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Progress on a Michigan road user charge project · Talking Michigan Transportation

• 0:07
  Jeff Cranson: Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast.
• 0:10
  Jeff Cranson: I'm Jeff Cranson.
• 0:12
  Jeff Cranson: This week, the Road User Charge Technical Advisory Committee, a group that was convened by the Michigan Department of Transportation to help oversee a study and pilot of a road user charge model as instructed to do by the legislature in a previous budget.
• 0:33
  Jeff Cranson: Convened and heard from Jenny Roberts, who is the National Road User Charge Discipline Leader at CDM Smith.
• 0:40
  Jeff Cranson: CDM Smith is the consultant hired by MDOT to oversee this pilot and study as the legislature mandated.
• 0:49
  Jeff Cranson: So Jenny gave a good update on where things stand, talked about the various tasks and the timeline for how things will roll out, and talked about her experience and what she's learned from other states that have delved into a mileage-based user fee or road user charge system.
• 1:05
  Jeff Cranson: So I hope you enjoy the conversation.
• 1:07
  Jeff Cranson: So as I mentioned in the introduction, I'm talking today with Jenny Roberts, who is with CDM Smith and helping to manage the project for the road user charge pilot and study here in Michigan.
• 1:21
  Jeff Cranson: Jenny has um vast experience with this topic working with other states, and I know she's developed a great rapport with the officials uh around the country that have worked on this.
• 1:33
  Jeff Cranson: And I was really interested in a presentation that she gave to the Technical Advisory Committee here uh this week, and that's what prompted me to invite her on.
• 1:43
  Jeff Cranson: So, Jenny, thank you for taking time to join the podcast.
• 1:47
  Jenny Roberts: Yeah, thanks for having me, Jeff.
• 1:48
  Jenny Roberts: I appreciate the opportunity.
• 1:50
  Jeff Cranson: So let's start with your background.
• 1:52
  Jeff Cranson: Talk about how what you do, I guess, at CDM Smith and and how you came to this and what your experience is with the mileage-based user fee concept, or road user charge as we're calling it in Michigan.
• 2:04
  Jenny Roberts: Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:05
  Jenny Roberts: So um, Jeff, as you mentioned, CDM Smith is the consultant that was selected to support MDOT with the Michigan rug pilot and study.
• 2:15
  Jenny Roberts: Um, and so I work at CDM Smith.
• 2:18
  Jenny Roberts: I've been here about five years now, and I am the road usage charge discipline lead.
• 2:23
  Jenny Roberts: I've got 23 years experience in the transportation industry, but for the last 15 of my career, I've been primarily focused on supporting states across the country looking at alternative revenues and road usage charge initiatives.
• 2:39
  Jenny Roberts: So I've been working in this space a long time, supported states like Oregon, Utah, Hawaii, Vermont, Ohio, and several others, and now very excited to be part of the project team supporting Michigan's exploration through their rug pilot as well.
• 2:57
  Jeff Cranson: Did that come to you because of your experience in transportation and just understanding, like a lot of us, um, that we do not have a sustainable funding method.
• 3:06
  Jeff Cranson: The highway trust fund has been broke for a long time.
• 3:09
  Jeff Cranson: Uh, you know, people keep talking about EVs, and then the critics say, well, that's a real small percentage of the cars on the road, but we know long before even hybrids or EVs, our our passenger vehicles were getting better mileage, and that's a good thing.
• 3:24
  Jeff Cranson: It's good for the environment, but we also know it's a diminishing return when that's how we pay for the roads.
• 3:29
  Jeff Cranson: Was all of that kind of a factor in what drove your passion for this topic?
• 3:34
  Jenny Roberts: Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:35
  Jenny Roberts: You know, I think being in the transportation industry, we all have a vested interest in um sustainable funding to support all of the work we do, whether it's designing roads and bridges or traffic operations and um planning and all of those efforts, we need funding to be able to do all of the work that we do.
