Car and truck owners can expect to see vehicle registration fees go up 66 percent between now and 2011, and many motorists are not happy about paying more amid a recession.

The City Council last week approved raising the vehicle weight tax for passenger vehicles from 3 cents per pound to 4 cents a pound effective Jan. 1, 2010. It will go to 5 cents per pound on Jan 1, 2011. Many truck owners pay an additional 0.5 cents per pound.

The weight tax is part of a $1.8 billion operating budget adopted by the City Council last week that includes an increase in property taxes and several fees. Mayor Mufi Hannemann, whose administration proposed the weight tax hike, is expected to sign the measure into law in the coming weeks.

That means by 2011, the city weight tax will have gone up roughly four times in 16 years. The weight tax is only one of five components that make up the vehicle registration fee that car owners pay each year to get a new sticker for their license plate.

The council last week also approved an increase to the beautification fee, another section of the vehicle registration, from $5 to $6 come Sept. 1, and to $7 on July 1, 2010.

O'ahu motorists are not amused.

Palolo resident Stephanie Gaea, who is pregnant, recently bought a Yukon Denali, an SUV made by GMC, for her growing family.

Gaea, 30, said she was thinking of quitting her job with HECO to care for her new infant, but the tax increases are making her reconsider. "I guess I won't be staying home with my baby," she said.

"That's too high," said Joseph Duhaylonsod, 29, an emergency medical technician who owns a Toyota Tundra.

"The tax shouldn't be based on weight," said Duhaylonsod, of Kapolei. "I guess it'll make you second-guess getting a truck, even if you need one."

"That's ridiculous!" said Summer Baring, 29, a Kalihi housewife with a mid-sized Nissan pickup truck. "Everything keeps going up ... it's so upsetting."

Baring said she's also unhappy about the beautification fee hike.

"All these cars on O'ahu, $5 per car, and we still have crappy roads," she said. "I don't think it's right ... but that's the price you pay to live in paradise, I guess."

Owners of commercial trucks or private trucks over 6,500 pounds now pay 3.5 cents per pound, and they will see 1-cent increases in 2010 and 2011.

Garet Sakakida, managing director for the Hawaii Transportation Association that represents truck and bus companies, said his member companies are hurting in a bad economy as it is.

Those who use many heavier vehicles, like bus companies and moving firms, will be especially hit hard. The typical delivery truck can weigh 15,000 pounds to 20,000 pounds, he said, and it would be charged the extra 0.5 cents.

"Even if we had the same rate, we would be paying more because of the heavier weight," he said. "But the rate is higher for commercial vehicles so it's a double-whamny on us."

State law says vehicle weight tax collections go to the highway fund accounts of each respective county.

They can be used to pay for, among other things, "the acquisition, designing, construction, improvement, repair and maintenance of public roads and highways."

Additionally, weight tax collections pay for street- light installation, maintenance and repair, traffic control functions and any other safety-related improvements.

The law also allows for funds to go to bikeways and "purposes and functions connected with mass transit."

City law says a portion of beautification fees collected must go to the highway fund. The rest pays for the removal of abandoned and derelict vehicles.

The fee is one of a variety of ways the city is trying to retain current levels of city services and avoid layoffs of employees in the face of falling property taxes and other declining revenues.