4 ms·

Wouldn't just tax on petrol solve that? In Europe petrol at the pump is twice the price of the refined barrel. If you look carefully, this has a complete impact

• oblio 9y ago
  I think there should be an upfront tax. Taxes dilluted over time seem to be less visible, we're really bad at estimates, as every developer knows :) An extra 50 cents per gallon is quite a bit, but it doesn't seem to discourage this behavior. 40% on the price of the car instead... could make a lot more people think twice about the purchase.
  • mveldth 9y ago
    Petrol price at the pump does factor into it. For longer distances, I look at public transport and weigh travel time and ticket prices against fuel costs. For shorter distances, great bicycling infrastructure helps a lot. Buses are nice but cycling is often as fast, with the benefit of being completely door to door and leaving exactly when you want to. But this benefit only works if people feel completely safe on the road, which means mostly seperate cycle paths, and removing cars from the busy city centers. Not having cars there makes shopping more attractive, because it's now easier to walk from store to the store across the road. That same infrastructure then also helps make trains more attractive, because you can set up cheap bike hire at stations. This then means your journey can be bike-train-bike door to door, rather than walk-bus-train-bus-walk (or worse). It's a complicated connected mesh of things.