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Virginia maps out optional per-mile road fee program for 2022 launch

virginiamercury.com

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Re: Virginia maps out optional per-mile road fee program for 2022 launch

#11

Post by corty »

jefftk wrote: post #8

The general idea of charging road users partly in proportion to miles traveled makes a lot of sense. But why, every time this is proposed, do people talk about fancy tracking mechanisms? Why can't we just use odometers? I mean, yes, the odometer cannot measure how much of your mileage is in Virginia versus other states, or how much is on what kinds of roads, but it is so much cheaper to implement that I would expect…

Because in such schemes, tracking peoples' movements is the actual intent, collecting fees is just a nice side-effect.

Re: Virginia maps out optional per-mile road fee program for 2022 launch

#12

Post by jl6 »

pdkl95 wrote: post #3

> The goal for the revamped funding system, which also includes a higher gas tax rate and lower baseline vehicle registration fees, is to make sure drivers contribute their fair share to the costs of maintaining the roads they use The "fair share" most small cars - especially fuel efficiency focused designs that remove as much mass as possible - should be paying approximately $0 . Road damage per-axel is proportional…

Does the equation not also depend on non-damage-related costs for roads? How much of the total cost of a road arises from resurfacing costs? If a large portion of the costs are unrelated to repairing damage (initial construction, drainage, cabling, signage, traffic management, monitoring, probably a host of others), then it could still make sense to charge cars nearly as much as trucks.

I don’t have the data to argue either way.

Re: Virginia maps out optional per-mile road fee program for 2022 launch

#13

Post by aww_dang »

corty wrote: post #11
jefftk wrote: post #8

The general idea of charging road users partly in proportion to miles traveled makes a lot of sense. But why, every time this is proposed, do people talk about fancy tracking mechanisms? Why can't we just use odometers? I mean, yes, the odometer cannot measure how much of your mileage is in Virginia versus other states, or how much is on what kinds of roads, but it is so much cheaper to implement that I would expect…

Because in such schemes, tracking peoples' movements is the actual intent, collecting fees is just a nice side-effect.

Tracking as a prelude to restricting and controlling movement.

Re: Virginia maps out optional per-mile road fee program for 2022 launch

#14

Post by psoots »

Driving to work is not a choice for a lot of people particularly lower class. Our cities our built around cars. As people move out of the city to save money, that makes driving even more necessary and makes public transit less of a viable option. This program relies on a very naive belief that people can control their amount of driving, but we don't control sprawl at an individual level, we don't control infrastructure. Who is this going to benefit but the bougie Tesla owners who work remotely anyway?

Re: Virginia maps out optional per-mile road fee program for 2022 launch

#15

Post by dtgriscom »

culopatin wrote: post #10
pdkl95 wrote: post #3

> The goal for the revamped funding system, which also includes a higher gas tax rate and lower baseline vehicle registration fees, is to make sure drivers contribute their fair share to the costs of maintaining the roads they use The "fair share" most small cars - especially fuel efficiency focused designs that remove as much mass as possible - should be paying approximately $0 . Road damage per-axel is proportional…

Sorry to be this guy but Axel is a name and axle is the rotating shaft.

No, "axel" is a figure skating move. (Which is named after a guy.)

Re: Virginia maps out optional per-mile road fee program for 2022 launch

#16

Post by dtgriscom »

pdkl95 wrote: post #3

> The goal for the revamped funding system, which also includes a higher gas tax rate and lower baseline vehicle registration fees, is to make sure drivers contribute their fair share to the costs of maintaining the roads they use The "fair share" most small cars - especially fuel efficiency focused designs that remove as much mass as possible - should be paying approximately $0 . Road damage per-axel is proportional…

True, but roads decay even in the absence of use. So, there's a cost involved in just having the road available and in good shape; that cost should be shared by all users.

Re: Virginia maps out optional per-mile road fee program for 2022 launch

#17

Post by choeger »

pdkl95 wrote: post #3

> The goal for the revamped funding system, which also includes a higher gas tax rate and lower baseline vehicle registration fees, is to make sure drivers contribute their fair share to the costs of maintaining the roads they use The "fair share" most small cars - especially fuel efficiency focused designs that remove as much mass as possible - should be paying approximately $0 . Road damage per-axel is proportional…

This. It's nuts to build infrastructure and then punish its use. Overuse or non-propertional damage should be punished, of course. Infrastructure costs should be divided by its users (or society as a whole) and then users should be encouraged to maximize utilisation.

Imagine someone would do this to bike lanes, railroads, or optical fiber. The facts that gasoline cars are a problem for the climate and that cars take up too much space to be generally available in dense cities have nothing to do with roads per se.

Re: Virginia maps out optional per-mile road fee program for 2022 launch

#18

Post by culopatin »

dtgriscom wrote: post #15
culopatin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to be this guy but Axel is a name and axle is the rotating shaft.

No, "axel" is a figure skating move. (Which is named after a guy.)

Ah yes! My girlfriend did this move a few days ago and I thought of axles lol. I guess they also do them in dance. It looks like a complicated spin no?

Re: Virginia maps out optional per-mile road fee program for 2022 launch

#19

Post by yardie »

jefftk wrote: post #8

The general idea of charging road users partly in proportion to miles traveled makes a lot of sense. But why, every time this is proposed, do people talk about fancy tracking mechanisms? Why can't we just use odometers? I mean, yes, the odometer cannot measure how much of your mileage is in Virginia versus other states, or how much is on what kinds of roads, but it is so much cheaper to implement that I would expect…

I'm purely guessing here. But roads are owned by different government agencies: federal, state, county, municipal, HOAs, and private. And those different agencies might have different ideas on how they want funding. If you drive primarily on town streets, which you pay for through property taxes, your odometer won't know to charge you less.

This is based purely on my experience on trying to add bike lanes in my city. It was fairly easy to get it done on our sidestreets, the city owns those, but major streets are federal or state owned and will take years due to bureaucracy.

Re: Virginia maps out optional per-mile road fee program for 2022 launch

#20

Post by andreareina »

paulgb wrote: post #7
endgame wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and they told us the contact-tracing databases would only be used for public health purposes. The only way to ensure privacy is to never collect the data.

Are there examples of it being used for other things? Not that I doubt you, I just haven’t read about that.

"The Singapore Police Force (SPF) can obtain TraceTogether data for criminal investigations, said Minister of State for Home Affairs Desmond Tan in Parliament on Monday (Jan 4)"[1]

This was a reversal from earlier promises that it would only be used for contact tracing Covid19 exposures.

[1] https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/singapore-police-f...

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