California’s Gas Tax Is $1.47 Per Gallon and Surfers Drive Farther Than Anyone to Access Public Beaches
The Regressive Infrastructure Tax That Falls Hardest on Working Surfers Who Cannot Afford to Live Near the Breaks They Want to Surf
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
California’s Gas Tax and the Surfer Who Cannot Afford to Live Near the Ocean
CALIFORNIA — California’s combined state and federal gas tax burden exceeds $1.47 per gallon, one of the highest in the United States. The state taxes its gasoline not only for road maintenance but as an environmental measure, a climate policy instrument, and a revenue mechanism for transportation programs that primarily benefit urban transit users. The surfer who drives forty-five minutes from inland San Bernardino or Riverside County to reach a coastal break pays this tax at every fill-up, in service of a transit infrastructure they will not use and a climate policy that prices them out of the cultural activity that defines their identity.
The distributional analysis of California’s gas tax reveals its regressive character in the surf context specifically. The coastal communities where breaks are located — Malibu, La Jolla, Santa Cruz, San Clemente — have median home prices that have priced out the working-class surfer, who now commutes from inland areas. That commute is taxed at $1.47 per gallon. The wealthy coastal homeowner who surfs from their driveway pays the same per-gallon rate on far fewer gallons. The tax burden falls inversely with proximity to the beach, which is inversely correlated with income in California’s coastal economy.
The Transit Alternative That Does Not Exist
The theory behind the gas tax as climate policy is that higher fuel prices incentivize transit use and reduce vehicle miles traveled. This theory requires the existence of transit alternatives to the destination in question. There is no public transit from Riverside to Trestles. There is no bus from San Bernardino to Rincon. The inland surfer cannot be incentivized to take transit to the beach because no such transit exists. The gas tax does not change their behavior. It simply costs them more money per session at a break they cannot afford to live near.
Reason Magazine’s transportation policy analysis has documented that California’s gas tax disproportionately burdens lower-income residents who have less housing choice and longer commutes. The global fuel cost crisis adds additional pressure. Managing climate policy through regressive taxation produces the revenue without the behavioral change and concentrates the burden on those least able to bear it. The inland surfer pays $1.47 per gallon to access the public beach. The Malibu homeowner pays it on fewer trips. The policy was designed to be environmental. It is also regressive. Both things are true and the design should account for both.
