Dr. Michael Meyer, professor and former school chair in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was recently featured on CNN online's "Opinions, Analysis, and Discussions" for his article considering a per-mile road tax to pay for the U.S. road network replacement value - which currently looms at an estimated $1.3 trillion.
Dr. Meyer's article, which details current fuel taxes inability to meet highway financial needs due to increased vehicle efficiency and the strong tie of maintaining highways to a healthy economy, poses vehicle miles traveled fees, or VMT as a potential solution. VMT is a new concept with a time-honored economic principle of user fees - vehicles are charge solely on miles traveled - each user pays only for the amount of resources which they consume.
"The more one uses the road network, the more one should pay," says Dr. Meyer. "A recent study by the U.S. Transportation Research Board conservatively estimated that if the per-mile charge were made equivalent to what one would face with a motor fuel tax, a VMT fee system would generate approximately 20% more transportation revenue nationally by 2030."
To read Dr. Meyer's article in full, please visit http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/08/opinion/meyer-pay-per-mile-road-tax/index.html.