5 ms·

Eh, c in many cases includes govt built & maintained toll roads, cause as it turns out roadways can cost tens of billions to build. Makes rail look cheap in com

by trome 10y ago

Eh, c in many cases includes govt built & maintained toll roads, cause as it turns out roadways can cost tens of billions to build. Makes rail look cheap in comparison!

AnthonyMouse 10y ago
Toll roads are very stupid. The cost of the road is building the road, not driving on it. Even the maintenance cost is predominantly weather-related. A toll road pays the same construction cost and then gets less use out of it because the tolls discourage people from using the road. Tolls have the pricing wrong. There is no unit cost so the problem is apportioning the fixed cost. A platinum mine clearly derives more profit from the road than a potato farmer, so why should we charge per truck (tolls) rather than per dollar of profit (taxes)? All that does is price low-profit (i.e. more efficient) enterprises out of the market, which is exactly what we don't want. In addition to that we already have a tax collection infrastructure which is not going away, but collecting tolls would require a redundant toll collection infrastructure on top of that.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  Congestion tolls are great -- they encourage better utilization of a scarce resource (the road at a certain point in time).
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    > Congestion tolls are great -- they encourage better utilization of a scarce resource (the road at a certain point in time). Congestion tolls are the rich man's way of getting the government to build enough infrastructure for them without having to pay for enough infrastructure for everybody. If there is congestion it's either because you don't have enough roads or because you don't have good enough mass transit which is dumping the load it should be carrying onto the roads.
    - smallnamespace 10y ago
      For any given amount of infrastructure, proper pricing makes its use more efficient (of course, minus the inefficiency of actually implementing tolls), by shifting demand towards less busy times or encouraging use of mass transit and pooling. In a lot of jurisdictions it's essentially impossible to build enough road so there is zero traffic, because buildings can grow upwards but roads cannot. Your point about the rich getting infrastructure seems like a non sequitur here. It's voters' job to get their representatives to build enough infrastructure, not just the rich. I agree that congestion tolls are somewhat regressive, but the solution is to have a progressive tax system, not to avoid efficiency taxes.
      - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
        > For any given amount of infrastructure, proper pricing makes its use more efficient (of course, minus the inefficiency of actually implementing tolls), by shifting demand towards less busy times or encouraging use of mass transit and pooling. You also have the inefficiency of destroying demand outright. Some people will just stay home. It also seems like the presence of congestion would already be diverting traffic to less busy times, because nobody wants to sit in traffic. So there is not a lot of low-hanging fruit there. And if you want to shift demand to mass transit through pricing, instead of making the roads more expensive, make mass transit less expensive. Then you don't need a toll collection infrastructure for roads and may even be able to eliminate the fare collection infrastructure for mass transit. > In a lot of jurisdictions it's essentially impossible to build enough road so there is zero traffic, because buildings can grow upwards but roads cannot. Sure they can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Bridge But high density cities are the obvious case for mass transit improvements. > Your point about the rich getting infrastructure seems like a non sequitur here. It's voters' job to get their representatives to build enough infrastructure, not just the rich. The point is that congestion pricing benefits the rich over the poor, as compared with alternatives like funding another bus or subway line via taxes, or reducing/eliminating fares. Which voters care about when deciding what to get their representatives to do. > I agree that congestion tolls are somewhat regressive, but the solution is to have a progressive tax system, not to avoid efficiency taxes. It's politically a lot easier to not impose regressive fees than to impose them and then try to balance it by transferring more money to low/middle income people who are already paying negative effective tax rates.

by trome 10y ago

Eh, c in many cases includes govt built & maintained toll roads, cause as it turns out roadways can cost tens of billions to build. Makes rail look cheap in comparison!

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

Toll roads are very stupid. The cost of the road is building the road, not driving on it. Even the maintenance cost is predominantly weather-related. A toll road pays the same construction cost and then gets less use out of it because the tolls discourage people from using the road. Tolls have the pricing wrong. There is no unit cost so the problem is apportioning the fixed cost. A platinum mine clearly derives more profit from the road than a potato farmer, so why should we charge per truck (tolls) rather than per dollar of profit (taxes)? All that does is price low-profit (i.e. more efficient) enterprises out of the market, which is exactly what we don't want. In addition to that we already have a tax collection infrastructure which is not going away, but collecting tolls would require a redundant toll collection infrastructure on top of that.

smallnamespace 10y ago
Congestion tolls are great -- they encourage better utilization of a scarce resource (the road at a certain point in time).
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  > Congestion tolls are great -- they encourage better utilization of a scarce resource (the road at a certain point in time). Congestion tolls are the rich man's way of getting the government to build enough infrastructure for them without having to pay for enough infrastructure for everybody. If there is congestion it's either because you don't have enough roads or because you don't have good enough mass transit which is dumping the load it should be carrying onto the roads.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    For any given amount of infrastructure, proper pricing makes its use more efficient (of course, minus the inefficiency of actually implementing tolls), by shifting demand towards less busy times or encouraging use of mass transit and pooling. In a lot of jurisdictions it's essentially impossible to build enough road so there is zero traffic, because buildings can grow upwards but roads cannot. Your point about the rich getting infrastructure seems like a non sequitur here. It's voters' job to get their representatives to build enough infrastructure, not just the rich. I agree that congestion tolls are somewhat regressive, but the solution is to have a progressive tax system, not to avoid efficiency taxes.
    - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
      > For any given amount of infrastructure, proper pricing makes its use more efficient (of course, minus the inefficiency of actually implementing tolls), by shifting demand towards less busy times or encouraging use of mass transit and pooling. You also have the inefficiency of destroying demand outright. Some people will just stay home. It also seems like the presence of congestion would already be diverting traffic to less busy times, because nobody wants to sit in traffic. So there is not a lot of low-hanging fruit there. And if you want to shift demand to mass transit through pricing, instead of making the roads more expensive, make mass transit less expensive. Then you don't need a toll collection infrastructure for roads and may even be able to eliminate the fare collection infrastructure for mass transit. > In a lot of jurisdictions it's essentially impossible to build enough road so there is zero traffic, because buildings can grow upwards but roads cannot. Sure they can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Bridge But high density cities are the obvious case for mass transit improvements. > Your point about the rich getting infrastructure seems like a non sequitur here. It's voters' job to get their representatives to build enough infrastructure, not just the rich. The point is that congestion pricing benefits the rich over the poor, as compared with alternatives like funding another bus or subway line via taxes, or reducing/eliminating fares. Which voters care about when deciding what to get their representatives to do. > I agree that congestion tolls are somewhat regressive, but the solution is to have a progressive tax system, not to avoid efficiency taxes. It's politically a lot easier to not impose regressive fees than to impose them and then try to balance it by transferring more money to low/middle income people who are already paying negative effective tax rates.