• 3:53
  Jenny Roberts: And so when the opportunity came up, and that was actually when Oregon started looking at this, um and they said, well, let's start looking at a more sustainable way to fund our network.
• 4:02
  Jenny Roberts: Um, I kind of jumped on that opportunity, that opportunity.
• 4:06
  Jenny Roberts: And so, you know, and I agree with you.
• 4:07
  Jenny Roberts: I think the the story behind it is very interesting, right?
• 4:10
  Jenny Roberts: I mean, uh we've been looking at, uh we've been using a fuel tax for the last hundred years.
• 4:15
  Jenny Roberts: That's worked very well when that started out.
• 4:18
  Jenny Roberts: You know, our vehicle fleet essentially looked the same, right?
• 4:22
  Jenny Roberts: And so fuel was a good proxy for our usage of the roads.
• 4:27
  Jenny Roberts: And I think over time, as our fleet has evolved and we've got a lot of different vehicles on the roads, you know, that link between road usage and payment has really um become uh flawed, if you will, and so, or a little more broken.
• 4:43
  Jenny Roberts: And so I think it's interesting now to look at um alternative ways to fund our network because it's important for all of us to be able to get where we need to go.
• 4:53
  Jenny Roberts: Um, and I think, you know, to your point, it started out as an EV problem.
• 4:58
  Jenny Roberts: I think that was an easy place to point, but I think the the data and research has shown us that improvements in fuel economy are also a big driver, and actually the bigger driver in the problems we're seeing today, because the bottom line is people are buying less gas.
• 5:13
  Jenny Roberts: And that is a good thing for our environment, but that doesn't work for how we fund transportation today.
• 5:18
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, I kind of wonder if DOTs around the country and even, you know, city and county uh roads departments could have done us all a favor if maybe a hundred years ago they had driven home the idea that when you fill up your gas tank, you're paying for the roads.
• 5:34
  Jeff Cranson: Because I just don't think that concept sinks in for a lot of people.
• 5:38
  Jenny Roberts: No, you're exactly right.
• 5:39
  Jenny Roberts: It's a very invisible tax, right?
• 5:41
  Jenny Roberts: It's not something broken out on our receipts, it's not something you see at the pump when you know what's behind the dollar amount per gallon.
• 5:47
  Jenny Roberts: And so uh that's one of the biggest challenges, I think, when we go to talk about just transportation funding in general, regardless of the alternative, is helping people understand you are already paying for this today.
• 5:58
  Jenny Roberts: It's just not something you're aware of.
• 6:01
  Jenny Roberts: And so helping people understand what they're contributing today to transportation funding through the fuel tax is a very valuable way to start the conversation.
• 6:12
  Jeff Cranson: So I want to talk later because you mentioned Oregon about the states that are doing this or at least studying it.
• 6:19
  Jeff Cranson: Um several are in various phases, as we know.
• 6:22
  Jeff Cranson: Hawaii is about to go all in on it, but they're uh an outlier for obvious reasons.
• 6:28
  Jeff Cranson: Although I do think there are things we can learn from them, but um it's not a fair model for a state like Michigan, obviously.
• 6:34
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, we do have a lot of water surrounding us, but not completely but let's first talk about your presentation this week and uh how you rolled out the the tasks, starting with uh the project management uh task one, overseen project activities.
• 6:51
  Jeff Cranson: Um can we just take them one by one and you give a little bit of description for each one?
• 6:56
  Jenny Roberts: Okay, yeah, so Michigan's um pilot project and study is very robust.
• 7:00
  Jenny Roberts: It has seven different tasks, and I think is is covering all of the important aspects that a project like this should.
• 7:07
  Jenny Roberts: Um, of course, task one is the project management.
• 7:10
  Jenny Roberts: Um, task two is really the foundation, it's the planning aspect of this, where we're really defining um what this pilot needs to be to address all of the um goals, objectives, and concerns um specific to Michigan.
• 7:28
  Jenny Roberts: And so that's really where we plan out the pilot and the study and what we want this to look like, and that will feed a lot of the future work that comes in that pilot phase itself.
