Things that are more inequitable than road pricing • Hacker News Board

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#221

Post by megy » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 2:51 AM UTC

chroma wrote: post #169

jacobolus wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Riding the train, subway, trolley, or bus and walking a couple blocks at each end is a heck of a lot “better” than sitting in traffic or driving 20 times around the block hunting for a parking space. Even moderately dense urban areas are inherently poor places for personal automobiles, whose infrastructure wastes tremendous amounts of space. The more neighborhoods are optimized for human-scale activity and pedestrian…

> Life in a place where all or nearly all trips can be made without needing to drive a car is very pleasant, especially for anyone who isn’t an able-bodied high-income adult. I've found the exact opposite to be true. Cars are great because they mean you'll never come in contact with crazy vagrants. For a few years I tried taking public transportation in the bay area, but I gave up because I had too many encounters wi…

40,000 people a year die in the US, because you are scared of a vagrant? Wow.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#222

Post by zaroth » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:06 AM UTC

anonuser123456 wrote: post #121

zaroth wrote: post #96

I agree with TFA’s premise, but some of the specific arguments present are faulty. Flat vehicle registration fees Excise tax is not flat, and sometimes a luxury tax on top even makes it progressive. These are registration fees paid to the town instead of the state. The storm sewer subsidy The complaint here is that pollution is contributed by commuters / travelers but cleanup is paid by locals. The travelers pollutin…

I disagree with this point: >The travelers polluting city storm water sewers are paying taxes in the city when they do business in the city, which is why they are using the roads. If there was no reason to come to the city, there would be a lot less stormwater pollution but also a lot less commerce and the city would be worse off. This is in effect a cross subsidy, making it hard to rationally price pollution. Usage…

People come to your city to do business there. If a lot of people do business in your city, a lot of people will be coming in and out of town every day.

Complaining that the people who come to your city to do business (spend their money) are poluting a bit with their cars while they are there, and the cost of that pollution is unfairly borne by city dwellers I think is bizarre, because the benefits of those people coming into the city and spending all that money (which generates jobs and tax revenue, etc.) accrues to the city.

The city is already being paid a very hefty return on the cost of cleaning up the pollution of people traveling into the city every day. The city would not want to discourage people from making the trip!

Maybe more succinctly, the polluter is already paying the city more than enough to cover the cost of cleaning up the car pollution, by nature of the money they are spending while they are in the city.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#223

Post by zaroth » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:14 AM UTC

reitzensteinm wrote: post #114

zaroth wrote: post #96

I agree with TFA’s premise, but some of the specific arguments present are faulty. Flat vehicle registration fees Excise tax is not flat, and sometimes a luxury tax on top even makes it progressive. These are registration fees paid to the town instead of the state. The storm sewer subsidy The complaint here is that pollution is contributed by commuters / travelers but cleanup is paid by locals. The travelers pollutin…

Converting a single gas car to a plug in hybrid has three times the impact of converting a hybrid to pure BEV, and the former is cheaper. All of the economies of scale you get from BEVs you get from hybrids. If every car were a hybrid, an immense amount of lithium batteries would be required, vastly more than we use today. It's hard to see the $7500 tax credit as little more than a gift to the rich, who can buy a Tes…

The credit applies to both PHEV and EVs. It’s based on the kWh capacity of the battery.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#224

Post by Johnny555 » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:18 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #146

gpm wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument against here that I find most compelling is that the externalities of you driving your car are so insanely huge that it should be priced into the range of ridiculousness. Things that you have to consider (The numbers attached are completely made up and probably off by multiple orders of magnitude in most cases, but are to make the point that you should be assigning costs to these things. Then you should…

When every subway stop has elevators, then we cannot talk. Until then, try transporting kids or groceries using the subway. When the sidewalks are cleared of construction scaffolding, bike share racks blocking sidewalks or crazy grown adults dressing like Spider-Man, or psychotic homeless harassing people, then maybe we can talk. As far as climate change; if NYC went to zero CO2, it wouldn’t make a single bit of diff…

try transporting kids or groceries using the subway.

When I lived in an area where I could commute by subway, I had a full service grocery store and several smaller specialty markets (a produce market, a butcher and a bakery) on my way home (well I had to get out one stop early to pass the butcher). I see plenty of parents with kids on the subway -- though none of them have the full-size strollers you see coming out of the backs of SUVs.

So instead of making one large shopping trip every week or two, I'd stop several times a week on my way home.

Though now I just buy groceries online and have them delivered, in the rare cases where I do want to go to the supermarket, I take my bike.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#225

Post by reitzensteinm » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:28 AM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #223

reitzensteinm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Converting a single gas car to a plug in hybrid has three times the impact of converting a hybrid to pure BEV, and the former is cheaper. All of the economies of scale you get from BEVs you get from hybrids. If every car were a hybrid, an immense amount of lithium batteries would be required, vastly more than we use today. It's hard to see the $7500 tax credit as little more than a gift to the rich, who can buy a Tes…

The credit applies to both PHEV and EVs. It’s based on the kWh capacity of the battery.

