71–80 of 114 posts
Unintended consequence: driving in Manhattan will be de facto off-limits to the poor.
Unintended consequence: driving in Manhattan will be de facto off-limits to the poor.
No matter what you do you could never change this. You will simply create an alternative (and/or parallel) system with its own poors.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Generally you want to tax things you want less of and subsidize what you want more of. Hence taxing car traffic and subsidizing transit.
I don’t know if I like your model. I would say tax things in order to remove negative externalities, then people will decide what they want more of.
I'm indifferent and glad I don't live there but why not just charge what it should cost to use Public Transportation/Subways? Why look for ways to subsidize it by taxing everything else but the people who use it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not with the strides we've been making in fuel efficiency. An EV pays no gasoline taxes, but has similar impact on the roads to any other car. Now, EVs are a good thing... but they do expose issues with paying for transport via gas taxes.
I heard a proposal to tax tires instead, which I suppose would let EVs and hybrids pay their fair share (although it would probably cause more cheapskates to drive around on bald tires)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not with the strides we've been making in fuel efficiency. An EV pays no gasoline taxes, but has similar impact on the roads to any other car. Now, EVs are a good thing... but they do expose issues with paying for transport via gas taxes.
Shouldn’t gasoline taxes just cover the direct negative externalities of gasoline, namely the environmental and health impact of creating and then burning the gasoline?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm okay with EV's getting a "discount" since they create less pollution. Gas vehicles can pay more than their fair share towards road repairs in exchange for the damage they're doing to the environment. If there are eventually too many EV's to generate any road repair revenue, we can re-assess then. For now, the incentive structure makes sense, and should be increased if anything.
It's not a discount, it's free. And given the price of EV's, you're not just suggesting a regressive tax, your suggesting a regressive tax where near the top of the tax bracket pays no taxes. EV's already have plenty of tax incentives. Taxes need to be both a stick and a carrot. EV's get a carrot, all drivers get a stick.
Just as two datapoints, the Fed hasn't raised the federal gas tax in 25 years, and in my state voters have rejected state gas tax increases for 28 years. Whatever new funding source is identified to replace or supplement the gas tax, is going to have many enemies.
Unintended consequence: driving in Manhattan will be de facto off-limits to the poor.
Poor people don't own cars, but subsidize the cars of those who do. Congestion pricing helps to fix that. The book Deschooling Society has a good explanation about how the design of public roads is used as a means of social control. Ctrl-F for the section on mechanical donkeys. https://monoskop.org/images/1/17/Illich_Ivan_Deschooling_Soc...
Why not charge tourists a special subway rate (++) and finance the repairs that way, instead of creating 'exclu$ive zones' of movement.