A User Fee Instead Of A Gas Tax? Maybe

By KYW's David Madden

(DOVER, DE) -- You've heard a lot about gas taxes in recent months, particularly in New Jersey, where the Transportation Trust Fund is broke and there's talk of hiking the gas tax 23 cents a gallon.

But what if gas taxes were eliminated? The feds are looking into that idea although they still need the money.

So here's the big question. How do you keep everybody honest?

"That could be simply requiring an annual check of the odometer on each motor vehicle," Sundstrom said. "It could be a system where we employ some sort of a GPS component inside of each vehicle to track mileage. Or we could even potentially use smart phones to track mileage."

Experimental programs are being tried in California and Oregon. This study will be conducted through the I-95 Corridor Coalition and 4 other member states, including Pennsylvania, are expected to participate.

Sundstrom stresses any change in the system would be years off, perhaps many. And if a user fee were put in place, the gas tax would be phased out. At least, that's the idea here.