Last week, we shared some of the ways the highway user is tapped to fund what is obliquely related to the construction, repair and maintenance of state and county roads.
One example related how the office that administers the parking program for the disabled wants to raise the vehicle registration fee by another dollar to fund that program. While that proposal is hardly justifiable, taxpayers should be more concerned about the benefits state laws confer on select users — including the disabled — of highways and roads.
No one will argue with the need for dedicated handicapped parking stalls and their close proximity to stores, restaurants or other facilities, but it is another thing when it comes to exempting all disabled-labeled vehicles from paying for parking. As noted in an earlier commentary, age and disability are no indicators of financial need. The classic image of this viewpoint is seeing an expensive car with a disabled placard parked near a flashing meter. Meanwhile, the owner of the beat-up 1993 Corolla parked behind the Jaguar or Lincoln fishes in her handbag for a quarter to avoid a parking ticket.
Free parking is not only conferred on the disabled but also extended to drivers of electric vehicles. In a drive to look “green,” lawmakers adopted several laws over the years that not only exempt electric vehicles from parking fees but from vehicle registration fees and other fees including license plate fees. While those were temporary, the latest law adopted in 2012 continues the parking exemption for another seven years and allows free parking for an electric vehicle for up to two and a half hours, or the maximum allowable time at a metered stall, and up to 24 hours where the parking fee is based on a weekly, monthly or annual parking period.
Any driver who can afford an all-electric car, priced at a minimum $35,000, could afford to pay the quarter to park in a metered stall or the fee at the parking lot. Why should these drivers be given a free ride insofar as parking fees? Conversely, if there is a shortfall in the county highway funds, as some of the counties are claiming, then that shortfall may have to be made up by increasing the cost of the metered parking that will be paid by all other highway users who are not granted a similar exemption.
While not granted an exemption from the vehicle weight tax, these electric cars do not use conventional fuel such as gasoline or diesel and, therefore, don’t pay some or any of the state and county fuel taxes, yet they put wear and tear on the state and county roads at the same rate as their fossil fuel-powered cousins. This is an issue that has state and county elected officials contemplating how to ask drivers of either electric or hybrid vehicles to pay their fair share of repair and maintenance of the road system.
Other states have explored possibilities using the number of miles driven during the year as a measure of usage and then imposing a fee of so many cents or dollars per mile driven in a 12-month period. Others have considered a flat fee per vehicle. However, there doesn’t seem to be an acceptable alternative for taxing these vehicles. It should be remembered that the three common sources of highway financing are the fuel tax, which measures the number of miles driven, the vehicle weight tax, which measures how much damage a vehicle inflicts on the public roadways with heavier vehicles paying higher per-pound rates than lighter vehicles, and the annual registration fee which can be viewed as an “admission” ticket for the right to enter the public highway system.
This latter component underscores another inequity in financing the roadways and those who use them. Prior to 1998, bicycles and mopeds had to be registered every two years at a cost of $8. In 1998 the legislation was changed and bicycles and mopeds pay a one-time fee of $15 and that is it. When elected officials want to court cycling constituents by building more bike lanes and setting aside more of the roadway for bicycles, who will pay for those improvements?
Once again the highway user will pick up the tab. If the cycling public wants more bike lanes and dedicated parts of the roadways, they should be willing to pay for them.
Lowell Kalapa is president of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii.
