But Tom’s experience is like that of many others’. Studies show that in first world nations, convenience is a much more significant driver than fuel cost — even when prices more than double what we are now paying. People more rapidly alter their driving habits due to convenience than due to price.

This is among the reasons that certain groups strongly worked against the Legacy Highway and that these same groups promise to work against other projects that promise to improve traffic convenience. They know that people will only change their driving habits when driving becomes unbearable.

Unfortunately, none of these individually are silver bullets, but in combination they will be very effective.

The impact of gas tax increases will not be immediate, but we saw what happened in the 1970s when gas prices spiked dramatically. Driving habits did change, but not over night.

Mass transit plays a role, but light rail to Draper (which is getting a commuter rail stop) and the airport are not cost-effective ways to reduce congestion or pollution. There is no congestion around the airport, and airport employees commute during off-peak hours.

In fact, WFRC admits that light rail is not a cost-effective way to reduce pollution.

Consider this post as thinking out loud. As such, I haven’t run the numbers (maybe you’ll do it for me? :^)

I’m not convinced an efficiency surcharge is the best solution, but for the time being I think it’s better than a large gas tax increase.

Re #2, yes, I was being a bit overly broad, and I probably shouldn’t have been. Your Tribune rebuttal switches back and forth between congestion pricing and gas taxes as having the same purpose: reducing miles traveled (and thus congestion). My poor wording comes from reading it several days ago, and only scanning it briefly before writing today.

I’m suggesting that as gas consumption is fairly inelastic, the a gas tax wouldn’t have a near-term effect, and only a minor long-term one. Given the sprawling nature or our community, I don’t see vehicle miles traveled lessening without strong public transportation, which isn’t a viable option for most of the places I need to go in SL County.

If conservation is our goal (and while not one touted by UTC, it has come up in other arguments for an increased gas tax) I think there’s a better way to accomplish it.

1. Regarding the regressivity of gas taxes (direct and indirect), you should compare this to the regressivity of the transportation lobby’s current proposal which is to raise sales taxes by 0.25 percentage points every five to ten years. Clearly, this is the most regressive proposal of all (and does not include a refundable income tax credit).

Furthermore, the association continues to successfully advocate for eliminating sales taxes on business inputs, which addresses the issue of indirect regressivity.

2. The association does not consider a gas tax increase to be a form of congestion pricing as you suggest. Increased gas taxes do provide an incentive for car pooling, telecommuting, and living closer to work (all of which slows the growth in VMT which slows the growth in state/local transportation expenditures), but it does not provide much incentive to leave earlier or later for work. The association has never claimed otherwise.