The headline is a lie. This is all about raising money to pad their pensions.
Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads
251–260 of 327 posts
Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads
#252Earlier 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…
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 massivel…
Am Dutch, just looked out the window at what is considered a gas station with cheap prices (not next to a highway) and gas is €1.559/l, diesel is €1.319/l.
This comes to $6.72 per US gallon for gas. More than half of this price is VAT and duty. On top of this we pay road taxes based on the weight and fuel type of your vehicle, about €50/month for a small (1000kg) gas powered car.
Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
State owned rideshare network will be better how exactly? People taking their car or someone else’s makes no difference.
I’m not saying they need to deliver a better service. I’m saying they should meet the current status quo, and use their regulatory power to make Uber and Lyft’s services inferior.
if your purpose is to make people hate politicians and government even more than they do now, then this would be a good way to do it.
but this idea that somehow the state/government knows better is very condescending.
Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fine, but the concept is out in the world now. The cities should be able to replicate the concept, compete and leverage their strengths the same way any for profit entity could.
If the private market provides a service at a fair price, and consumers like it, why should the city try to duplicate it? It would be a waste of taxpayer money for the city government to try to clone a business that is doing just fine already.
Why draw an artificial line between cities and private markets? Innovation isn’t the exclusive domain of for profit companies. Part of the reason why we end up in these situations where public utilities are in such an embarrassing state is that we don’t expect or allow them to innovate, even down what is now a well proven pathway.
Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could tax trucks like 1000 times more. But don't expect the butter and milk to stay the same price.
Butter and milk that don't have to travel as far by road would be cheaper. So much of our national Walmartification is possible because of roads are subsidized.
No, it would not be cheaper. It is not cheaper today and making food today is profitable (and possible) only thanks to economy of scale. Automation on this level is not here yet.
> don't have to travel as far by road
It doesn't have to. It can (and it does because it's better).
Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads
#256Using cars is embedded into the DNA of American people so deeply that I am not sure it can be changed. I remember the first time I was in LA for a longer period and somebody did not believe me that I do not own a car. She literally though I am a liar and I do not want to share with her what sort of car I drive instead of believing me that I do not have one.
Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads
#257> 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…
> Public roads are supposed to be paid for through fuel taxes
Some States do, California does not. The underlying issue is that California roads can infamously cost an order of magnitude more to build and maintain per mile than the same road segment in other States (e.g. interstate highways). It is possible to pay for roads with fuel and use taxes, in some other States it is a constitutional requirement, but the extreme cost of roads in California make it difficult to fund the DoT that way and there is no evidence that California is going to curtail the obvious waste anytime soon.
Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gp is trying to say that nobody is really "sharing a ride" that they would be driving anyway, as in hitchhiking with compensation. It's virtually all professional drivers going where the client goes exclusively because the client goes there. Hence the term "ridesharing" is misleading. A very successful piece of clever viral marketing, or maybe a fossil of an early strategy. It's a semantic point, but a valid one. Wor…
We don’t call them taxis in California because in most California cities they’re different because of: * no access to red lanes * only app-based payment * unique pickup/dropoff locations at airports and other such places If we called them computer-dispatched taxi we’d confuse that with Flywheel-style stuff which can use red lanes, take cash, and use taxi locations. We could call them Taxi Type 2 but that’s super conf…
In Transport for London terminology they are called "Private Hire" companies. Separately regulated, you can't flag them down on the street, and no access to taxi lanes.
Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads
#259Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gp is trying to say that nobody is really "sharing a ride" that they would be driving anyway, as in hitchhiking with compensation. It's virtually all professional drivers going where the client goes exclusively because the client goes there. Hence the term "ridesharing" is misleading. A very successful piece of clever viral marketing, or maybe a fossil of an early strategy. It's a semantic point, but a valid one. Wor…
We don’t call them taxis in California because in most California cities they’re different because of: * no access to red lanes * only app-based payment * unique pickup/dropoff locations at airports and other such places If we called them computer-dispatched taxi we’d confuse that with Flywheel-style stuff which can use red lanes, take cash, and use taxi locations. We could call them Taxi Type 2 but that’s super conf…
In the UK we've had this semantic split for decades and it's simply "private hire" vs "taxi".