• 7:39
  Jenny Roberts: And so that's task two.
• 7:40
  Jenny Roberts: Task three is that robust statewide public outreach and education campaign.
• 7:44
  Jenny Roberts: And I think that is a core element of this project.
• 7:47
  Jenny Roberts: That's where we're really looking to engage the public and key audiences and partners through a pretty robust um campaign and making sure we reach people.
• 7:57
  Jenny Roberts: And I talked about we really want to start with the problem with we're facing with transportation funding in general.
• 8:04
  Jenny Roberts: And then we can start talking about potential solutions like a road usage charge and others that many states are looking at.
• 8:11
  Jenny Roberts: So that's really um bringing people into this conversation and why MDOT is taking this effort on.
• 8:18
  Jeff Cranson: Let's stay on that one for just a minute because when I talked to Barbara Rhodey, who's the executive director of the knowledge-based user fee alliance in Washington some time back, she talked a lot about that and how important it is and how important it is that the media understand.
• 8:34
  Jeff Cranson: And we've had decent media engagement on this as it made its way through the legislature.
• 8:38
  Jeff Cranson: Um but it'll it'll be an ongoing process.
• 8:41
  Jeff Cranson: Same thing, um, even though this made its way out as a budget boilerplate item.
• 8:46
  Jeff Cranson: I don't know that a lot of lawmakers have really completely tuned into it.
• 8:50
  Jeff Cranson: And if they have, um, what they often tell me is their constituents' concerns about privacy, and we can talk about that too.
• 8:57
  Jeff Cranson: But what do you think uh a really successful uh education campaign looks like?
• 9:04
  Jenny Roberts: So I think number one, we have to make sure we're reaching everybody, and so getting good coverage across the state, making sure we're hearing um from a representative group of Michiganders is gonna be very important.
• 9:19
  Jenny Roberts: Um, I also think getting the right information out there and making sure we're using a lot of different um methods and approaches to reach people.
• 9:28
  Jenny Roberts: So whether that's showing up at events and talking to people, handing out flyers, um, a website, of course, is gonna be an anchor to this project because as they hear about it, whether that's through TV, radio ads, social media, you want to draw them somewhere that has all of the right information on the topic, right?
• 9:45
  Jenny Roberts: Um, and so I think that's gonna be a core component, is just making sure we're out there talking to the public, could be community meetings, um, surveys.
• 9:54
  Jenny Roberts: I think we want to be doing some focus groups across Michigan and making sure we're hearing directly from residents.
• 10:02
  Jenny Roberts: And so I think that those are gonna be some of the core components of this campaign.
• 10:07
  Jeff Cranson: Is that your experience in other states that when you do have a town hall or a focus group and you start to lay it out and some of the misperceptions are you know are dealt with or addressed that you do you see some light bulbs go off?
• 10:22
  Jenny Roberts: Absolutely.
• 10:22
  Jenny Roberts: And you know, I think it's amazing what a short, you know, one or two minute conversation can address uh concerns pretty quickly.
• 10:30
  Jenny Roberts: It just takes getting getting to people, right?
• 10:33
  Jenny Roberts: Um, and and I will acknowledge that Michigan did um a survey on this topic, what, a couple years ago in 2024, and that reached, I think, 19,000 respondents in across Michigan.
• 10:44
  Jenny Roberts: And I think that was a great foundation to help us understand where people are at on this topic about transportation funding and specifically a road usage charge as well.
• 10:54
  Jenny Roberts: And so our hope is let's dive into those results a little bit deeper.
• 10:58
  Jenny Roberts: And I think having those conversations is going to be an important part of that.
• 11:01
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, I agree completely.
• 11:02
  Jeff Cranson: All right, well, then we can get back on task, I guess.
• 11:05
  Jeff Cranson: Um, you want to talk about number four?
• 11:08
  Jenny Roberts: Well, and task four, I think piggybacks on task three, that's really the legislative outreach.
