Wouldn't using length, or better still, area be a better proxy for land usage? What about area/seats? Weight might be a good proxy except electric vehicles tend to be comparatively heavier than their ICE counterparts.
Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park
31–40 of 85 posts
Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park
#32Penalizes families - say you have 3 kids, a dog and grand parents to move around you will need a larger vehicle. So many of these schemes to punish car ownership and use are invented by cyclists and people who don't need a car and don't think anyone else should have one either.
Also penalizes tradesmen who have trucks and vans.
Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park
#33https://globalnews.ca/news/9668217/montreal-rosemont-la-peti... > Whether electric, hybrid or internal combustion, parking a vehicle under 1,550 kilograms will cost $115 for the year. Vehicles with a mass between 1,250 kg and 1,424 kg will cost $145, 1,425 kg to 1,599 kg will be $175 and 1,600 kg and more will be $205. (I think that 1550 is a typo and should be 1250 and is reflected in the table below) | kg | lbs | f…
> My old '96 geo metro (four door) was is 1,984 lbs
I drove one of those, and there's no way they were typical American car in any way in any era, so I don't think it's a valid starting point for plotting a valid trend line. They were weird things. Mine had a 3-cylindar 55hp engine, and I'd joke there were lawnmowers that were more powerful.
Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park
#34Penalizes families - say you have 3 kids, a dog and grand parents to move around you will need a larger vehicle. So many of these schemes to punish car ownership and use are invented by cyclists and people who don't need a car and don't think anyone else should have one either. Also penalizes tradesmen who have trucks and vans.
Meh. You could offset this. Tradesmen could get a tax credit and families as well.
Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park
#35Penalizes families - say you have 3 kids, a dog and grand parents to move around you will need a larger vehicle. So many of these schemes to punish car ownership and use are invented by cyclists and people who don't need a car and don't think anyone else should have one either. Also penalizes tradesmen who have trucks and vans.
Well, maybe the people with the huge family should pay more because there are more people?
Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park
#36A minivan can very comfortably seat 6 adults. In a busy area, higher fees for larger vehicles may discourage carpooling and increase traffic.
The vast majority of people in the US and Canada are not buying minivans. They're buying comically large cars that endanger road users, and often even themselves because SUVs and trucks are not subject to the same road safety standards as sedans and minivans (in the US, at least. Not sure about Canada on this second point).
While it’s true the vast majority are not buying minivans, the vast majority of US citizens also live outside of cities. Thus making minivans and other, similar cars uneconomical outside of large family units.
Additionally, if the majority of Americans are buying “comically large cars”, then most are equally protected and fewer are at risk. And in my lower income neck of the woods large cars are hardly the status quo. Maybe in cities, where people make more on average and live above their means people can get large SUVs and such, but around here the biggest we got is trucks and that’s typically for work, so not overly common on the roads outside of work hours.
Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park
#37Penalizes families - say you have 3 kids, a dog and grand parents to move around you will need a larger vehicle. So many of these schemes to punish car ownership and use are invented by cyclists and people who don't need a car and don't think anyone else should have one either. Also penalizes tradesmen who have trucks and vans.
In a world that is being brought closer and closer each day to climate disaster by the exponentially increasing exploitation of resources to satisfy the exponentially increasing needs of an exponentially increasing population… maybe we should be ever so slightly discouraging large family sizes instead of the current policy of subsidizing them?
Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park
#38On a similar note I’ve long thought that larger heavier vehicles should pay more for insurance, as a sort of “danger tax” to cover the greater damage they tend to cause in collisions.
Or just as an alternative to using fuel taxes to fund infrastructure.
For a long time “amount of fuel consumed” was roughly aligned with “amount of wear you cause to roads”. But that relationship is breaking down and we need to find something new (at least in the US, not sure how roads are funded elsewhere).
Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park
#39Penalizes families - say you have 3 kids, a dog and grand parents to move around you will need a larger vehicle. So many of these schemes to punish car ownership and use are invented by cyclists and people who don't need a car and don't think anyone else should have one either. Also penalizes tradesmen who have trucks and vans.
As long as cyclists are forced to share the road with cars they should get a say when it comes to car safety, especially when it comes to properties of cars that make them more dangerous to cyclists and others on the road.
Also worth pointing out that most cyclists are also car drivers.
The fact is that cars have been getting way bigger and heavier and don’t actually need to. And speaking of families, as someone with young kids, pickup trucks these days are especially scary.
Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park
#40In the US, we literally don't have a choice. The only small (2-door) cars that are on the market are the Mini, Mazda MX5, Toyota GR, Subaru BRZ. The last three being sports cars. Everything else has pulled out of the country or has more doors (and is larger). It is really sad. I really wish Smart cars would come back as an option.
The VW Golf, which not exactly a compact car by Euro standards, is pretty well sized. My Mk7 is only a half inch longer and one inch wider than a current gen (21+) BRZ. I’ve actually owned the Mk7 in both 2 door and 4 door. The 4 door is identical dimensionally, better proportioned, and much easier to get in and out of since you can open the doors more than 10 degrees without banging the car next to you… the doors on…
yeah 2-door is a weird place to draw the line. I had a 2003 Ford Focus 4-door, and while it wasn't tiny, it was fairly compact. Meanwhile Plymouth used to make a 2-door midsized station wagon (the Suburban, not to be confused with the Chevy SUV of the same name, came in both 2- and 4-door versions).