax — that’s an easy sum of zero,” Murphy said.

All the department is hoping for is a fair program and one where you have the say.

“We aren’t pushing anybody in a direction saying, ‘You’ve got to do it this way,” Whitty said. “That approach clearly didn’t work in 2006, and we abandoned it.”

The Road User Fee Task Force also is working on legislation to apply a mileage charge to electric vehicles, including the plug-in electric hybrids.

Whitty says he suspects legislation will be put in play in next year’s Oregon Legislature.