The Death of Gas Taxes

With the growth of hybrid vehicles and the potential of a 100 mpg commercial vehicle, gas taxes may become a relic, or so thinks John Hood, who writes:

As efficiency gains continue and alternative-fuel vehicles proliferate, the gas-tax regime will sputter still more. Now is the time to rethink it. Some kind of direct charge per mile, probably collected via GPS and adjusted for peak price, will likely be the mainstay for the unlimited-access road and street grid, with public-private tollways using electronic collection supplementing the system with additional limited-access capacity.

Faced with more-accurate pricing, more motorists may indeed opt for transit, walkable communities, or telecommuting. Unfortunately, many of the alarmists dislike solutions based on markets and choices. They want a central plan. On that matter, as on so many others, they reveal themselves to be backward reactionaries.

Now that I am chaning jobs to a workplace far closer to my home (a 15 minute drive roundtrip versus a 1hr. and 45 minute drive one way), I might be interested in paying per mile traveled.