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The Hawaii Department of Transportation recently announced a statewide deferment of new highway projects, some of them for the next 20 years.

Rather than taking on new projects, they department is going to focus on maintaining the existing inventory of roads.

This decision should concern everyone, especially if you’re frustrated by the traffic gridlock on Oahu.

These project deferments are a result of HDOT’s failure to secure additional state funding for system preservation in the recently completed legislative session. The failure of this legislation was due in part to a misconception about how much funding HDOT has available.

HDOT has about $540 million in federal highway funds still in its queue. I’ve noticed some members of the public seem to believe these are freely available funds at the HDOT’s disposal. But to use them, HDOT has to come up with a 20 percent local match.

The latter is the root of the problem as I see it. There aren’t enough funds to come up with the local match and maintain the existing inventory of roads.

HDOT has about $540 million in federal highway funds still in its queue. But to use them, HDOT has to come up with a 20 percent local match.

This is why HDOT has to reevaluate how they fund projects. Their current plan is to significantly increase vehicle registration and weight taxes. This isn’t a wise approach. For example, the cost to register my vehicle has increased 80 percent over 11 years, just as it has for many car owners. HDOT needs to take a more balanced approach to address its funding woes.

The department should explore implementing a vehicle mileage tax on electric/hybrid vehicles. This could be fairer way to capture lost fuel tax monies from these vehicles. The vehicle weight tax in its current form should be scrapped and replaced with a vehicle value tax, like California.

In addition, the current fuel tax should be increased, as this would be the fairest way to obtain additional funds. The financial pain would be spread out over a year’s time instead of getting a large car registration fee bill at the end of each year.

The Legislature and HDOT need to address these issues next session instead of kicking the bucket down the road. Twenty years is too long to wait to create desperately needed new capacity on Hawaii highways.