Arizonans face steep costs to catch up with transportation needs

Regional News

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Financing the state’s freeway needs could mean Arizona motorists will pay higher gasoline taxes, an entirely new sales tax on fuel on top of that and find it’s even more expensive to register their vehicles.

And owners of all-electric cars likely would feel a hit, too.

At a meeting Wednesday, members of the Surface Transportation Funding Task Force agreed it will take $20 billion in new dollars to construct, widen and maintain the necessary freeways to meet the state’s growing needs. That doesn’t count another $40 billion that economist Alan Maguire, a member of the committee, said is needed for other road projects.

The panel will complete its recommendations for raising that much later this month. That includes not just likely higher costs for motorists at the pump but figuring out the best way to ensure that the increasing number of Arizonans who are buying all-electric vehicles pay their fair share of road construction and maintenance.

One way to do that is by tracking motorists. But David Williams, vice president of Knight Transportation, said that’s likely a non-starter with the public.

Once the committee finishes its work, it then will fall to Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, to sell the proposal — and the likely tax hikes it will take — to his colleagues. That leaves the question of whether there’s the political will to tell constituents their taxes and fees are going up.