Jay Height: Potholes are a tax on the poor. Indy needs to fix its streets.

Indianapolis’ pothole-riddled streets are much more than an inconvenience and annoyance for my neighbors who live in poverty.

The cost to replace a vehicle’s blown tire or bent rim, the result of a close encounter with one of Indy’s signature craters, is a tax on the poor.

It’s also an emergency expense inflicted on people who can least afford it.

Those unexpected repair costs force hard choices about whether to miss meals, to fall behind on utility payments or to take on more debt.

So, as our city leaders consider a plan to increase the local wheel tax and vehicle excise tax to help pay for road repairs, I hope they consider the high cost of failing to fix our streets.

None of us enjoys paying higher taxes. I certainly don’t. But repaving streets is both expensive and a recurring cost, and Indianapolis simply has not invested enough money in street repairs and maintenance to keep them at an acceptable level.

Our crumbling streets aren’t a new problem. I’ve called Indianapolis home for more than 30 years and have been dodging massive potholes for just as long.

Thankfully, we now have a financial solution available that could go a long way toward finally making our streets less rim rattling.

Republicans who control the Indiana General Assembly voted to allocate $50 million a year to repair and maintain Indianapolis’ streets. They also added a requirement that the city provide matching funds.

The City-County Council has until Dec. 31 to find $50 million in new local money to receive the state funds. The required amount of local funding increases each year before topping out at $100 million in 2031.

Democrats who control the council have proposed raising the excise tax to $100 for each passenger vehicle. Owners of trucks and buses that weigh more than 11,000 pounds would pay a wheel tax of $240 a year.

That’s a significant added cost for a company that operates a fleet of trucks. But the cost of doing nothing and losing out on $50 million a year in new money from the state would be even worse.

The proposed tax increases have drawn opposition, but as Democrats on the City-County Council have noted, there is not currently a credible alternative.

Republicans in the Statehouse and Democrats in City Hall are offering Indianapolis a way to raise as much as $150 million a year within five years to fix a problem that has plagued us for decades. We can’t waste that opportunity.

The council is scheduled to vote on the proposed tax increases on Monday. I hope for my neighbors’ sake that our city’s leaders come together to do what is necessary, despite the aversion many of us have to tax hikes.

An iconic TV commercial from my long-ago youth reminded us that delayed expenses often cost a whole lot more down the road. The adage that “you can pay me now or pay me later” is still true today.

I hope we have the courage and foresight now to finally repair what needed to be fixed in our city years ago.•

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Height is executive director of Shepherd Community Center in Indianapolis.