The Future of Missouri and other States Transportation funding? A new registration schedule, increased registration fees, increased driver's license fees, and fees on charging stations, are among some of the things considered. All to deal with the rise of electric cars and falling gas tax income.

Tolls and Fees Suggested as Future Missouri Highway Funding

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (Springfield News-Leader) - After traversing the state in 2017, a task force assigned to look at the way Missouri funds highways and transportation has this to say: It's past time to pay more.

 From article, (After traversing the state in 2017, a task force assigned to look at the way Missouri funds highways and transportation has this to say: It's past time to pay more.

When the 21st Century Missouri Transportation System Task Force released its recommendations last week, the focus was on a recommended 10-cent increase to the state motor fuel tax rate, matching the inflation experienced since 1996, when the tax was last raised.

Asking commuters in Springfield and across the state to pay more at the pump, coupled with a 12-cent increase to the diesel tax, could make up more than half of the $825 million funding gap the Missouri Department of Transportation says it faces annually, according to the report.

The consensus of the task force, which visited Springfield in August, is that the best short-term funding solution is raising the gas tax by a dime per gallon and indexing the fuel tax to rise with inflation.

But the report also says a wider variety of solutions are needed to fund transportation long-term. Missouri's gas tax revenue "will be challenged" in the long run "due to the move towards high-efficiency vehicles, changing travel patterns, and electric alternative fuels."

"We put a lot of time and effort into looking at more sustainable, diversified revenue that will help us eventually in the future replace the fuel tax, because it will become less viable 15 to 20 years down the road," said Rep. Kevin Corlew, who chaired the transportation task force.

Among the task force's suggestions to the state legislature: increasing fees paid to the Department of Motor Vehicles on driver's licenses and vehicle registrations.

Increasing fees for electric vehicles and charging stations also should be considered by lawmakers, the task force says, as well as tying the fuel tax and user fees to inflation and basing registration charges on fuel efficiency instead of horsepower.

Missouri is the only state that assesses vehicle registration fees based on the "taxable horsepower," which is based on a ratio derived from the size and number of cylinders in an automobile's engine, Corlew said.

In short, current vehicle-registration-fee revenues will decrease over time, unless the calculation used to determine the registration fee is changed," the task force wrote. 

The new model would be more focused on being revenue-neutral than rewarding people who drive cleaner cars.

A new registration-fee schedule would mean higher costs for vehicles with higher fuel efficiency, Corlew said, because those drivers would pay less in fuel tax

Messenger found that people replying to his survey were likely to support tying fees like driver's license charges to the Consumer Price Index to match inflation.

"If we index those, we're always going forward and never going backward," he said, noting that people buy gas every week but pay for licenses and register vehicles less frequently.)