The NC Moves Coalition is leading the charge to help modernize North Carolina’s transportation revenue model. There are lots of conversations happening on potential solutions to aid in modernization.

Route Fifty highlights a critical issue for which a common-sense solution must be found.

State lawmakers have long known the day was coming when they would have to figure out a way to tax electric vehicle users to maintain their roads. Still reliant on the gas tax, states are seeing those revenues shrink as more and more people get behind the wheel of an electric vehicle.

Now, with the auto industry’s decision to accelerate its production of electric cars in the coming years, that day may be close at hand. Long-studied ideas such as raising registration fees for EVs, taxing drivers for the miles they drive—instead of the gas they buy—and imposing fuel taxes on electricity sold at commercial chargers are getting a renewed look.

While in the short-term, the conversation is centered on maintaining a net-zero approach, whether it is EVs or mileage-based user fees, we must indeed be honest and recognize that we need more revenue, not “net-zero” revenue solutions, to have a safe and viable transportation system. North Carolina’s attractiveness to businesses and residents alike depends on it.