Minister: "We need to take up the tax"

Groucho: "I'd like to take up the carpet."

Minister: "I still insist we take up the tax."

Groucho: "He's right - you've gotta take up the tacks before you can take up the carpet."

10/30/2013 11:59:16 AM

Quote :

"The idea behind taxing diesel is that it’s used by all trucks, but few passenger cars. That way, trucks still pay their fair share, in accordance with how much time they spend on the road — and they’re not hit with large fees they must pay up front."

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-diesel-costs-more-than-gasoline-2013-10

Gas consumption isn't a sufficient proxy for road damage? Any who says that much absolutely hate Reagan.

11/5/2013 10:11:02 AM

I think the small vs large vehicle component of this is a bit misguided.

It is true that passenger vehicles have virtually no impact on pavement design/life span/etc. In fact, pavement design is based on semi-trucks almost exclusively (speaking of highways). So from that aspect, passenger vehicles contribute very little to the cost of transportation infrastructure, while semi-trucks contribute almost all. Even large pick-up trucks contribute very little, so no need to single those out.

However, what I think some people fail to consider is that passenger vehicles contribute heavily to the capacity demand of a roadway, most notably, the number of lanes/road widening/etc.

Both semi-trucks and passenger vehicles place demands on locations/destinations of roadways.

In conclusion, it is a bit foolish to assign a heavy cost to semi-trucks/diesel fuel because they do the most damage, while ignoring passenger vehicles. One must also consider the impact of passenger vehicles on the capacity and destinations of roads.

I don't care for government tracking. I think fuel taxes still work best for funding transportation needs, especially with a tiered system: since there are many more passenger vehicles than semi-trucks, regular fuels can be taxed at a lower rate, yet high enough to account for costs associated with their demands, while diesel is taxed at a higher rate to account for road damage by semi-trucks (major cost) and the far fewer number of these trucks on the road.

11/5/2013 2:33:37 PM

Again, fuel taxes and either personal property taxes or registration fees based on mileage driven to supplement. I think it's also much more efficient as the infrastructure for enforcing it is already in place, and you don't deal with the privacy concerns and sheer system complexity of trying to geographically track millions of vehicles.

11/5/2013 3:49:54 PM

Quote :

"However, what I think some people fail to consider is that passenger vehicles contribute heavily to the capacity demand of a roadway, most notably, the number of lanes/road widening/etc."

And now you're getting into congestion pricing.

The amount of new large roads being built has declined significantly. This is what I mean:



Cities have sprawled a great deal, and economic growth no longer comes with extra road mileage. Congestion can theoretically hit hitting a tipping point that basically makes it impossible to get anywhere.

But if you don't drive at the very most congested time, then the marginal cost to the taxpayer is almost nothing.

This kind of market isn't unheard of. It's quite common. You need capacity that you get from capital investment. You have to remain over-capacity at all times, and marginal cost is very little. We've seen it with cell phone towers, we've seen it with the electric grid. Actually, the electric grid doesn't even compare. You can build cheap power plants with inferior efficiency. Not so for roads.

You can simply have a rolling market price. That does solve the problem. The only question is if any reasonable standard of life can be maintained. Many employers already implement staggered times for their workers to come in, as a response to pressure from the city. With congestion pricing, we would be doing that sort of thing, and much much worse.

There are a lot of concerns for the poor. If you have to work a shift at McDonalds, but the roads are congested, you might have a choice between a fee equal to a day's wages or not show up for work.

The point of transportation is freedom to move places. The point of automobile transportation is that freedom with full time flexibility. Congestion pricing is saying, "hey, I know how to solve our problem, take the freedom away!"

Sure, the rich won't give up any freedom. But that erodes the mandate of eminent domain. We permit certain practices in building our infrastructure because it serves us all. Congestion pricing is to throw that all away and discriminate on price.

11/5/2013 4:35:13 PM

Its a great idea; we need the revenue obviously.

11/5/2013 4:44:15 PM

But mrfrog, the revenue is clearly needed. I think it is better to tax congestion, which the poor can get out of paying entirely by changing their shift times, or tax gasoline, which it seems only the rich are able to get out of paying by going electric.

11/6/2013 10:59:30 AM

I can't tell if "we need the revenue" is some kind of sarcastic Republican meme or not.