• 11:12
  Jenny Roberts: You know, I've heard you talk on another podcast about the importance of making sure we keep the legislature and legislators involved and educated on this so that they get their minds at ease because ultimately at the end of this, it's up to them to move anything forward to solve our transportation funding problem, right?
• 11:30
  Jenny Roberts: And so that's going to be another core component is um engaging the legislators through that throughout this and hopefully getting them involved and participating in the pilot itself because that first hand experience is um you know irreplaceable.
• 11:45
  Jenny Roberts: It just it helps just give them that experience they need to address concerns and answer questions they may get from their constituents.
• 11:52
  Jeff Cranson: Oh, yeah, for them to be able to talk with their colleagues in an informed way would be very, very valuable for sure.
• 11:57
  Jeff Cranson: Absolutely.
• 11:58
  Jenny Roberts: Absolutely.
• 11:59
  Jenny Roberts: So following that, task five is the pilot itself.
• 12:02
  Jenny Roberts: We plan to operate a six-month pilot.
• 12:05
  Jenny Roberts: We're hoping to get a thousand participants across um Michigan participating in that.
• 12:11
  Jenny Roberts: Um, and that we're expecting to launch in in February and run for six months um through the summer as well.
• 12:18
  Jenny Roberts: And then task six is revenue modeling.
• 12:20
  Jenny Roberts: So an important part of this is also just analyzing, you know, where's Michigan at now?
• 12:25
  Jenny Roberts: Where do we project them to be over the next 25 years with funding?
• 12:30
  Jenny Roberts: Um, what are some of the different options that we're exploring?
• 12:33
  Jenny Roberts: How does that fill the funding gap and really looking at different scenarios to help assess the financial impacts in Michigan?
• 12:40
  Jenny Roberts: So that's going to be important work as well.
• 12:42
  Jenny Roberts: And then task seven will be tying all that up into a nice final report.
• 12:47
  Jeff Cranson: And talk about the timeline for for that.
• 12:50
  Jenny Roberts: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:51
  Jenny Roberts: So this project is uh kicked off in June and is expected to run through the end of uh next year.
• 12:58
  Jenny Roberts: So December 2027 is where all of this will wrap up.
• 13:01
  Jenny Roberts: I will say all of these tasks are really running now because as 18 months sounds like a lot of time, but it really isn't.
• 13:10
  Jenny Roberts: There's a lot of work to be done.
• 13:11
  Jenny Roberts: And so we'll we've we've kicked this off and we expect to get a campaign going, uh, education campaign going by the end of the year.
• 13:20
  Jenny Roberts: That legislative outreach, we're looking to really probably start that in January when we've, you know, after the election, when we've got um all the new folks in their seats and um really get them engaged through throughout next year.
• 13:32
  Jeff Cranson: We will continue the conversation right after a quick break.
• 13:37
  MDOT Message: If you need to get out and stretch your legs, don't forget about the annual Mackinac Bridge Walk.
• 13:41
  MDOT Message: Make your plans to attend the walk on Labor Day and take in some of the best views in the state of Michigan on the Mighty Mac.
• 13:48
  MDOT Message: For more information, go to Mackinacbridge.org slash walk.
• 13:54
  Jeff Cranson: Let's go back now to the various states.
• 13:57
  Jeff Cranson: Oregon has always been considered kind of a leader.
• 13:59
  Jeff Cranson: It sounds like Virginia is doing some some pretty uh innovative stuff in this area, too.
• 14:05
  Jeff Cranson: Um can you just kind of talk about uh in general what what's going on elsewhere?
• 14:10
  Jenny Roberts: Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:11
  Jenny Roberts: So I would say there's four states right now that have operational programs.
• 14:17
  Jenny Roberts: One more coming soon in January.
• 14:20
  Jenny Roberts: So Oregon was the first, their program has been running for 11 years now.
• 14:25
  Jenny Roberts: Um Utah was second, they started their program in 2020.
