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Comprehensive Plan Transportation Element an Energy Conservation Area. That area is depicted on Map 2.34 in the Land Use Element of the Indian River County Comprehensive Plan. Transportation Costs and Revenue An analysis of transportation funding in Indian River County reveals a number of trends. The most significant trend is the decline in the share of gas tax, a user -based tax, as a source of funding roadway improvement projects. While total gas tax receipts in the county have increased due to a larger overall population and a trend toward less fuel-efficient vehicles, gas taxes at all levels are effectively yielding less revenue when adjusted for inflation. While other revenue sources, such as impact fees and the 1 -cent local option sales tax, have resulted in a large amount of additional transportation revenue for the county, there are a number of problems associated with these sources as well. For example, each of these sources is highly dependent on local economic conditions. Since there is so much variation in revenue from year to year, this impacts the ability of the county to make long range capital improvement plans. In addition, recent research indicates that neither of these approaches assesses transportation charges directly to consumption of transportation resources by current users. Therefore, neither of these sources encourages efficient trip making decisions by individual drivers. In recent years, the gap between the gas tax and long range transportation plan highway construction costs has been steadily widening. When external costs, such as the cost of pollution, lost productivity due to congestion, and traffic enforcement, are added, user charges constitute an even smaller share of actual costs. Increasingly, additional fees and policies targeted at users are being proposed around the country, with some practices targeting congestion -inducing behavior, such as single -occupant vehicle travel and peak hour travel. Some of these practices and their applicability to Indian River County are discussed below. • Gas Tax Gas taxes and tolls constitute the two major revenue sources directly tied to consumption of the transportation system that are available to counties in the state of Florida. When the Indian River County gas tax is compared to other counties in the state, it is evident that motorists in Indian River County pay a lower share of transportation system construction and operation costs than do motorists in most other counties. The reasons for that are that Indian River County has no toll roads and that Indian River County imposes lower local option gas taxes than most other counties. Of the state's 27 urbanized counties, 24, including several neighboring counties (St. Lucie, Martin, and Okeechobee), impose a higher local option gas tax than Indian River County. Imposing all of the remaining local option gas tax remains a viable strategy for raising transportation revenue and passing those costs to the actual users of the system and should be implemented as soon as practical. • Congestion Pricing Congestion pricing takes a variety of forms, and new technologies are making congestion pricing even more viable. In some large cities, travelers must pay a special daily fee to drive in the most Community Development Department Indian River County 119