LIHUE — Sonja Kass made it clear she’s not a fan of the state’s proposal to fund the upkeep of roads and bridges with a road usage charge.
“I think it’s a bad idea,” the Kauai woman said Friday night. “It’s disincentivizing clean transportation. They tried to do it in California and, in the end, they stuck with the gas tax increase.”
Kass also brought up privacy as one of the things that will go out the window with the new system.
“Who wants to really report all the numbers to the government?” Kass said. “The gas tax works. It’s so easy to collect. Why change it?”
The Hawaii Department of Transportation is holding 14 meetings statewide to receive public feedback on the concept of a road usage charge to fund the upkeep of roadways and bridges. If implemented, the road usage charge would replace the gasoline tax.
One of those meetings was Friday at Wilcox Elementary School, and about 30 people attended. The second Kauai meeting is 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. today at Koloa Neighborhood Center.
“We’re looking at revenue sustainability,” said Scott Urada, with the DOT Highways Division. “We’re doing a study about the state fuel tax. Whenever you buy gas at the pump, there is federal, state and county tax. For the fuel tax, as we look into the future and even now when we look at the trend, it’s starting to level off and decline.”
Urada equates the leveling off as a product of higher-efficiency vehicles.
“It’s because the cars are getting more fuel efficient,” Urada said. “The electric vehicle and alternative fuel vehicles. It’s a trend that we are concerned about.”
He said this isn’t a done deal.
“It’s just a study,” he said. “It’s going to take away that state fuel tax and replace it with a road usage charge. How would people feel about it?”
The charge would be based on the number of miles a person drives.
“Some vehicles may actually benefit and some vehicles might actually pay more,” Urada said.
Some residents in attendance didn’t share optimism about the possibility of going to a usage-based tax system. One compared it to toll roads on the mainland.
“They’re just trying to figure out different ways to get money,” said the resident, who declined to give her name. “It doesn’t get used for what it was collected for in the first part.”
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Ryan Collins, county reporter, can be reached at 245-0424 or rcollins@thegardenisland.com.
This is a good idea. Usage charge. Some don’t pay any road or car tax. And they’re in their 80s’ already. Still driving.
If you’re going to collect, do it on the car, property, and road tax. And some 80s’ getting a free rider program off your own tail mate. Unless you don’t care.
Stop lying about the tax proposals…. please ! Another study costing $80000 or more of our tax dollars is what this is about, in a corruption scheme to hire friends and family out of college and give contracts to study….. it’s counterproductive and the people are on to it so BE PONO, DO THE RIGHT THING AND TAX THE RICH WHO ARE TAKING OVER KAUAI AND HAVE WAYS AND MEANS TO AVOID Paying…..
The state of Hawaii started this study in 2016 for a whooping $8,000,000 contract to a consultant.
This is the same time the state implemented the new vehicle registration fee that was suppose to help fix the roads and highways. So what happened to that funding? If the state is going to tax by the mile then get rid of the high vehicle registration fees and the state and county gas tax per gallon of gas.
The county of Kauai already increased the GET to pay for the county roads and still they come up with this crap. If the state wants to triple tax it’s citizens then why don’t they get rid of state income tax and increase the GET tax by 1 percent.
The state wants to lead the nation in being eco friendly by getting rid of plastics bags and single use is plastics so why do they punish people who buy electric cars to help reduce pollution and also reduce consumption of fossil fuels?
But the state won’t legalize recreational marijuana to generate tax to fix their pork projects and give their kids phony consultant jobs. 10 states in the nation have legalized recreational marijuana use. Washington state has received over one billion dollars in taxes from marijuana sales since 2012.
Basically the state of Hawaii is pulling a Kealoha scheme on its citizens. They are finding ways to legally steal from the people just like they’ve found ways to steal from the federal government.
Ooo more bureaucracy!! Yes! Yessss!! Maybe we can add an office full of old aunties on state payroll who can verify our mileage values! Each makes $67,000 plus benefits and pension! And more studies! I’m sure this has never ever EVER been studied by even a single grad student in economics or policy. Please use my tax money, not to actually FIX the road, but to study HOW to get money we could use someday to fix the road. In 2045. Maybe. Luckywelivehawaii!