MtnBiker
Senior Member
Higher SUV sticker fee would affect 33 models
November 13, 2003
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter Advertisement
Thirty-three models of sport-utility vehicles tip the scales at 4,500 pounds or more and will be required to pay the $90 city sticker fee included in Mayor Daley's hard-times budget for 2004.
They range from the 4,504-pound Acura MDX, the 4,585-pound Lexus GX 470 and the 4,612-pound Chevy TrailBlazer to the 6,400-pound Hummer H2, 7,154-pound Hummer H1 and 7,688-pound Ford Excursion.
City Clerk James Laski released the evolving list of SUV heavyweights that will be hit with the 20 percent increase -- from $75 to $90 -- as influential aldermen acknowledged that the Daley administration's rationale for targeting the SUVs is bogus.
For the last month, budget director Bill Abolt has argued that SUVs should be required to pay more to erase a deficit in the fund used to repair city streets because "heavier vehicles place more wear and tear on the roads."
Earlier this week, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that engineering and transportation experts were poking holes in that argument.
They insisted that roads are typically designed for heavy trucks that weigh "at least double" if not 10 times what an SUV does. They argued that there is virtually no difference between the road damage caused by SUVs and passenger cars.
"If they're going to use an argument, they should use a rational argument. That one doesn't hold water," said Sidney Guralnick, a professor of civil and architectural engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) acknowledged Wednesday that the decision to sock it to SUV owners was more about money than road damage.
"You go to the car wash now, if you have an SUV, they charge you more than for a sedan," Burke said. The weight of the vehicle is nothing more than "a factor that permits us to hook into a way to get a higher fee," he said.
Burke noted that the make and model list would be the bible for enforcement purposes because "I don't imagine there's gonna be somebody rolling around with a scale" to weigh vehicles.
Rules Committee Chairman Richard Mell (33rd), who drives an SUV, said he'd love to vote against the $90 sticker fee, but he's willing to swallow it if it's part of the mayor's overall $50.5 million tax package.
"What we're doing, obviously, is trying to solve the tax problems in our city by finding little glitches where we can add a little bit more money, instead of having people sit down and look at the whole package of how you devise enough money to run the state and the city," Mell said.
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November 13, 2003
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter Advertisement
Thirty-three models of sport-utility vehicles tip the scales at 4,500 pounds or more and will be required to pay the $90 city sticker fee included in Mayor Daley's hard-times budget for 2004.
They range from the 4,504-pound Acura MDX, the 4,585-pound Lexus GX 470 and the 4,612-pound Chevy TrailBlazer to the 6,400-pound Hummer H2, 7,154-pound Hummer H1 and 7,688-pound Ford Excursion.
City Clerk James Laski released the evolving list of SUV heavyweights that will be hit with the 20 percent increase -- from $75 to $90 -- as influential aldermen acknowledged that the Daley administration's rationale for targeting the SUVs is bogus.
For the last month, budget director Bill Abolt has argued that SUVs should be required to pay more to erase a deficit in the fund used to repair city streets because "heavier vehicles place more wear and tear on the roads."
Earlier this week, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that engineering and transportation experts were poking holes in that argument.
They insisted that roads are typically designed for heavy trucks that weigh "at least double" if not 10 times what an SUV does. They argued that there is virtually no difference between the road damage caused by SUVs and passenger cars.
"If they're going to use an argument, they should use a rational argument. That one doesn't hold water," said Sidney Guralnick, a professor of civil and architectural engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) acknowledged Wednesday that the decision to sock it to SUV owners was more about money than road damage.
"You go to the car wash now, if you have an SUV, they charge you more than for a sedan," Burke said. The weight of the vehicle is nothing more than "a factor that permits us to hook into a way to get a higher fee," he said.
Burke noted that the make and model list would be the bible for enforcement purposes because "I don't imagine there's gonna be somebody rolling around with a scale" to weigh vehicles.
Rules Committee Chairman Richard Mell (33rd), who drives an SUV, said he'd love to vote against the $90 sticker fee, but he's willing to swallow it if it's part of the mayor's overall $50.5 million tax package.
"What we're doing, obviously, is trying to solve the tax problems in our city by finding little glitches where we can add a little bit more money, instead of having people sit down and look at the whole package of how you devise enough money to run the state and the city," Mell said.
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