• 14:30
  Jenny Roberts: Virginia came on board after that, I believe in 2022.
• 14:34
  Jenny Roberts: Um, and then Hawaii launched their program last year.
• 14:38
  Jenny Roberts: So they're those are the four operational programs.
• 14:40
  Jenny Roberts: I would say right now, all of those programs are really um focused on either EVs or high fuel efficient vehicles, and they are paying a road usage charge in lieu of a lot of these surcharges that we see in states today.
• 14:55
  Jenny Roberts: And then Vermont will be registration.
• 14:59
  Jenny Roberts: Yeah, so these vehicle registration, thank you.
• 15:03
  Jeff Cranson: Which is what we have in Michigan, yeah.
• 15:04
  Jenny Roberts: Yeah, and I'll say Michigan has, I believe, right now, the second highest in the nation.
• 15:09
  Jenny Roberts: Um, the their EV registration surcharges is one of the highest in the country, but several states have those.
• 15:15
  Jenny Roberts: I think 42 now states have um surcharges on electric vehicles and our plug-in hybrid vehicles as well.
• 15:23
  Jenny Roberts: So a lot of these states are introducing this road usage charge concept um to replace fees like that.
• 15:31
  Jenny Roberts: Um, and so that's what we're seeing in the states I mentioned.
• 15:34
  Jenny Roberts: Vermont will be coming on board with their program in January of 2027.
• 15:38
  Jenny Roberts: So they'll be the fifth state with an operational road usage charge program.
• 15:44
  Jeff Cranson: Go ahead.
• 15:44
  Jeff Cranson: I'm sorry, I was just gonna say it makes a lot of sense there because I think per capita Vermont probably has a lot of EVs.
• 15:50
  Jenny Roberts: Yes, absolutely.
• 15:52
  Jenny Roberts: Um, and so, and and to be honest, their program will look very similar to Hawaii, in that both of those states have um annual safety inspections where odometer data is collected.
• 16:04
  Jenny Roberts: So both Hawaii and Vermont are leveraging those existing systems um to launch their road usage charge programs and get the data needed to process um to process that.
• 16:17
  Jeff Cranson: Well, that'll be interesting to see because uh several other states have those uh you know mandatory inspections, and Pennsylvania does, for instance.
• 16:25
  Jeff Cranson: So um, so yeah, we'll will that enable them to follow the model, I guess.
• 16:31
  Jenny Roberts: Exactly.
• 16:31
  Jenny Roberts: I think it's it's good to see these different states taking slightly different approaches because every state can probably relate a little differently to each one of those, right?
• 16:39
  Jenny Roberts: And so uh there's a lot to be learned from those states, and I know working with them all over the last several years, they're very willing to share lessons learned, best practices, and everything to help other states through their efforts as well.
• 16:53
  Jeff Cranson: So I'm not gonna make you say this, but I will say it that I think a lot of the things that people that are skeptical of this and are just kind of uh inured to be opposed, they bring up all kinds of things.
• 17:05
  Jeff Cranson: One of them is interstate travel.
• 17:07
  Jeff Cranson: Uh, in Michigan's case, that includes international travel.
• 17:10
  Jeff Cranson: Obviously, we have a busy border, several busy border crossings.
• 17:14
  Jeff Cranson: Have any of the states, I think Oregon and Washington maybe looked at that a little bit on a voluntary basis, how you deal with that interstate travel issue?
• 17:21
  Jenny Roberts: Yeah, that's a good question.
• 17:22
  Jenny Roberts: And yes, I would say these states have certainly tackled that.
• 17:25
  Jenny Roberts: I've also been working with the Eastern Transportation Coalition for the last 10 years or so.
• 17:30
  Jenny Roberts: They have a lot of cross-state travel in the East, and so they're very interested in understanding, you know, how that could work, how you charge rates across state lines and how you may um transfer funds, you know, for miles driven within those respective states.
• 17:44
  Jenny Roberts: Oregon and Washington did a similar pilot looking at that.
