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Are Your Taxes Paying for the Cost of Your Street?

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Re: Are Your Taxes Paying for the Cost of Your Street?

#151

Post by MagnumOpus »

Wile_E_Quixote wrote: post #100

I'm guessing this partially depends on region, and is of course partially dependent on both, but what is the primary factor limiting the lifespan of road surfaces: usage or weather (rain, snow, winter salt, etc.)? Certainly, there are some types of city infrastructure that deteriorate less from usage and more so from exposure to the elements over time (telephone poles, bridges, drainage systems). It seems that increa…

Pros of asphalt:

- Upfront cost is lower

- Cold-resistance: Preferred in cold climates as it’s less likely to crack and snow removal is easier.

- Aesthetics: Because of its dark color it won’t show stains easily

- Repair: Patching is easy as it can be repaired or re-layered and does not need to be replaced.

Re: Are Your Taxes Paying for the Cost of Your Street?

#152

Post by rubber_duck »

chrismcb wrote: post #145
mabbo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, so long as you're willing to pay for your infrastructure. Low-density suburbs with full utilities, storm sewer, etc, must have it's cost paid for by those who choose to live that lifestyle. Those of us living 27 stories up are more efficient and shouldn't have to pay for your roads.

Because you grow crops on the roof, weave cotton in the basement, and build for furniture on another for? Roads are used for more than moving people around, they also move good around,which almost everyone partakes.

>Because you grow crops on the roof, weave cotton in the basement, and build for furniture on another for?

There's this thing that lets you present those expenses to consumers - it's called pricing.

You have to pay more for road maintenance - you raise prices to cover it - I now see the actual cost of your product instead of it being subsidized by my tax money regardless of using them.

Re: Are Your Taxes Paying for the Cost of Your Street?

#153

Post by NLips »

HighPlainsDrftr wrote: post #37

I've always wondered why we pave our streets to begin with. Yes, I know that dirt and gravel kick up alot of dust, but the expense of the street itself seems a bit extreme as well. I can't think of how many times I've seen a new street go in, and just a few weeks later they cut it up and dig up a water line to replace it. There has to be a better material besides concrete or asphalt that would provide similar benefit…

It sounds like you're suggesting there could be gaps in the middle of the lane, so only the area the tyre uses is paved, but that's surely missing the bigger picture:

80' is 7 or 8 lanes for highway traffic! Why is the road so wide?

Re: Are Your Taxes Paying for the Cost of Your Street?

#154

Post by ptaipale »

morgante wrote: post #137
HighPlainsDrftr wrote: post #37

I've always wondered why we pave our streets to begin with. Yes, I know that dirt and gravel kick up alot of dust, but the expense of the street itself seems a bit extreme as well. I can't think of how many times I've seen a new street go in, and just a few weeks later they cut it up and dig up a water line to replace it. There has to be a better material besides concrete or asphalt that would provide similar benefit…

I grew up in a rural area with its fair share of dirt/gravel roads. Vehicles definitely see a lot more wear from driving on dirt roads (beyond the superficial constant dust covering). I expect that the cost of pavement is less than the cost of additional maintenance for all the road's users. (This also explains why it makes sense to leave some dirt roads in very rural areas.)

This depends on amount of traffic, and conditions.

I live in Finland where the population decline in some rural areas has lead to it being economical to remove paving from roads. With not much traffic - but the road still being essential for local economy, e.g. timber transport - it's cheaper to maintain a dirt road than a paving.

Part of this is due to local climate - in the winter the frost goes a meter deep in the ground, so maintaining paving means an occasional re-build every few decades, putting under the tarmac a deep layer of material that passes water through quickly. With dirt roads, you don't need to, you just level it, which is quick and cheap.

Re: Are Your Taxes Paying for the Cost of Your Street?

#155

Post by ptaipale »

graeme wrote: post #143
burfog wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes these things get too extreme, but they do have valid reasons. Zoning should be obvious. Do you mind if I build a solid rocket factory next to your house, complete with test stand and storage of enough ammonium perchlorate to register on the Richter scale if it goes boom? (see the PEPCON disaster, which was 3 to 3.5 on the Richter scale) Setbacks, minimum lot sizes, and maximum units per lot are needed for d…

If this is true, why do cities built precar work? I live in a neighbourhood in montreal where: * There are no rocket factories, yet * There are some setbacks but not massive ones. They're half the size of a comparable neighbourhood in Toronto. We don't flood. * Nobody's view is blocked * Most people walk, rather than drive. There's not excessive car circulation compared to other neighborhoods. * People are significan…

>If this is true, why do cities built precar work?

A partial answer is that they have used zoning to externalize many of the services and production needed by the area built pre-car to areas built post-car. You don't have rocket factories in downtown Montreal precisely because zoning has created a more effective area for them somewhere else.

But most of your food, energy, and all things you use, all the physical goods come from somewhere else. And if people are like here, they whine about the transport of food to their local store when it's done by a van or something because they don't want vans, they just want food.

