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Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

latimes.com

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Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#51

Post by SilasX »

clay_the_ripper wrote: post #10
nickles wrote: post #3

> Uber and Lyft “are using public roads, and the profit is going to their companies,” Phil Washington, Metro’s chief executive, said at a recent meeting. Public roads are supposed to be paid for through fuel taxes, which every Uber and Lyft driver pays. California has gasoline taxes of: * 55.22c per gallon (second only to Pennsylvania) * 18.4c per gallon (federal) * 2.25% sales tax Additionally, taxing only rideshari…

Agreed. This sounds like a tax that will generate money for the govt and nothing else - it’s not like suddenly people are going to stop going places when the price goes up a tiny amount since there are no viable alternatives to driving in LA, either rideshare or private car.

Exactly. I could understand if the tax were tailored to the ostensible goals:

- No Uber taxes outside of rush hour, since they're not contributing to congestion then.

- Money is specially allocated to mass transit projects and subsidies for Uber pools/Lyft lines at rush hour where they are carrying multiple passengers.

But of course, that's not the proposal, it's just another golden goose.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#52

Post by conanbatt »

nickles wrote: post #3

> Uber and Lyft “are using public roads, and the profit is going to their companies,” Phil Washington, Metro’s chief executive, said at a recent meeting. Public roads are supposed to be paid for through fuel taxes, which every Uber and Lyft driver pays. California has gasoline taxes of: * 55.22c per gallon (second only to Pennsylvania) * 18.4c per gallon (federal) * 2.25% sales tax Additionally, taxing only rideshari…

Gotta tax drunk driving.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#53

Post by perl4ever »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #44
dmitrygr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> public will being the primary > impediment to progress. What an extremely arrogant statement. If the public will does not agree with your world view, perhaps the latter needs adjustment, and not the former, like you imply?

The American public is unbelievably misinformed. Public opposition to an idea indicates only how much cable TV the public has been watching recently and says little about the merits of the idea. Just as an example of such a thing, the median survey respondent believes that foreign aid is the largest component of federal spending, and the overwhelming majority are against increasing it. However when those same people…

"The American public is unbelievably misinformed."

This may be true without implying any defense of something that is contrary to the public will.

The public can be totally awful and that doesn't mean people who have contempt for the public are any good.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#54

Post by perl4ever »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #31
jvanderbot wrote: post #27

Comparing rideshare to public transit, this tells me there's clearly a need for easier, faster transit even with higher pricing. Solution? Try to ruin it. Instead, maybe we should embrace it and provide incentives for ridesharing vs driving alone? E.g. give uber a lane on the highway for 2+ passengers and tax only single rider transits. Give a few lyft ride coupons with every monthly bus pass. Provide benefits to usi…

Can we stop with the "rideshare" junk yet? Uber and Lyft are computer-dispatched taxi services. The overwhelming majority of their trips involve the driver going to someplace they have no need of going, with either zero or one other person in the car.

I have no idea what you are really trying to say. How do you define need? All my Lyft trips have either been to/from an auto mechanic or the airport. Is that "need"? In principle, I could have gotten friends to drive me, given enough incentive. Or I could have parked at the airport, or ridden the bus, or gone to a mechanic that made it convenient to wait for work to be done.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#55

Post by conanbatt »

tareqak wrote: post #35

It'd be nice to be able to at least see the math that is used to calculate and budget road repairs then compare them with value that that particular road brings in. More broadly, some kind of (global?) effort to accurately calculate externalized costs of all kinds. Gotta catch'em all!

You know who gets 100% of their income from an externality? public officials that propose dumb laws. How are we going to get that money back?

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#56

Post by mikeyouse »

SilasX wrote: post #50
shereadsthenews wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really the view from a city budget. Cities don't have that many truck routes and their costs are dominated by maintaining streets where virtually all the traffic is light vehicles. For the state it is a bigger problem because almost all state route are truck routes.

Even then, the same phenomenon means that the dominant source of damage to those streets is the delivery vehicles; smaller cars still cause a disproportionately small fraction of the damage and are overpaying via taxes. Ubers are not externalizing here.

Without much better data the best you can say is that Ubers are benefitting from externalities at a rate lower than other, heavier vehicles. It's still likely they aren't paying their fair share.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#57

Post by mc32 »

SilasX wrote: post #39
shereadsthenews wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuel tax revenue and other direct user fees like annual registration in California amount to less than 25% of what the state and its cities pay to maintain the roads and streets. Roads are massively subsidized from general revenues. If you are proposing a $5/gallon fuel tax then I completely agree. That would be about equivalent to what other rich countries tax motor fuel and consistent with the state's greenhouse ga…

That's misleading -- yes, in the aggregate, gas taxes cover only part of the expenses, but that's not because of personal cars . Damage on the roads -- and thus maintenance costs -- scales with the 4th power of weight per axle. So the damage is virtually all from large trucks, with sedans and SUVs as a rounding error. If you were to apportion out the maintenance cost due to personal cars, they are overpaying.

Exactly this. Of course, if they tax per axle and tonnage combination, it’ll just be passed on to consumers anyhow as most of trucks are distributing goods which directly or indirectly end up in the hands of consumers. However, it would be quite fair to do, I think.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#58

Post by NeonVice »

greeneggs wrote: post #13

> Metro’s rough estimates suggest a 20-cent fee on each trip could bring in $401 million over a decade, while a $2.75 fee could raise $5.5 billion. Hmm, $401 million / 20 cents * $2.75 = $5.51 billion. Is there some "law" that public transportation officials never account for the fact that increased fares or taxes will reduce demand? Maybe most people don't care, but I find it hard to take seriously anyone who doesn'…

A lot of people's thinking doesn't go beyond stage one. We should all be asking ourselves "then what will happen?" many times before advocating for economic policies, especially tax increases.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#59

Post by SilasX »

mikeyouse wrote: post #56
SilasX wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even then, the same phenomenon means that the dominant source of damage to those streets is the delivery vehicles; smaller cars still cause a disproportionately small fraction of the damage and are overpaying via taxes. Ubers are not externalizing here.

Without much better data the best you can say is that Ubers are benefitting from externalities at a rate lower than other, heavier vehicles. It's still likely they aren't paying their fair share.

A vehicle twice as heavy per axle is doing 16x the damage. Unless the taxes on delivery vehicles scale like that, a sedan is subsidizing the costs.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#60

Post by stale2002 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #6
nickles wrote: post #3

> Uber and Lyft “are using public roads, and the profit is going to their companies,” Phil Washington, Metro’s chief executive, said at a recent meeting. Public roads are supposed to be paid for through fuel taxes, which every Uber and Lyft driver pays. California has gasoline taxes of: * 55.22c per gallon (second only to Pennsylvania) * 18.4c per gallon (federal) * 2.25% sales tax Additionally, taxing only rideshari…

Many Uber/Lyft/taxis cars are fuel sipping Toyota Priuses. Fuel taxes break down as fuel economies reach a certain point. Yes, it is not just Uber drivers using Priuses, but it is a substantial problem that has increased road usage without the same corresponding increases in fuel tax revenues. Of course electric presents even bigger problems that many states now have a surcharge on them during registration. It is obv…

Efficient cars cost the city less money.

This is because efficient cars are usually smaller, and cause much less damage to the roads.

It is a good thing for society that they are using Priuses. It makes road maintenance cheaper.

Why should we be trying to lose money, by discouraging behavior that helps the city out? IE, fuel efficient, smaller cars.

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