ATLANTA – With the number of new cases of COVID-19 in Georgia steadily declining, more Georgians are driving and traveling.

This encouraging trend is evident in the monthly tax collections reported by the state Department of Transportation.

The DOT raised $ 174 million in fuel tax revenue last month, state Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry told members of the State Transportation Board on Thursday. This represents an increase of 9.1% compared to September last year.

In the first quarter of the current fiscal year, the agency collected $ 558.4 million in fuel taxes, an increase of 9.4% from July, August and September 2020.

State tax revenues on gasoline and other fuels fell when the coronavirus pandemic first hit Georgia in March last year, but began to recover in August 2020.

Today, tax revenue is not only up from around the same time last year, but even surpassing pre-pandemic levels, McMurry said Thursday. In fact, the past three months have seen an increase in fuel revenues of $ 39.4 million compared to July, August and September 2019, well before the pandemic.

“People are out there,” McMurry said. “These are positive signs.

The state’s hotel-motel tax figures are even more dramatic, proof that people locked up during the pandemic have resumed their trips.

The DOT saw a 37.5% increase in hotel tax revenue last month compared to September of last year and a whopping 50.3% increase in tax revenue during the July, August and September quarters by compared to these same months during the previous fiscal year.

This story is available through a partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.