• 17:49
  Jenny Roberts: Um, and I will also say Washington received federal funding and they have um partner states, I think six in this most recent effort, they'll be launching a pilot next year looking at exactly that again, just better understanding how we can do revenue reconciliation through a RUC program.
• 18:08
  Jenny Roberts: And to be honest, until you get more states on board with this, Jeff, you know, the fuel tax is gonna be, you know, coexisting with any alternative funding option like a road usage charge.
• 18:20
  Jenny Roberts: So right now, if someone were to travel in the state of Michigan and fill up, um, they would still be contributing to fuel tax, whereas if in Michigan they implemented a road usage charge, you know, those residents would be paying the RUC in that state.
• 18:33
  Jenny Roberts: So I think you're gonna have, you know, those coexisting for a while until you get broader adoption of an alternative funding option like RUC in neighboring states where you can start looking at that um revenue across state lines.
• 18:49
  Jeff Cranson: Yes, thinking about Virginia and you know, all the traffic back and forth to Washington, D.C.
• 18:54
  Jeff Cranson: and even to Maryland, um, how has that worked for them?
• 18:57
  Jeff Cranson: I guess they've decided not to deal with that problem for now.
• 19:00
  Jenny Roberts: Yeah, and I think for now, you know, there's different ways that people in Virginia can report their mileage.
• 19:06
  Jenny Roberts: And so for people that choose to report mileage that has location data associated with it, they those states can choose to not charge for miles driven outside of their state, right?
• 19:18
  Jenny Roberts: And so I think there's different ways that states are handling the mileage for their residents driven outside of the state.
• 19:26
  Jenny Roberts: Um, for people coming in, yeah, I think for now that's uh as I mentioned, they're paying fuel tax.
• 19:32
  Jenny Roberts: Some of these states are also introducing, you know, kilowatt hour charges for EVs filling up at public charging stations.
• 19:39
  Jenny Roberts: So that kind of handles some of that from those types of vehicles.
• 19:42
  Jenny Roberts: So there's a lot of different options out there, but yeah, no one's fully been able to tackle uh a road usage charge until more neighboring states, I think, sign on to that.
• 19:53
  Jeff Cranson: So something that's interested me for a long time, and I'm sure you also is how Utah, of all places, seemed to be so progressive on this front.
• 20:01
  Jeff Cranson: Uh do you have any any insight into that?
• 20:05
  Jenny Roberts: Yeah, yeah, I mean, so it was funny, at the mileage-based user fee alliance conference, I believe, last year, uh, we had a legislator from Utah come and speak to that group, um, Rep Christofferson, and we said, Well, how did you, how did you get this passed in in Utah back in 2020?
• 20:23
  Jenny Roberts: And he made it sound very simple.
• 20:26
  Jenny Roberts: He said, We had a problem we needed to solve, and we worked collectively as a legislature to solve it.
• 20:31
  Jenny Roberts: That was that was all he had to say about it.
• 20:34
  Jenny Roberts: Uh he made it sound very um very easy, even though we know as working with several other states, it it's not always that easy, but it can be, right?
• 20:43
  Jenny Roberts: I mean, I think at the end of the day, we all care about transportation.
• 20:46
  Jenny Roberts: It's vital to our economy and our residents, and people want good roads, they need to get where they need to go.
• 20:52
  Jenny Roberts: And um, you know, if you can break it down to that and um, you know, work as a legislature to solve that problem, then that's that's what you had in Utah.
• 21:02
  Jeff Cranson: I have to believe part of that was um a simple business decision that they're a growing state, they've got people moving in, and they've they from an economic development standpoint, you know, they need good roads, right?
• 21:14
  Jeff Cranson: Absolutely.
• 21:15
  Jeff Cranson: So, what else would you want people to know uh at this point in the process and coming out of uh what what I think was a a very good uh session of the advisory committee on Monday, really good engagement, good questions back and forth.
• 21:30
  Jeff Cranson: Um, what do you see uh the near term uh coming next?
