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Floridians are driving less and buying more fuel efficient vehicles… which may sound great to environmentalists, but its’ creating a problem for the Florida Department of Transportation. As Whitney Ray tells us, the trend is depriving the state of millions of gas taxes used to build and repair roads, so to make up the difference more tolls may be in Florida’s future.

Jaycee Oliver used to fill up twice a month… that’s before he bought this new Ford Focus… which gets 30 miles per gallon.

“I fill up once a month,” said Jaycee.

Some students are getting even better gas mileage, trading in their cars for scooters.

“Four dollars a tank and it gets me by for two weeks,” said Robert Chedester.

“I don’t really look at gas prices I just pull up and get the 93 octane,” said Brandon Villaverde.

While this is good news for the environment, it’s creating problems for the state which relies on the gas tax to build and repair roads.

Drivers in Florida pay about 50 cents in tax on every gallon of gas. Next year the amount collected is expected to drop by 93 million dollars. By 2020 the state will have lost a total of 5.1 billion dollars because of fuel efficient vehicles.

Department of Transportation Secretary Ananth Prasad is asking lawmakers to approve tolls for all new state roads.

“Not all of these projects will be toll feasible per se but anything we can do there will help to maintain our great infrastructure that we have currently,” said Prasad.

But transportation experts say tolls alone can’t fill the pothole left by more fuel efficient vehicles. Pay by the mile plans are being explored nationwide.

One plan to make up for the declining gas tax collections would have involved a gps system in every car to track miles. The driver would then pay a tax on every mile driven when the gps data was uploaded at the gas pump. The idea was quickly shot down, because drivers its big brother overtones.