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

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

#61

Post by quantified »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #41
photonbeam wrote: post #7

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.

Nothing says you can't do both. Some states have excise taxes on vehicles as well as tolls etc.

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

#62

Post by Someone »

shagie wrote: 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…

That’s a somewhat strange logic “cars keep getting bigger, losing us as many as 10,000 parking spots, so we’ll charge them by their weight”.

That effectively is an (small) incentive against going electric for car owners.

Aren’t length and width of car models as readily available as their weight? Or do they already have another tax based on car weight at borough level, making this simpler for them? Or is there a second argument this article doesn’t mention that heavier cars cause more road wear? I don’t see how that would be the case much for parked cars, though.

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

#63

Post by Timon3 »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #36
atyppo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> While it’s true the vast majority are not buying minivans, the vast majority of US citizens also live outside of cities.

Nope:

> This statistic illustrates the size of the urban and rural population of the United States from 1960 to 2020. In 2020, there were approximately 57.47 million people living in rural areas in the United States, compared to about 274.03 million people living in urban areas.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/985183/size-urban-rural-...

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

#66

Post by bojan »

melvinmelih wrote: post #16
photonbeam wrote: post #7

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

Yep, this is exactly how vehicle taxes work in the Netherlands.

Weight is one factor, the other is the engine sort. Diesel pays way more tax than a gas engine car.

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

#67

Post by somedude895 »

tpoacher wrote: post #64

So, family tax? Again?

Families and tradesmen, likely physically disabled people as well. You could make exemptions for people who actually need bigger vehicles, but that just means yet more bloated bureaucracy.

I think I'll skip on stealing this idea.

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

#68

Post by ZeroGravitas »

EVs are supposed to become lighter than ICE in a couple of years, but I wonder if it's already happened if you take carrying capacity into account.

Generally EVs seem to have interior space equivalent to the next largest car up the scale

e.g. the Volkswagen ID.3 may have an outer size similar to a VW Golf, but interior carrying capacity closer to a VW Passat.

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

#69

Post by supertrope »

jeffwass wrote: post #30

On 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.

Insurers are motivated by profit and actual claim costs not on what should be.

https://www.iihs.org/ratings/insurance-losses-by-make-and-mo...

Click lowest and highest losses. Pick bodily injury liability and property damage liability. You’ll see that BI is dominated by fast or cheap cars not necessarily the biggest. Big trucks are well represented on the PD side.

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

#70

Post by prennert »

somedude895 wrote: post #67
tpoacher wrote: post #64

So, family tax? Again?

Families and tradesmen, likely physically disabled people as well. You could make exemptions for people who actually need bigger vehicles, but that just means yet more bloated bureaucracy. I think I'll skip on stealing this idea.

It does not need to be that complicated. Just give families, special needs groups etc tax credits or direct payments and have them decide how to use it. Then families that do not _need_ a large car wont buy one, because they can still save taxes if they do not do it.
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