While I agree overall with the editorial “After years of penny pinching, let’s fully refuel our transit system,” I felt compelled to respond to this paragraph: “As more electric cars and propane-fueled trucks, which don’t use gasoline, drive on our roads, the state will have to find a way to ensure they, too, contribute to upkeep of the transportation grid. They drive those same roads and create the same potholes.”

This logic may seem sound, since electric cars do indeed drive on the same roads and use the same infrastructure. But this view ignores the nuances. First, electric cars (EVs) are still a tiny fraction of all cars in Illinois: only 0.89 percent, according to the latest numbers. Levying a fee on EVs now will provide little revenue, but would be a disincentive to drivers who want to switch to electricity, which benefits Illinois in many ways.

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An electric car produces dramatically less greenhouse gas pollution than any car powered by gasoline. Greenhouse gases contribute to climate change which, by mid-century, is predicted to contribute to deadly heatwaves across Illinois and the rest of the Midwest that may damage the state’s economy and cause deaths. EVs also produce no tailpipe emissions and thus do not emit particulate matter, which increases the risk of asthma and other respiratory diseases that especially hurt lower-income communities.

It’s possible that the positive effects of switching to EVs far outweigh whatever revenue the state would gain from taxing less than 1 percent of its cars.

In states that have enacted special fees for electric cars, such fees have turned out to be punitive and far higher than the tax the state would levy on a gasoline car. Illinois already offers next to no incentives to switch to electric cars. Instead of erecting additional financial barriers, Illinois should join the ranks of states that are working to promote EVs. Eventually, when the share of electric cars crosses a critical threshold (perhaps at least 10 percent), our lawmakers should think of the best way to get drivers of EVs to contribute their share to maintain our roads.

I hope I have inspired some productive discussion about how we can balance the need to repair our roads with the need to save ourselves from the worst of environmental disasters.

Anton Melnikov, Ravenswood

Ranked-choice voting for mayor

With the large number of candidates in Chicago’s upcoming mayoral election, many voters will not vote for their preferred candidate, if they feel that the candidate has little chance of landing in one of the top two positions and take them to the runoff.

Given this large number of candidates, it would make sense for Chicago to adopt the ranked-choice ballot used in Maine. Voters would list the candidates in their order of preference, so that if no candidate gets over 50 percent of the vote, those whose first choice was the candidate with the least number of votes would have their vote transferred to their second choice. If no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote, in that next round, then the lowest vote-getter is off the ballot, and those whose vote went for that candidate would go to the one next in their order of preference. This would continue until one candidate would have over 50 percent of the vote.

Larry E. Nazimek, Logan Square