Capital punishment: Victoria drivers feel pain at the pump with $0.02/litre gas tax hike
Two cents per litre is two cents of pain at the pump for Victoria drivers who are seeing high gas bills, even for small cars.
Drivers in the Capital Region are seeing their gasoline expenses grow after the area’s gas tax was hiked by $0.02 per litre on April 1.
That brought the total regional gas tax to $0.055 per litre.
Coverage of gas prices on Globalnews.ca:
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The increases mean that the average driver will pay over $55 per year in gas taxes alone.
“It’s a big price for people to pay to get back and forth to work,” said one driver who spoke to Global News.
The gas tax went up so that the Victoria Regional Transit Commission could pay for infrastructure and service improvements.
“That two cents will increase our revenue by about $7 million per year,” said commission chair Susan Brice.
“Those dollars will allow us to improve service.”
“That’s our goal, to make transit better, to make it more reliable, to make it more frequent. Plus we’ve got a number of capital projects as well.”
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This increase to the gas tax marks the first in the Victoria region since 2008.
It’s tough on drivers, but transit users say improvements are necessary.
“The only way they’ll get people out of cars is by having a better transit system,” said one person.
These prices could certainly help to drive that decision.