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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

#61

Post by kbenson »

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.

How does this account for all the upkeep on the residential roads where a large truck almost never travels. Sure, large trucks may account for the vast majority of wear on roads where they travel, but I imagine the majority of the roads in a city rarely see large trucks, and still need regular upkeep.

Without some sources to back up your claims, I'm not sure if it's accounting for that or not. Can you supply your sources so we can look into exactly what that statistic means?

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

#62

Post by jayd16 »

SilasX wrote: post #48
jayd16 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the only reasonable solution is to lower demand by raising the cost of driving You can also reduce the need to travel by increasing density, which LA is attempting in certain respects.

How so? There was this reddit comment where someone listed all the ridiculous parking requirements they impose that torpedos apartment projects, regardless of how close to downtown or transit they are. [1] https://np.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/6lvwh4/im_an_arc...

Every bit of new construction seems to be mixed use commercial, retail, and housing with large underground parking structures. He's right that its "luxury" condos but its still a lot denser than the traditional two story apartment buildings.

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

#63

Post by beerlord »

2dollars27cents wrote: post #21
modeless wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If efficient cars are a problem, tax efficient cars, not Uber. But given CA's environmental goals, this would be counterproductive.

As others have mentioned, taxing efficient cars doesn't seem to make much sense. Maybe tax actual miles traveled instead? That would solve the problem of increasing efficiency and also decrease the value of loitering and cruising in-between pick-ups.

And unless we want to have ugly metal gantries everywhere, we are going to need to accept that the Government will need to be able to monitor our car's location at all times... via built-in transmitters also linked to the payment infrastructure.

We will probably also need a way to communicate pricing. All of this will also need to be digital for autonomous vehicles.

We should probably start working on some open standards for it all...

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

#64

Post by dmitrygr »

bsder wrote: post #18
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?

Popularity does not imply correctness.

in a democracy, popularity implies policy. literally the definition

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

#65

Post by kbos87 »

Amen. Uber and Lyft are adding congestion to our roads and undermining public transportation, all while profiting off public infrastructure and a class of driver “partners” who incur all of the costs for a razor thin upside.

Id like to see the start of a state owned rideshare network with specially zoned drop off, pick up, and lane privileges that Uber and Lyft don’t get access to.

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

#66

Post by briandear »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #29
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…

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…

Those roads are what allow stuff to be delivered. How do you ship an air conditioning unit on a bike path? The point is that the roads serve commerce and a tax on roads is really a tax on everything. Roads aren’t exactly massively subsidized — the commerce they generate results in taxes. Tax revenue generated per mile driven is far greater than any supposed subsidy. We could make an argument that schools are massively subsidized — the parents of students attending don’t pay the actual cost of attendance however, the tax revenues generated by an educated workforce are considered a net win compared to the cost of the “subsidy.” My kids don’t go to public school and some people don’t drive on roads, but we all benefit from roads and other people’s kids being educated and the economic gain vastly outweighs the subsidy. Not everyone uses the roads, but everyone benefits from them — thus a direct user-fee really serves no purpose, it’s just an additional tax on everyone. Since practically every single product touches a road at some point, taxing the roads more just makes everything more expensive.

You are also incorrect suggesting that $5 per gallon is “about equivalent to what other rich countries tax motor fuel.” In France, it’s $2.77 per gallon. In the UK, it’s $2.83 per gallon. Netherlands is $3.5 per gallon. Sweden is $3.51. In Australia, it’s $1.12 per gallon, New Zealand is $1.58. None of those countries are even close to $5 per gallon.

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

#67

Post by [deleted] »

perl4ever wrote: post #54
shereadsthenews wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#68

Post by briandear »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #12
modeless wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If efficient cars are a problem, tax efficient cars, not Uber. But given CA's environmental goals, this would be counterproductive.

Yes, I mentioned that is already beginning to happen. > But given CA's environmental goals, this would be counterproductive. That is irrelevant, we are reaching a point where taxation on road miles driven vs. fueled used becomes unavoidable. What will wind up happening is that efficient and clean energy vehicles will still need to be taxed to account for usage, while less efficient vehicles will be taxed even more (t…

Why should less efficient vehicles be taxed more? If they are already paying more for fuel, doesn’t that already “tax” them more? It seems like such a tax is regressive — rich people can buy new efficient cars more easily than poor people.

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

#69

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

dkarl wrote: post #34
ars wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is to lower demand by raising the cost of driving - ie. significant congestion pricing (tolls) across the metro All that does is increase the cost of living. Either people need to drive or they don't. People don't drive just for the fun of it anymore. And if you succeed and do manage to reduce travel you also managed to reduce economic activity. If you goal is to get people to switch, then you have to do it on the…

> Either people need to drive or they don't. People don't drive just for the fun of it anymore. This isn't true. Some people live in places where it's possible to reduce their driving quite a lot, but when they decide to do that, it isn't as easy as simply choosing not to drive. Once they're motivated, they start to figure out opportunities to drive less. They start to figure out which other forms of transit are prac…

There are no practical means of transit in LA. Sure, there are light rail here and there but it doesn’t get you most places you want to go.

Charging tolls does not fix anything. All that does is enable those with money to have a slightly less stressful commute and add an empty lane to an otherwise crowded highway.

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

#70

Post by fishtacos »

LA Times' latest plan to free up congested attention spans is to omit grammar and words.

First picture's caption: "Kristine Valenzuela exits a Uber at Union Station in Los Angeles."

Second picture's caption: "Elena Markusic lifts her heavy luggage into the trunk of an at Union Station in Los Angeles. Transportation officials are considering a tax on Uber and Lyft rides in Los Angeles County."

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