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Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

latimes.com

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Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#231

Post by xenihn »

blobbers wrote: post #184

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 got stuck in a traffic jam on the 405 near LAX at around 1:00 AM on my second-to-last day in LA last month. I'd stayed late at work to sober up after my farewell happy hour. I don't know if it was an accident or construction or what that caused it, since I didn't see anything.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#232

Post by jacobolus »

dmitrygr wrote: post #230
jacobolus wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see how saying that “public will is an impediment to solving traffic congestion” indicates contempt for the public. It seems like a straight-forward factual statement, and not a particularly controversial one. After we acknowledge that “public will” is an impediment, we can then probe whether the problem is really so bad after all, what “public will” really means, whether it is self-contradictory, how strongl…

Op said that "public will is an impediment to progress". That is much more arrogant statement than the one you claim to defend: "public will is an impediment to solving traffic congestion"

The context made it abundantly clear that this meant “... impediment to progress [with respect to traffic congestion]”.

Not just that the public is generically “anti-progress”.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#234

Post by lordnacho »

foepys wrote: post #213
mikeash wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the average car in the US gets about 25MPG, while the average tractor trailer is 6MPG, so about 4x the fuel per mile. Accounting for the higher tax rate, they’re paying maybe 5x the tax per mile, while causing maybe 5,000x the damage.

You could tax trucks like 1000 times more. But don't expect the butter and milk to stay the same price.

Externalities that aren't properly accounted for (and paid for) end up causing inefficiency.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#235

Post by pfisch »

jacobolus wrote: post #130
mc32 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. Of course, if they tax per axle and tonnage combination, it’ll just be passed on to consumers anyhow as most of trucks are distributing goods which directly or indirectly end up in the hands of consumers. However, it would be quite fair to do, I think.

In the short term it would get passed on to consumers. In the medium term supply chains would figure out how to reduce shipping by road. In the longer term (in conjunction with other changes) we might be able to get larger-scale urban development on a more sustainable track. If we could properly price externalities (not just road wear but also ground water contamination, CO2 emissions etc.) there are many parts of ou…

This would devastate the economy.

For example: Exxon mobil profits in 2017 were 19.7 billion. Fukushima cleanup costs exceed 180 billion.

There is no way to do what you are proposing without massive price increases in electricity, gasoline and virtually every other good. I wouldn't be surprised if when you priced all of this in you discovered that people couldn't really afford electricity anymore.

Also this economy would never be able to have exports because the price of producing goods would just be insane.

The truth is we can't afford the externalities without an economic implosion that would realistically end with an extreme political group taking control in the ensuing chaos and undoing everything you are proposing.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#236

Post by Calashle0202 »

Yet again the "achilles heal" of mass transit it exposed. Uber and Lyft work because they go where I want to go and when I want to go at a reasonable price.

Busses are not full of people who want to ride the bus, they are full of people who must ride the bus.

No amount of taxation will ever change that.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#237

Post by Symbiote »

briandear wrote: post #66
shereadsthenews wrote: post #29

Earlier 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…

$5 per gallon is roughly in line with the tax in Europe.

Compare the UK and the USA, conveniently adjacent in the table. Both have refineries, so the untaxed price should be similar, but the UK taxed price is $4 higher.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_and_diesel_usage_and_...

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#238

Post by WalterBright »

SilasX wrote: post #39
shereadsthenews wrote: post #29

Earlier 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…

That's misleading -- yes, in the aggregate, gas taxes cover only part of the expenses, but that's not because of personal cars . Damage on the roads -- and thus maintenance costs -- scales with the 4th power of weight per axle. So the damage is virtually all from large trucks, with sedans and SUVs as a rounding error. If you were to apportion out the maintenance cost due to personal cars, they are overpaying.

The more technical term for this is "fatigue damage". I read years ago that the fatigue damage inflicted by a truck loaded to the legal weight limit (and it's often exceeded) is 9,000 times that of a car.

The damage done by cars is usually from snow tires.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#239

Post by WalterBright »

SilasX wrote: post #48
jayd16 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the only reasonable solution is to lower demand by raising the cost of driving You can also reduce the need to travel by increasing density, which LA is attempting in certain respects.

How so? There was this reddit comment where someone listed all the ridiculous parking requirements they impose that torpedos apartment projects, regardless of how close to downtown or transit they are. [1] https://np.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/6lvwh4/im_an_arc...

Ironically, use of Uber and Lyft decrease the need for parking.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#240

Post by icebraining »

pfisch wrote: post #235
jacobolus wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the short term it would get passed on to consumers. In the medium term supply chains would figure out how to reduce shipping by road. In the longer term (in conjunction with other changes) we might be able to get larger-scale urban development on a more sustainable track. If we could properly price externalities (not just road wear but also ground water contamination, CO2 emissions etc.) there are many parts of ou…

This would devastate the economy. For example: Exxon mobil profits in 2017 were 19.7 billion. Fukushima cleanup costs exceed 180 billion. There is no way to do what you are proposing without massive price increases in electricity, gasoline and virtually every other good. I wouldn't be surprised if when you priced all of this in you discovered that people couldn't really afford electricity anymore. Also this economy w…

> For example: Exxon mobil profits in 2017 were 19.7 billion. Fukushima cleanup costs exceed 180 billion.

So you could cleanup one of the worst "spills" in history with a mere 10 years of a single company's profits?

That sounds perfectly OK.

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