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Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park

usa.streetsblog.org

41–50 of 85 posts

Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park

#41

Just make vehicles taxes directly proportional to gross vehicle weight. You drive a 200kg motorcyle, pay $X, you have a 2ton car, pay the 10x

This makes sense but this transforms the costs of using vehicle into a sunk cost for owners, which encourages using the vehicles as much as possible to spread the cost out. I generally think we should prioritize increasing the cost of using vehicles instead of owning them (such as by registration fee), such as parking fees, tolls, and gas tax.

Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park

#42

Just make vehicles taxes directly proportional to gross vehicle weight. You drive a 200kg motorcyle, pay $X, you have a 2ton car, pay the 10x

A linear rate seems high but is actually a steal for heavy vehicles, road damage follows the fourth power of axle weight.

https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...

Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park

#43
post #34

Penalizes 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.

But why should we do something to fix the problem of increasing vehicle sizes at all when we could just do nothing and resign ourselves to the objectively awful status quo instead? After all if you change something, someone somewhere is going to be negatively impacted. Can’t have that.

Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park

#44
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Funny that you mention two cars that no longer are sold in the states. Honda fits and regular VW golfs are not for sale anymore.

Exactly!

Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park

#45
post #14

https://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…

Electric cars are quiet heavy.

Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park

#46

A minivan can very comfortably seat 6 adults. In a busy area, higher fees for larger vehicles may discourage carpooling and increase traffic.

Unfortunately, the average vehicle ocupancy is around 1.6. Vans are a bit better at 2.4, but these numbers are puny compared to the 20-80 prople who fit in a single bus (which takes as much space as 3-4 cars). Cars are a luxury in cities. The cities themselves pay for cars with noise, air quality and congestion. People should be encouraged to use them less in general.

I’m glad you point out that this is specifically a problem in cities. Most people I’ve seen on HN advocating for reducing cars make the astronomically out-of-touch arguments about how buses will come get us countryfolk and that “private transport is a luxury”, as if we’d be able to do what we need to productively without it.

Sure, with the anti-consumer construction of modern cars, and the unfortunate difficulties of sourcing old car parts, we’d love to be less car-reliant. It’s just not feasible for us though, and never will be.

Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park

#47
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Funny that you mention two cars that no longer are sold in the states. Honda fits and regular VW golfs are not for sale anymore.

GTI and the R are. Which are the ones you want, really, anyway.

Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park

#48
post #40
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I don't need or want more than 2 doors. I want a small car. A big reason for this is that I also have a very small garage. My condo is also very small, so having a bit of extra storage space in there that isn't taken up by a car, is very useful.

Also note that Ford no longer sells Focus in the US.

Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park

#49

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.

Road wear grows to the fourth power of vehicle weight. Vehicle land use may or may not be a problem (on the countryside it doesn't matter that much, in a historic part of an old city very much).

I think ideally a rule that incentives smaller lighter vehicles thinks about both size and weight, with weight being the more important one by far.

Re: Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park

#50
post #10

What about people falling into phase 1 homelessness: RVs

Parking permits in Montreal require you to have a home in the neighborhood you wish to park in. So this won't affect homeless people as they aren't parking there to begin with.
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