Politics & Government
Op-Ed: Proposed Tax on Road Mileage Crosses the Line
Our regional governmental bodies have gone too far with this idea that we'd be charged up to 10 cents per mile as we travel our local roads.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments are studying a "tax on mileage" in order to generate upward of $15 million a day to fund roads and public transit and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.
Drivers would have to put GPS-like odometers in their cars that would track their mileage. Under a proposal, drivers could pay from less than a penny to as much as a dime for every mile driven, according to a story by the Associated Press. The idea could take a decade to be launched.
We are talking about both a travel tax and government-mandated tracking devices. It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel.
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When gas gets to be more than $5 dollars a gallon and sales tax upward of 10-12 percent, and the added transportation tax comes into play, there will be no reason to leave the town you live in. ABAG and MTC consider this as one part of a multilayer land-use and transportation plan.
The draft environmental review is scheduled for January. The committee chair is Randy Rentschler.
Find out what's happening in Novatowith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The fact that ABAG and MTC would even suggest a plan that requires Bay Area motorists to drive in cars monitored by the government is such an extreme violation of civil rights that dismantling the current regional agencies and creating local agencies in their place has become an urgent alternative.
How else will we defend ourselves against the radical changes proposed by our regional agencies?
