Question for those who live in California

[scootr]

New road tolls for Sacramento, CA approved by a California commission.

Although it is a paid-toll lane, there is already a clamor for "equity" of tolled road usage ... here we go again.

California commission approved new I-80 toll lanes. Could you be charged $1 per mile?

A Yolo County official said lanes similar to those approved on I-80 charge drivers $1 per mile.

www.yahoo.com

CA is reporting a loss of road tax revenue due to the push for electric vehicles. Additional gas tax will be implemented to make up the lost funds. New road tolls do not surprise me. Glad we do not have toll roads in our rural area.

 

[plowhog]

Glad we do not have toll roads in our rural area.

Agreed that being rural helps. Hope it continues to hold against the continued creativity in the quest for $$.

 

[kenmbz]

Tolls in NJ and NY went up while saying how the poor should use Mass transit, while reducing the funding to Mass transit and building wider roads and working to raise the cost of mass transit. All while raising the gas tax and parking at the train stations.

Being working poor in this area has gotten more expensive.

 

[ericm979]

CA is reporting a loss of road tax revenue due to the push for electric vehicles. Additional gas tax will be implemented to make up the lost funds. New road tolls do not surprise me. Glad we do not have toll roads in our rural area.

They're going to run a pilot for charging by mileage: About Road Charge | California Road Charge

Gas taxes fund a lot of the road budget so they need to do something. Fuel taxes are a great way to fund roads because not only do people who drive more pay more, but people with heavier vehicles pay more (roughly). Road damage goes up as the fourth power of vehicle weight. Current EVs are often heavier than the equivalent gas vehicle and should pay more for road maintenance, not less.

However I don't want the state or a private company tracking my driving. This could be done in a privacy-preserving way but that's extremely unlikely.

 

[kenmbz]

More road taxes punishes the people who can least afford them and squeezes even the middle class.
Better, cheaper mass transit helps more, but we get more and wider highways instead.

Seems like the oil company profits are up quite a bit, wonder why

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/business/oil-gas-companies-profits.html

 

[lman]

There is no Mass Transit here, I hope I'm not paying for it.

 

[scootr]

IN short EVs are doing more damage with their increased weight and paying zero road use tax through gasoline purchases. Seems to me an annual road access tax may be appropriate by weight. The same way you pay higher registration for a 1 ton truck vs a car now

 

[ericm979]

IN short EVs are doing more damage with their increased weight and paying zero road use tax through gasoline purchases. Seems to me an annual road access tax may be appropriate by weight. The same way you pay higher registration for a 1 ton truck vs a car now

Oregon does that. EVs pay more for annual registration than cars of the same size.

 

[scootr]

Right - hit them with a weight fee and no gas tax. Lets be fair

 

[dfkrug]

IN short EVs are doing more damage with their increased weight and paying zero road use tax through gasoline purchases. Seems to me an annual road access tax may be appropriate by weight. The same way you pay higher registration for a 1 ton truck vs a car now

We already have the weight fees for pickups, but not the mileage usage fees. All pickups in CA are designated "commercial" vehicles and pay an annual weight fee. (Unless you weld on a camper shell and plead your case at the DMV.)

And that's where SUVs and other heavy cars get away with murder. Originally SUVs were pickup trucks converted into passenger cars (no weight fees), but maintaining the lower exhaust emission standards of pickups.

So, coming to CA will be weight fees for all vehicles, and some kind of usage fee (mileage). I can't see the state or Feds giving up gas taxes, tho that would be fairer. We now pay over $1/gal in gas taxes.

Since I have 3 registered vehicles and just one driver, I pay more in registration fees than in fuel costs. That's hard to do.

 

[ultrarunner]

^^^I wonder how it will shake out as I have a lot of registrations…

Before fees got crazy there were 24 tags each year.

Remember in California you have to pay non-op registration fees for cars Not Used otherwise full regular fees due.

I posted before about a retire widow had a stroke and was 2.5 years in a care facility…

He didn’t pay registration or pay non-op registration so the 96 vehicle parked in his carport accumulated $2300 in fees and penalties…

The smart thing would have been taking it out of California but his family paid the $2300, had the car smogged and then sold it for 3k with a new battery.

 

[scootr]

In CA vehicles with handicapped plates get a pass on weight fees. My handicap plate is on my 3/4 ton van not my car. Even a small econo car pays $300 a yr registration with a $50 smog check every 2 yrs

 

[plowhog]

Get the Facts: Will California gas prices soon rise by 50 cents a gallon?

Several headlines have recently surfaced about what some reports claim is a "little known" or "secret" proposal in California that could increase gas prices by nearly 50 cents a gallon as soon as next year.

www.kcra.com

 

[ericm979]

I just non oped another motorcycle that I'm not riding. So far it's always been a one time fee. At least for off road motorcycles its about half of the normal registration. (Off road vehicles need registration to ride on public land, which California has a lot of. The money is supposed to go to buying more land for OHV use but the legislature keeps stealing it)

You used to be able to non-op any time for free. But it was common to abuse that. People would not register the vehicle, hope they didn't get pulled over for it, and then when they sell the vehicle, the buyer would file a non op retroactively to avoid having to pay the back registration. I did that a bunch of times for motorcycles I bought. I can see why they shut that down.

 

[not2old]

If the province here started charging a fee for a vehicle that wasn't being used, they'd have an enemy on their hands. What's the theory that makes this acceptable to the citizens?

 

[ultrarunner]

If the province here started charging a fee for a vehicle that wasn't being used, they'd have an enemy on their hands. What's the theory that makes this acceptable to the citizens?

Cost of maintaining the Data Base and to catch scofflaws...

 

[Eagle1]

I do not need to register a vehicle to use it on my property like a truck only used on premise, etc. Registration and driver license are only needed to drive on public roadways. We can even county plates cheap for vehicles that will not leave the county, farm truck that uses roads from one field to another (or goes for a beer run)

 

[plowhog]

I do not need to register a vehicle to use it on my property like a truck only used on premise, etc.

In California, if you own a travel trailer, it must be continuously registered with DMV even if it is permanently parked on your property. Huge fines accrue rapidly if you fall behind ...

 

[DarkBlack]

In California, if you own a travel trailer, it must be continuously registered with DMV even if it is permanently parked on your property. Huge fines accrue rapidly if you fall behind ...

I’ve read California, on average, adds 1,000 new laws and regulations to the books, in addition to the 10’s of thousands already there , every New Year, January 1st.
Is that still true?

 

[dfkrug]

I’ve read California, on average, adds 1,000 new laws and regulations to the books, in addition to the 10’s of thousands already there , every New Year, January 1st.
Is that still true?

Our legislature passes a bunch of laws, usually over 1000 of them every year. Then, as the legislative session is coming to an end, the bills go before the governor to be signed, or not. Even our current gov does not sign them all. Many are effective in the new year.

Long way of saying, 'yes'.