• 21:35
  Jenny Roberts: Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:36
  Jenny Roberts: And and I'll say I I appreciate that Michigan has this technical advisory committee.
• 21:41
  Jenny Roberts: I think that's an important part when any state is looking at something like this, is making sure you have diverse perspectives part of the conversation.
• 21:49
  Jenny Roberts: So I think your technical advisory committee is made up of a lot of great representatives that are asking good questions and bringing those diverse perspectives to this conversation.
• 21:58
  Jenny Roberts: So that's important.
• 21:59
  Jenny Roberts: And we um I know MDOT has set up recurring meetings with the TAC, I think almost monthly, at least for the end of this year, and then that'll be revisited for cadence for next year.
• 22:10
  Jenny Roberts: But so that continued engagement with the TAC.
• 22:12
  Jenny Roberts: Um, and then as I mentioned, right now, work very busy gearing up to get the outreach campaign up and running.
• 22:21
  Jenny Roberts: And then we're working on a lot of those pilot design documents that we can start developing the system specific to Michigan.
• 22:28
  Jenny Roberts: I mean, we've been working with MDOT and the TAC on what this pilot should look like and what it should offer.
• 22:33
  Jenny Roberts: And so we're really taking all that information and developing the documents to bring our vendor on board and offer a compelling six-month pilot for Michigan.
• 22:44
  Jenny Roberts: So a lot of work underway.
• 22:46
  Jenny Roberts: Um, and we'll keep the TAC engaged um over the coming months.
• 22:51
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, I think it'll be really interesting to watch as people become more engaged and tune into the issue and uh what kinds of questions there are.
• 22:59
  Jeff Cranson: And um, you know, it's all about uh transparency, and I think the the more we can make people aware this is going on and they can get involved, and if ultimately as citizens or as lawmakers they decide it isn't what they want to do, that's fine.
• 23:13
  Jeff Cranson: I just want to make sure they have, you know, uh a full set of facts before they make any decisions.
• 23:19
  Jenny Roberts: No, absolutely, Jeff.
• 23:20
  Jenny Roberts: And I think a lot of people ask, well, this has been studied a lot, a lot of states have done pilots, why do we need to do another?
• 23:25
  Jenny Roberts: You know, and I think it's important for every state to get their own specific data and the outreach campaign and talking to your residents.
• 23:32
  Jenny Roberts: As much as I've been doing this 15 years, and you know, you think everyone knows about this, and you come into different states, and most people don't because it's not something they need to worry about.
• 23:42
  Jenny Roberts: As you mentioned, they pay for transportation today through an invisible fuel tax, and so it's coming in and really, you know, talking to the residents and getting that state-specific data that lawmakers need before they take any action on any future funding option.
• 23:59
  Jenny Roberts: And so I think that's an important part of um you know what comes next in every in every state.
• 24:05
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, I mean, some people in the southern part of Michigan, which obviously is where most of the population is, and they travel between Ohio and Illinois and Indiana, where there's there's toll roads, and so many of them have transponders if they do that frequently, and so they get it.
• 24:20
  Jeff Cranson: But maybe the mindset then is that I don't have to pay for this because this little white box does it for me.
• 24:25
  Jenny Roberts: Right, right.
• 24:26
  Jeff Cranson: Well, thanks, Jenny.
• 24:27
  Jeff Cranson: I appreciate you taking time to talk about this and uh really appreciate your efforts and the very thorough job you've done of uh explaining these things and laying them out for the advisory committee and and now also for the public.
• 24:40
  Jeff Cranson: So thank you.
• 24:41
  Jenny Roberts: Yeah, well thanks for having me on, Jeff.
• 24:42
  Jenny Roberts: I appreciate the invitation.
• 24:44
  Jeff Cranson: I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Machine Transportation.
• 24:47
  Jeff Cranson: You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or Bus Route.
• 24:52
  Jeff Cranson: I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who poops the content, and Jackie Salinas, who posts the podcast to various platforms and transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.