Pay-per-mile is on the Legislature’s radar. We asked how that would work in Washington
For seven years, Washington state has studied replacing the state gas tax with a pay-per-mile system.
Next month, the state Transportation Commission is scheduled to vote on its recommendations to the Legislature. The commission is expected to recommend the pay-per-mile concept be phased in over at least 10 years, possibly starting with owners of electric vehicles and hybrids to see how it goes.
The goal: to bolster state revenue for work on roads and bridges as drivers buy more fuel-efficient vehicles and cars, like electric vehicles, that don’t use gas.
Action might be right around the corner — during the 60-day legislative session that begins in January.
In response to its coverage of the issue this year, The News Tribune has received several questions from readers about how a pay-per-mile system would work. We posed these questions to Reema Griffith, the commission’s executive director.
Q. If a road usage charge, also known as a pay-per-mile tax, is introduced in Washington state, will Washington motorists have to pay both the state gas tax and the road usage charge?
A. No. The intent conveyed by the state Legislature is that a potential road usage charge, or pay-per-mile, system would be a replacement to the gas tax. As such, it is anticipated that the Washington State Transportation Commission will recommend at their December meeting that during the transition time when a road usage charge system co-exists with the gas tax, drivers on the pay-per-mile system would get a credit for the gas taxes they pay at the pump when they fill up. This means that road usage charge users would essentially prepay their RUC charges every time they fill up.
Q. Will Washington residents be charged for miles driven outside Washington?
A. In a potential future Washington road usage charge system, Washington drivers will pay for miles driven in Washington. Many other western states are also exploring road usage charging, and Oregon currently has a voluntary road usage charge tax as part of their OReGO program. If these states widely adopt a pay per mile system, drivers would pay for miles driven in those states, although specific details on how that payment system would work across state lines would need to be determined.
As part of the WA RUC Pilot Project, we did test cross-border travel with Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia, to see how it would work to record miles driving across state lines, and how payments and reimbursements would be managed. Our pilot demonstrated that it is possible to design a system that accurately separates in-state from out-of-state miles, with a GPS-enabled plug-in device, or utilizing a smartphone app that allows drivers to turn GPS on or off.
Recording out-of-state mileage driven is more challenging for the lower-tech options we tested, although in the long-term there is a good probability of resolving the recording of out-of-state miles with technology advances, the ability to pay RUC charges at the pump or (electrical vehicle) charging stations. More work and research is needed in this area, and it’s likely the Washington State Transportation Commission will also recommend that the legislature take a slow approach to a transition and start out with a small portion of our fleet (EV’s and hybrids) so we can continue to learn and address challenges.
Q. Would non-Washington residents pay the gas tax or the road usage charge in Washington?
A. As long as the gas tax is being collected, out-of-state drivers would continue to pay at the pump when they fill up, just like they do today. In a potential future system, once the gas tax is fully removed, the Legislature would need to decide how they want to handle out-of-state vehicles. There is a strong probability technology advances will solve for this, such as collecting RUC charges at the fuel pump or EV charging station.
Q. Would the state know every place people drive under a road usage charge?
A. No. Protecting drivers’ privacy and location information was important during the WA RUC Pilot and would be equally important in any future pay per mile system.
In the pilot we did not store location information of our test drivers who used one of the two GPS enabled options. The RUC Pilot utilized GPS information to confirm the miles driven were in Washington and on a public road. Once those two facts were confirmed, specific location information was disposed of. The (Washington State Transportation Commission) is anticipated to recommend to the Legislature that if RUC moves forward, the state be required to offer both GPS and non-GPS approaches to ensure consumer choice and control over what data they will and won’t submit. The state has no interest in knowing or storing location data of each driver — this would be beyond the intent of a road usage charge system, which is to fund roads, bridges and infrastructure.
Q. Would Washington motorists pay less, the same or more under a road usage charge when compared to the current state gas tax?
It depends on kind of vehicle one drives.
We are actually paying by the mile today under the gas tax. The average vehicle in our state gets 20 mpg. If this is your car’s mpg, you are paying 2.4 cents per mile today in gas taxes (which is the RUC rate tested in the pilot). If you drive a car that gets less than the state average 20 mpg, you are paying more than 2.4 cents per mile — perhaps as much as 5 to 6 cents per mile under the gas tax today. And if you drive a car that gets more than the state average 20 MPG, you are paying less than 2.4 cents per mile — perhaps as little as a penny a mile.