11/6/2013 12:00:49 PM

Hmm...society must pay for roads. As such, revenue is necessary. we have currently decided to pay for it by taxing everyone whenever they use gasoline. I think it would be nice to shift that to be a bit less regressive. I don't see what team coke/team pepsi has to do with it.

11/6/2013 1:04:31 PM

I think all the solutions proposed so far are more regressive than the current system.

11/6/2013 2:37:47 PM

Is public road mileage in that above graph strictly road mileage; or is it lane mileage, accounting for road width... ie, will two lanes in each direction count double the mileage as a one lane each direction?

11/6/2013 10:35:13 PM

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/pubs/hf/pl11028/chapter1.cfm

It seems to be lane miles. If they were counting "centerline" miles, then it would be almost flat.



In fact, it seems clear that the length of roads in general has increased less than 25% since 1923. So much for the idea that we need to "build new roads".

[Edited on November 7, 2013 at 11:11 AM. Reason : ]

EDIT:

eergh, no wait

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2008/vmt421.cfm

It might be centerline miles in the previous graph. Can't really tell the difference, because the bottom of the y-axis is set to a weird value. Not to mention, this is done against a secondary y-axis which is scaled to zero.

[Edited on November 7, 2013 at 11:16 AM. Reason : ]

11/7/2013 11:11:23 AM

Whatever the history, we need to build more roads.

11/8/2013 12:18:13 PM

Quote :

"the poor can get out of paying entirely by changing their shift times"

Wait. Are you saying that lowered skilled jobs have more flexible hours?

11/8/2013 12:33:46 PM

^yeah I don't really follow that either.

11/8/2013 2:27:57 PM

more flexible than what? A rubber band?

Point is they have more incentive to avoid costs which are a larger portion of their income.

As such, low-skill employers which offer shift times which allow their employees to avoid such massive costs will find it easier to hire and keep employees at lower wages.

11/8/2013 3:37:15 PM

you still aren't making sense

11/8/2013 4:12:30 PM

Someone will put forth more effort to avoid an expense that is 10% of their income than someone else will avoid that same expense if it only constitutes 1% of their income.

11/8/2013 4:18:44 PM

how can poor people avoid congestion taxes? not all, or most, poor people can work off-peak hours. most low-wage jobs occur during regular hours.

11/8/2013 4:25:12 PM

Many low-wage employers are already switching to a 25 hour week to avoid the ACA, producing fairly non-standard work shifts. Certainly the morning shift will fight traffic and pay the congestion pricing. but the later shifts won't.

11/8/2013 4:46:17 PM

^ which is fine, if that employer is able to handle the lower quality work from having lesser paid shorter hours employees.

11/8/2013 4:59:38 PM

Its a small percentage that can do that, proposing it as a solution doesn't make sense

11/8/2013 5:42:22 PM

Who are these magical low income people switching to 25 hour weeks bc of the ACA?

I call bs.

11/8/2013 6:20:39 PM

Magical Negroes?

11/8/2013 6:47:26 PM

I'm ok with this

11/8/2013 7:54:14 PM

You would be ok with this

11/8/2013 8:24:45 PM

Quote :

"The service industry generally does not operate 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, so its labor needs do not match traditional full-time shifts. Those of us who run service companies already have to piece together multiple employees and shifts to cover our operating hours. In this environment, there is no reason one can’t stitch together employees making 29 hours a week (that don’t have to be given expensive health care policies) nearly as easily as one can stitch together 40 hours a week employees. In fact, it can be easier — a store that needs to cover 10AM to 9PM can cover with two 5.5 hour a day employees. If they work 5 days a week, that is 27.5 hours a week, safely part-time. Three people working such hours with staggered days off can cover the store’s hours for 7 days. Based on the numbers above, a store might actually prefer to only have sub-30 hour shifts, but may have, until recently, provided full-time 40 hours work because good employees expect it and other employers were offering it. In other words, they had to offer full-time work because competition in the labor market demanded it. But if everyone in the service business stops offering full-time work, the competitive pressure to offer anything but part-time jobs will be gone. The service business may never go back."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenmeyer/2013/04/17/the-end-of-full-time-work-in-the-american-retail-service-sector/

11/10/2013 5:18:42 PM

we dont need the extra revenue, then

11/10/2013 10:27:23 PM