GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — The County Road Association of Michigan is speaking on the idea of replacing the state's current gas tax with a different tax based on how many miles you drive.
"It is definitely not enough," CRA Chief Deputy and Legislative Director Ed Noyola said, referring to indexed increases in the fuel tax.
According to the County Road Association, there are two top contributors to road funding: license plate fees and the gas tax.
But with more fuel efficient vehicles hitting the roads, some people are filling up less. This, Noyola said, has reduced the state's ability to generate money from the fuel tax.
"The high-efficiency vehicle owners are reaping the benefit from it," Noyola said. "It's the older vehicles - the pickup trucks, the SUVs - that are really paying for those high efficiency vehicles that are getting, you know, 25 to 35 miles per gallon."
Some form of miles-traveled tax to replace the gas tax, Noyola feels, would more equally distribute the cost for road upkeep between those with more fuel-efficient vehicles and those with vehicles that use more fuel.
"That is a more fair way of everyone paying for the miles that they drive as opposed to the amount of fuel that they use," Noyola said. "That is a much, much more fair base, and it really helps the older vehicles and the pickup trucks and the SUVs who are not that great of fuel efficiency vehicles. It gives them more bang for their buck."
With questions around the privacy of such a tax, Noyola said that, with options in other states like self-reporting voluntarily and phone apps, there can be options to make the tax not intrusive.
In the interim, as the state considers creating a full-scale mileage tax, Noyola is also urging the state legislature to increase the fuel tax to give crews the resources they need to continue updating infrastructure to the extent that it's needed.
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