Don Fleener
Jefferson City
Dear Editor:
In the paper, I was reading the new proposal for improving our roads and bridges by increasing the gas tax. This proposal is only a short-time fix for the problem of road repair. In the past, a gas tax was a good model to uses because miles driven had a direct relationship to gasoline being used. That is no longer the case. The number of cars that are hybrid with their increased gas mileage no longer equates to wear and tear on the road. Increasing the gas tax would help with that in the short term but will not solve the problem.
With the focus on the Green New Deal and all-electric cars by 2030 that do not need gasoline but still create wear and tear on the roads, this model of gas tax is going to fail. We need to be thinking out of the box on how to fund our roads in Missouri.
Roads affect everyone, whether you have a car or truck. Trucks use our roads to bring goods and services to the population of Missouri. They also transfer the products that we make to other parts of the county. With this in mind, maybe it is the responsibility of the citizens of Missouri as a whole to support our roads and bridges whether you own a car or truck or not.
I think that a committee should find out how much it would cost to upkeep our roads and bridges and divide that up equally between all of our citizens since we all benefit from a good road system. Once we see that cost we could make a decision on how to best upkeep our highway system.
Gas tax to support the roads is a great deal for hybrid vehicles. For electric cars, the wear and tear on the highways that they produce add nothing but bad highways for everyone to travel on without them paying their fair share. Miles driven to gas usage does not equal wear and tear anymore. MD x GU doesn't equal WT (simple formula).