CalTrans Launches Road Tax Pilot Program

You’ll never drive alone again.

If you were worried that Sacramento would turn off or even slow down its perpetual stupid machine, fear not:  the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax pilot program has been launched!

CalTrans is right now looking for 800 Californians to “test” the concept of paying taxes for every mile they drive rather than paying the gas tax at the pump.

The idea of the VMT has been percolating through the halls of DC and Sacramento and your local transportation agency for years only to be met with public howls of outrage causing local electeds to flee in terror from even the idea of being associated with the tax. 

That’s because, if and when fully implemented, a VMT tax needs to know exactly when and where you are driving at all times and the public is overwhelmingly against the idea of being tracked by the government.  

For now.

At its most basic, a VMT tax involves charging a driver a fee for every mile they drive, and/or when they drive on a particular street, and/or in a particular area, and/or at a particular time of day – all three combined.

For this happy happy joy joy pilot, though, only the flat miles a person drives are being tracked, regardless of where and when. That’s to get the public used to the idea of tracking miles – only later when it’s mandatory will the where and when be added.

Either way, for such a tax to work the state must keep track of a person’s driving habits.  For the pilot, the state is offering a few ways to do that:

• Plug-in Device: Inserted into dash and can use GPS location, or not use GPS.
• Vehicle Telematics: Requires a connected vehicle account from automaker.
• Odometer Entry: A photograph of the odometer is submitted each month.

Obviously, if and when the tax is instituted, the “photograph” option will be dropped as being far too cumbersome. 

Therefore, inevitably, to work a VMT tax requires some form of transponder must be in every car.

Beyond just tracking the number of miles, the transponder is needed because the VMT allows for a number of modifications to the tax, each of which have already been floated publicly and/or privately by transportation officials across the country.

First, there is the idea of congestion pricing, meaning that driving on road X during rush hour will hike the per mile tax.  Second, there is the option of cordon pricing, meaning that when a driver enters a designated zone, the fee will go up (or an additional flat fee will be charged) as well.

And third, there is the type of roadway taxing possibility; that would mean the tax would X when driving on a surface street, Y when driving on a main throughfare, and Z when on a highway.

Additionally, every tax whispered or loudly talked about has an income component, with low-income drivers getting a break on the per mile rate.

So not only does the program need to know when and where your drive, it needs to know how much money you make to properly calculate the tax. 

Can you imagine what a combination DMV/IRS would look like? (actually, we don’t have to imagine – it would be the EDD.)

A popular reason usually given for the switch from pay at the pump to pay by the mile is that electric cars are not paying their fair share and as they become – by law – more popular, gas tax revenues will suffer even more.

This issue could be solved by tacking about $300 (what the state claims the average per-car annual gas tax roughly is) onto the annual EV registration fee, but that would be too simple (and hamper sales and thus retarding progress to an all green future.)

The state has “piloted” the program before, a test it claimed was an overwhelming success and an outcome they hope to match this time.

And they will – the pilot, come February, 2025 will be touted as yet another massive success with 90% of the participants loving the idea and even 78% of the folks saying they trusted the state to handle their personal data safely. 

Those, by the way, were the numbers for the previous pilot and they will – roughly – be the numbers from this effort.

That’s because the people who are signing up are SELF SELECTING. In other words, they already like the idea and support the concept – if they didn’t they wouldn’t be going through the rigmarole of testing it.

Notice that the state is not conducting a random pilot –  far more reflective of the actual opinions of the public – as that would almost certainly end in utter failure.

The volunteer guinea pigs are being asked to keep track of the miles they drive from August through January, 2025 and in exchange they will receive – if they have completed the program properly and filled out the surveys, etc. – $400 in gift cards ($100 for signing up, and then $300 for finishing.) And if they are driving a gas car, they will receive a credit for the amount of gas taxes they paid to go against their next registration fee.

As to the specific cost of the VMT tax, that is not yet known.  CalTrans, on its “road charge calculator” web page seems to be floating the idea of one, two, or three cents with the pump tax being eliminated.

Those numbers are low – quite low, as those rates don’t quite even replace the current pump gas tax.

Typically, in past discussions of the program, a figure of a nickel a mile has been bandied about.

Beyond the state pilot program, Los Angeles County residents can expect to get hit up to join a similar local program, possibly as early as next year. That program is not expected to be “flat miles” but a look at “pinging” a tax when a person drives into the downtown “cordon area,” or pinging a tax when a person gets on or off the 10 to/from Santa Monica to downtown, or commute from the valley over the mountain.

And if you were wondering what would happen when you drove from a state with a VMT tax to a state with pay at the pump? Don’t worry, there was funding in President Biden’s massive “infrastructure” bill to test the program nationally.

If you’re interested, you can sign up here.

Happy equitable motoring!