Right, so a Prius plug-in hybrid gets a $2500 tax credit, whereas a Tesla gets $7500. If the idea is to build an economy of scale for electrification of vehicles, I don't believe this makes sense. Pushing hard to make everything hybrid would do a lot more good.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#226

Post by Johnny555 » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:41 AM UTC

avar wrote: post #73

oneplane wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That tax is not the only one paying for the roads; the normal tax on fuel and the fuel-specific tax on top of that (which also differs per type of fuel) offsets the heavier engines or heavier users. At the same time, a project people abandoned a few times (mostly because or scare tactics) is in the works to see if we can lower or abandon some of the taxes in favour of usage-based taxes measured by vehicle kilometers…

Fuel taxes are just another version of taxing the wrong thing. People using gasoline for e.g. yard equipment aren't using the roads, but they're effectively paying road tax to trim their hedge. Someone who owns a Tesla also isn't paying their road tax. Taxes and tolls should be based on what/where/when you drive. Someone driving in circles in downtown Amsterdam in the middle of the day is causing a lot more externali…

People using gasoline for e.g. yard equipment aren't using the roads, but they're effectively paying road tax to trim their hedge

It's legal to use untaxed (undyed) fuel for off-road uses, but the quantities are so low that it's not worth the distribution system for it. So usually it's only used by large consumers (i.e. farmers and other consumers with large off-road fuel usage)

Someone who owns a Tesla also isn't paying their road tax.

That will change next year when California will start charging a $100 EV fee for car registrations. It's still less than the $176 a 10,000 mile/year 30mpg driver will pay in gas tax, but it's not "nothing". Though since EV's are typically more expensive than the equivalent conventional car, they'll pay a higher VLF fee. So for example, $10,000 in extra value means $65/year more VLF tax so that EV will be paying around $165/year.

I'd rather see a milage + weight based tax.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#227

Post by pas » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:49 AM UTC

avar wrote: post #73

oneplane wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That tax is not the only one paying for the roads; the normal tax on fuel and the fuel-specific tax on top of that (which also differs per type of fuel) offsets the heavier engines or heavier users. At the same time, a project people abandoned a few times (mostly because or scare tactics) is in the works to see if we can lower or abandon some of the taxes in favour of usage-based taxes measured by vehicle kilometers…

Fuel taxes are just another version of taxing the wrong thing. People using gasoline for e.g. yard equipment aren't using the roads, but they're effectively paying road tax to trim their hedge. Someone who owns a Tesla also isn't paying their road tax. Taxes and tolls should be based on what/where/when you drive. Someone driving in circles in downtown Amsterdam in the middle of the day is causing a lot more externali…

> in downtown Amsterdam in the middle of the day is causing a lot more externalities than someone doing the same thing in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.

how to track that in a privacy friendly way?

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#228

Post by Johnny555 » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:56 AM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #134

jabl wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm one of those, treat everyone equal, types. Would like to hear your reason. Here's a thought experiment: Imagine that you are born as any random person in a society. You could be born as a white male of exceptional intelligence with 1% rich parents, or you could be born as a girl of a minority race to junkie parents and suffer from mental health issues your entire life. Now, without knowing what kind of person y…

The problem with such an argument (imagine that you're born as...) is that it presupposes an arbitrary line based on the limits of your imagination. You could just as well be born a farm animal, or a blade of grass. Absurd? Perhaps. It's no more absurd to me than attempting to imagine being born as a Frenchman.

It's just as easy to imagine yourself living as a blade of grass as it is living as another human?

The line between humans and other species doesn't seem that arbitrary.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#229

Post by lazyjones » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 5:03 AM UTC

Why does this political subject get posted every week on HN, why does it always result in ideological discussions sprinkled with personal anecdotes and why is everyone asking for the defeatist solution of taxation (to reduce the appeal of individual transport) instead of at least treating the underlying technical problems (logistics, pollution) as an engineering challenge? It‘s disheartening...

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#230

Post by pas » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 5:06 AM UTC

ramblerouser wrote: post #11

voisin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument isn’t about whether the quantum of taxes is appropriate. It is how a fixed quantum turns a disincentive for some into an irrelevancy to others. If the purpose of the cost is to discourage use (peak period congestion charges), then it should vary with income so as to be a equally discouraging to all to whom it applies. For your example of trash collection, by having a fixed fee the state creates a greater…

A poor person's car takes up the same number of parking spaces as a rich person's car, and a rich person has already paid a huge amount of their income to the poor person in the form of income taxes and welfare.

poor might mean lower middle-class. no welfare income.