Following up on greening the auto fleet, there was an interesting news item yesterday that suggested the Obama administration is open to considering a tax on miles driven rather than fuel used -- but, unfortunately, this was quickly shot down by their spokesman.
In addition to increasing the average fuel economy of the auto fleet (through replacing enough clunkers with greener vehicles), we are going to need incentives to preserve the benefits of higher efficiency vehicles -- so that the fuel and cost savings are not used up in additional driving. One measure of this is the actual GHG emissions from the transportation sector. Beyond GHG emissions, there are other real costs to driving -- including wear and tear on the roads and other infrastructure, and the constant need to repave and widen the roads.
As the average fuel economy of the auto fleet improves, a tax on miles driven would be the next logical step in reducing both emissions and infrastructure costs. The tax would depend on miles driven, roads used, weight/size of the vehicle, etc., to fully account for the wear and tear and congestion caused by driving a particular vehicle a certain number of miles on specific routes. This can be done using GPS technology and might be the best way to fund future transport options.
It would be interesting to see the foot print of an NHL hockey team,
Posted by: phil petch | February 27, 2009 at 05:17 AM