![]() To close this gap, the state increased motor fuel tax rates significantly (the nation’s highest at the time), but even this, evidently, was insufficient to meet the Commonwealth’s transportation budget targets. In 2011, a predecessor to TROC estimated that the budget gap would be $7.2 billion in 2020. Budget gaps are nothing new in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation (PennDOT) projects that it currently has a budget shortfall of $9.35 billion, and if nothing is done, the Department projects that this shortfall will increase. ![]() ![]() This reliance on the gas tax-a tax base that is increasingly inefficient-is the impetus for the state to study how it can fund infrastructure in the future. Pennsylvania, which has the third highest gas tax rate in the country, is also one of the states with the highest reliance on revenue from gas taxes, which make up about 75 percent of their infrastructure revenue. TROC recommends phasing out the gas tax in favor of a high rate VMT tax as well as a number of smaller tax changes-including a $1 on all deliveries to the state. With infrastructure spending and taxation-both state and federal-the topics of the day, Pennsylvania’s recently appointed Transportation Revenue Options Commission (TROC) has published recommendations for future funding of infrastructure in the state. A vehicle miles traveled (VMT) proposal gaining steam in Pennsylvania would be the equivalent of a state gas tax of more than $2 per gallon, and that’s not all the Commonwealth is considering.
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