Anyway, it's telling that in many cities, some of the most desirable areas couldn't be built today due to construction and other codes. Not just parking, but also things like fire safety, energy efficiency and access for disabled people. Over here (Helsinki region), tiny downtown apartments are very fashionable but building them is absolute no-no, because

1) in an attempt to increase quality of housing stock, its forbidden to build apartments smaller than 20 m2, and a certain proportion must be over 75 m2 (or whatever, depends on zoning area)

2) in an attempt to give better access to handicapped people, every apartment must have a bathroom with floor space big enough to dance a waltz in a wheelchair; likewise, access only via stairs (typical in old, fashionable and popular sites) is not allowed

3) ratios of window form factor and apartment depth are specified in code

4) every apartment needs to provide bomb shelter capacity for residents

5) for fire safety, it must be possible to drive up a fire truck with ladder/crane and lift out any people from every apartment via windows/balconies

6) modern energy saving and health requirements mandate electronically guided ventilation which makes re-construction of "old" style houses unfeasible

etc.

The parking norms get most attention, because cars are a convenient target, but there are also many other things that are simply making old-style neighbourhoods impossible.

Re: Are Your Taxes Paying for the Cost of Your Street?

#156

Post by stretchwithme »

I don't think zoning and the other minimum requirements are the issue. It's the fact that the longterm costs of sprawl aren't going to be born by the individual, so the individual doesn't consider them.

If the country decides to fight a war that adds another $5K in debt per citizen, most people are oblivious to that.

But if they told you your share for the war will be an extra $100 a month for the next 5 years, you might pay more attention.

By the way, the average taxpayer's share of the national debt is now $161K.

Re: Are Your Taxes Paying for the Cost of Your Street?

#157

Post by twoodfin »

eru wrote: post #141
twoodfin wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They earned a promise from the government. That's not the same thing as earning the money, as many state and municipal employees will doubtless discover over the next few decades.

Yes. The government should have been made to put that money aside when they promised it. (Or at least to keep the commitment honestly on their books, instead of hiding it.)

What you're describing is a defined-contribution pension plan (like a 401(k) or an IRA) rather than a defined-benefit pension plan.

As I understand it, public employee unions have not been big fans of defined-contribution, preferring the more generous promises. That is a risk that both the union and the government take together.

Re: Are Your Taxes Paying for the Cost of Your Street?

#158

Post by dionidium »

jws wrote: post #85
dionidium wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if the evil sprawlsters are subsidizing the older roads...so what? The evil sprawlsters can afford it. I think you (and probably the author) have got this exactly backwards. Sprawl creates blight when the rate of building outpaces the needs of population growth. The evil sprawlsters are creating new costs, but they aren't subsidizing old roads. The sprawl usually happens outside of long-ago drawn city borders, any…

St. Louis City also has a problem with its beloved "earnings tax". At one point as our office space lease renewal was approaching I plotted all of our 100+ employees at the time on a map, almost all software engineers, about 2/3 of them lived west of the city and 1/3 lived east, and only a single one lived in the city, and he was in a temporary apartment immediately post divorce, didn't get the house. To me that says…

You need to think bigger than the earnings tax (or any any particular difference between the City and the County). That's too narrow a lens through which to see what's really going on.

St. Louis as a region has a problem with the sort of divisions that allowed you to avoid the earnings tax by locating outside of city limits that were myopically drawn in 1876.

---

(But, if I must comment on the earnings tax -- and I really can't help myself -- I'll simply say that a 1% tax is not enough to dissuade a professional earning a professional's income from living where they truly want to live or working where they truly want to work. To the extent that a 1% tax actually is a deal-breaker, it's a symptom of a much larger disease.)

Re: Are Your Taxes Paying for the Cost of Your Street?

#159

Post by tamana »

chrismcb wrote: post #145
mabbo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, so long as you're willing to pay for your infrastructure. Low-density suburbs with full utilities, storm sewer, etc, must have it's cost paid for by those who choose to live that lifestyle. Those of us living 27 stories up are more efficient and shouldn't have to pay for your roads.

Because you grow crops on the roof, weave cotton in the basement, and build for furniture on another for? Roads are used for more than moving people around, they also move good around,which almost everyone partakes.

What percent of highway traffic is delivery trucks? The trucks need 1 or 2 lanes, not 8.

Re: Are Your Taxes Paying for the Cost of Your Street?

#160

Post by MiddleEndian »

ecopoesis wrote: post #78
rayiner wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that some of the most charming neighborhoods in the country (e.g. Chelsea in New York, DuPont in D.C.) were built before all that crap. You'd never build a "modern city" like Philadelphia, with its narrow one-way streets, lack of parking, and commercial and retail mish-mashed together. But most of the rest of the country feels dead in comparison.

Some places are building this. Assembly Row in Somerville is a prime example. Usually it's called transit oriented planning.

I honestly don't get the appeal of Assembly Row. It reminds me of Bellevue, WA or the new developments in northern Virginia. Sprawling parking lots and boring outlets. Not really what I want the Boston area to become.
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