In collaboration with SANDAG and The County of San Diego, UC San Diego, and The School of Global Policy and Strategy held a policy competition “Hackathon” in which students had 12hrs to come up with the most coherent and presentable strategic recommendation on the subject of Road Usage Taxation. 

My report won first place. I suggested decoupling conventional thinking of Road Usage Charge as the solution to Gas Tax as I took a long-term VMT reduction strategy in mind. Instead I proposed the implementation of Highway toll meters as the optimal Road Usage strategy. 

The rationale behind my recommendation can be found in the report above. However, my policy focus was creating a tangible, attainable, and feasible economic policy strategy that benefits the stakeholder (SANDAG) while acting as a Pigouvian tax, reducing negative externalities. Thus along with my recommendation for what SANDAG should do, I also laid the foundation for how a potential pilot program should look like, where it could focus on as a case study, and the financial ramifications. 

All geospatial analysis done in QGIS. Report layout and presentation done in Adobe InDesign.