Re: Nov. 11 news story.
The Colorado Department of Transportation has proposed taxing vehicle owners by the mile rather than increasing the gasoline tax. Your article has someone owning a Prius paying the same amount of tax to use our roads as someone using an Ford F-150 pickup for similar usage. Something seems amiss here. We’ve been encouraged for years to try to save fuel by using fuel-efficient vehicles. This policy will turn this incentive on its head. Also, gasoline taxes were previously explained as an equitable way to rebuild our road infrastructure. Since heavier vehicles wear out roads and bridges more than lighter vehicles and use more fuel, CDOT’s approach counters that as well.
It’s clear we need more resources for our highway infrastructure. Let’s revisit the gas tax as a way to accomplish this. Other states have recently successfully accomplished this by slightly raising gas taxes because of much lower gas prices. Let’s follow their lead.
Richard L. Vogt, Littleton
It’s past time that the state gets serious about generating more money to repair and maintain our roads and bridges, but I’m not convinced charging drivers by the mile is the answer. Your article points out one big drawback: we who drive small, fuel-efficient cars could end up paying more while the gas guzzlers could get a break. Here’s another idea: tax vehicles based on their weight. After all, 2- to 3-ton SUVs driving to Starbucks and Whole Foods create a lot more wear and tear on the roads than my Mini Cooper.
Judith Kohler, Denver
The idea of making drivers of electric-drive vehicles subsidize drivers of polluting gasoline and diesel vehicles goes against everything we must do to reduce the production of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere before it is too late to slow or reverse global warming. A Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid does not get free electricity; at about 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, it costs $2.27 for a 35-kWh battery charge, good for about 50 miles of driving. That works out to about 4.5 cents per mile, much less than the average per mile for gasoline. With mostly local daily driving and overnight recharging, it can easily be 4,000 miles between gas stops at a pump. How much would the pump tax be on 4,000 miles of nearly pollution-free driving, in addition to the cost of the gas? It is not just about money, it is about keeping the incentives to reduce greenhouse gases.
Dick Sugg, Golden
How about a quick and temporary fix of the shortage of road repair money? We can put a measure onto the ballot next election cycle to increase the gas tax by 0.1 cents per gallon. This would help in two ways. One would be to get a little bit more money into the road repair coffers and the second would be to get rid of the stupid .9 cent per gallon we have dealt with forever. Aren’t we tired of paying xxx.9 a gallon, and wouldn’t it be great to say we pay xxx per gallon? I am a conservative but wouldn’t mind such a small increase.
Richard Gianzero, Thornton
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