291–300 of 327 posts
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> The milk would cost more, but we'd save even more money on road maintenance. This would adversely affect the poor as they drive less and still need milk.
There are much better ways to help the poor than by subsidizing trucking.
Also, we need to get much better at helping the poor.
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Hybrid cars like the Prius actually weigh more because of the weight of the batteries. Tesla cars other than the roadster are also huge and heavy.
2019 models curb weight, base model data from Google: Corolla: 2,840 lbs Prius L: 3,075 lbs Camry: 3,241 to 3,572 lbs Model 3: 3,686 lbs Model S: 4,769 lbs
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There are much better ways to help the poor than by subsidizing trucking.
My point is you can't just look at something and not take into account where else it may impact. Also, we need to get much better at helping the poor.
Part of getting better at helping the poor is helping them directly rather than using extremely inefficient and indirect subsidies on various industries to do so.
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I suppose tickets should have exponential increase and decay built-in - this way, collecting a bunch of tickets in a row wouldn't be edible for companies, but intermittent tickets (corresponding to base rate of traffic violations) would cost no more than before.
Linear is more predictable and easier to manage, mentally, so I don't think that will change any time soon.
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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…
"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." This is incorrect, in the UK at least. The best price I get is ab…
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Perhaps public transit systems could look into what ride-sharing is doing, what elements of it are so appealing to users, and if there’s any similar actions they could offer to make public transit more appealing.
The problem is that ride sharing isn't providing a service with a realistic and sustainable price. In Boston I can get a 15 minute Uber pool trip door-to-door for $3. They're undercutting public transportation and traditional taxi services that need to operate with a realistic budget that isn't fueled by billions of VC dollars.
If they're undercutting public transport and doing so at a sustainable price, I view that as healthy competition. If they're undercutting solely based on VC subsidies, that will inevitably end. In the Boston market, I think they're likely profitable on an overall basis, just as grocers are overall (very slightly) profitable, even when they sell loss-leaders and give other subsidies to consumers.
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> 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.
Unfortunate that the sprawl is so heavily subsidized. In a world where it wasn't, people would make different choices about where to live and work.
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Perhaps public transit systems could look into what ride-sharing is doing, what elements of it are so appealing to users, and if there’s any similar actions they could offer to make public transit more appealing.
It seems pretty obvious. Uber is more convenient and it comes directly to your home. People will pay more for that, which is why it probably shouldn’t be so cheap as to make public transit easy to dismiss, especially when that pricing structure encourages more cars on the road with only 1-2 people in them and the negatives that go along with it (more carbon usage, more cars idling in traffic, more road damage, more p…
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Congestion taxes can also shift road use to other times. Imagine many people on the roads are making relatively short trips (eg. a trip that takes 20 mins in traffic instead of 10 mins) that generate a lot of lane changes and contribute to congestion. A congestion tax could encourage them to drive in non-peak times, use the bus, or not make the trip.
The city is already built this way and people already made decisions on where to work and live based on facts on the ground. Unless congestion charges are levies only on newcomers, it has no legitimacy. Try these social experiments on a new city.
This would indicate to me that they are already OK with the level of congestion they currently have. But that's not what they say. Some kind of disconnect.
Pretty sure Los Angeles had bad traffic way before Uber and Lyft arrived. I distinctly remember staring out of the Hilton at Universal City in 2006, on my first visit to California, with a group of Canadians marveling that there could be a traffic jam at 10PM at night.
I don't think they're trying to argue that Uber and Lyft created LA traffic but I would agree that their arrival put more cars on the roads. There's a huge market of people who are willing to pay a little extra to avoid the hassle of LA public transportation and considering that, in general, people Uber to busy places (LAX, downtown, etc.), it's bringing more cars onto the already clogged roads that wouldn't be there…