This creates inequities in our current system, depending on what type of car someone drives and what its fuel economy is. Based upon our RUC Pilot test rate of 2.4 cents per mile, drivers of cars that got over the average 20 mpg saw a small increase in the amount of taxes paid for roads. Drivers of cars that got less than the average 20 MPG saw a small reduction in the amount of taxes paid for roads.
Under a RUC system as structured in our pilot, all drivers paid the same per mile rate for their use of the roads, regardless of what kind of car they drove, their MPG or the fuel they used. A pay-per-mile system like a road usage charge levels the playing field for all and ensures funding for roads and bridges is stabilized regardless of how much gas is consumed or even if gas is used at all.
Q. What is your response to those who say a road usage charge would punish those who invest in environmentally-friendly vehicles and give a break to polluting gas guzzlers?
A. A road usage charge system would not take away the incentive nor the personal prerogative of drivers. The cost to own, drive and maintain environmentally friendly vehicles will still be less than gas-guzzlers, as they either buy little or no fuel. All vehicles, whether they are fueled by gasoline or electrons, need road infrastructure to get people where they need to go. While environmentally friendly vehicles could pay more in taxes than they are paying today, a road usage charge will help ensure a long-term, sustainable funding source for our state’s aging infrastructure.
Q. Will Washington residents have to use a GPS to track how many miles they drive?
A. No. Just like in the pilot, we anticipate that Washington drivers would have the option to choose from a variety of mileage recording methods, including mileage reporting without GPS.
Q. What happens when they drive in remote areas that don’t have cell coverage?
A. Plug-in mileage meters can account for any mileage traveled when there is a cell coverage gap, as they do not require cell service to function. Solutions will be tested for cellphone-only mileage reporting if the state includes that method in a future RUC system.
Q. Will people with certain cell providers have an advantage over people who use cheaper cell providers with worse coverage?
A. The (Washington State Transportation Commission) is not likely to recommend any method that requires continuous cell coverage for mileage reporting. Those technologies need more improvement before they could serve as the main source of mileage collection.
Q. What about people who don’t have a cell phone capable of using GPS?
A. We don’t anticipate a smartphone app being used as the source to record mileage anytime soon. If road usage charging advances, there will likely be a variety of reliable options available to drivers.
Q. A Washington motorist gets 28 miles to the gallon and currently pays 49.4 cents from the state gas tax to drive that 28 miles. If the road usage charge is 2.4 cents per mile, that would be 67 cents for the same distance. Why should motorists pay a 37 percent increase?
A. This is the heart of the problem we are trying to correct with the gas tax: the motorist getting 28 mpg has been paying 37 percent less than the average driver to use the same public roadways. A road usage charge ensures everyone pays the same amount of roadway tax for the same mileage driven, regardless of their car’s mpg. To put that into real dollars, a car with above-average fuel economy (say, 28 mpg) that drives about 1,000 miles per month pays $17.64 annually (monthly) under today’s 49.4 cents per gallon state gas tax, compared to $24 for the same 1,000 miles in a future road usage charge (based on 2.4 cents per mile).
Q. If a vehicle is rented in Washington, would the renter pay the gas tax or the road usage charge?
A. This is yet to be determined and not likely to be an issue until a road usage charge system is deployed system-wide to all vehicles. If RUC goes forward, that would likely be at least 10 years out.
Q. What is your response to those who say a road usage tax would be extremely complicated and costly to phase in over several years and administer?
A. There may never be a tax that is as cheap to collect as the gas tax.
And while the gas tax has served its purpose well, the legislators that enacted it in 1921 likely did not envision a future with vehicles that run on electrons rather than gasoline. Taking into account declining revenues from the gas tax, at some point, the revenue from the gas tax will no longer support the needs of our state’s roads, bridges and infrastructure.
While more complex, an alternative system like a road usage charge makes more economic sense because of its potential to be fairer to a larger variety of vehicles on the road and to be a long-term, sustainable funding source.
Unfortunately, the state cannot afford to rely on the gas tax in the future with a projected 45 percent drop in revenue per mile by 2035.
This story was originally published November 21, 2019 at 6:00 AM.
