4 ms·

Well maybe because it's a total nonsense argument? Unless you actually want to kill all road transport and everything reliant on it, which is effectively everyt

Well maybe because it's a total nonsense argument? Unless you actually want to kill all road transport and everything reliant on it, which is effectively everything, in which case I also think it's clear why you're not getting any replies.

SilasX 7y ago
Per my other comment [1], it’s nonsense to actually collect $4000, but it’s not nonsense to have the ratios work like that. Such a tax would eliminate marginal uses of trucks but not eliminate trucks entirely (since it would be a higher but not ridiculous tax). It also works as a reductio against any wear-based tax on bikes, since it would imply an absurd tax on trucks. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22519021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22519021 (Edited over past hour to fix numerous typos.)
- read_if_gay_ 7y ago
  You are missing that the cost of bike lanes isn't just in constructing and maintaining them. Adding bike lanes in cities means dropping car lanes because there's not enough space. That ends up creating potentially huge opportunity costs.
  - SilasX 7y ago
    I wasn’t missing that, I just wasn’t addressing it; I was just addressing how to assess maintenance taxes. If there are other costs of having the road there, like its real estate usage, I agree that’s another factor to consider.
    - read_if_gay_ 7y ago
      Okay. If we're just talking maintenance taxes then I agree the idea isn't nonsense. Excuse the misunderstanding.
  - Retric 7y ago
    Bike lanes can handle more traffic per surface area than car lanes. Utilization is unfortunately low in most areas, but capacity wise it’s a clear net gain for city centers. Oddly enough, sidewalks are the most efficient use of space, but require good public transportation and extreme density to reach that threshold.
  - dragontamer 7y ago
    Not quite IMO. Anyone who has done any amount of virtual traffic engineering (aka: Factorio, City Skylines, OpenTTD) knows that intersections are where the bottlenecks are. Its incredibly difficult to design a max-throughput intersection. Roads have a huge amount of throughput, most "traffic" just gets stuck at offramps and traffic lights. Narrowing a road to make room for bike lanes is a lower cost than people might think. If you're all going to get stuck at the next intersection anyway, it doesn't matter if you're a 2-lane, 4-lane, or 8-lane road.
    - allovernow 7y ago
      > it doesn't matter if you're a 2-lane, 4-lane, or 8-lane road If you halve the capacity of the road, you're just going to spread the same cars (and congestion) among twice as many lights...and make traffic far worse.
      - Marsymars 7y ago
        Depends. My commute home from my office has a 6km of a three-lane road and then a single traffic light. The road never gets backed up more than a couple km from the traffic light, so even dropping it to a single lane wouldn't make any real difference to the throughput. The speed you drive on the three-lane road also makes no real difference to the throughput as long as you get the same amount of cars through the traffic light at each cycle.
        pedrosorio 7y ago
        > as long as you get the same amount of cars through the traffic light at each cycle. Isn’t this proportional to the number of lanes in the road?
        pmiller2 7y ago
        If all the lanes are used at capacity, yes. Otherwise, no.
        Marsymars 7y ago
  - fpoling 7y ago
    In Oslo, Norway the city builds a lot of bike lines . It narrowed streets for cars or removed parking places. I talked with a few folks with cars in the city and their typical response that it made them to get work faster with a car. Surely they have to walk more to a parking spot, but after that they drive faster through the city. Apparently street parking creates a lot of congestion.
  - jbay808 7y ago
    There are opportunity costs in the other direction too.

SilasX 7y ago

Per my other comment [1], it’s nonsense to actually collect $4000, but it’s not nonsense to have the ratios work like that. Such a tax would eliminate marginal uses of trucks but not eliminate trucks entirely (since it would be a higher but not ridiculous tax). It also works as a reductio against any wear-based tax on bikes, since it would imply an absurd tax on trucks. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22519021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22519021 (Edited over past hour to fix numerous typos.)

read_if_gay_ 7y ago
You are missing that the cost of bike lanes isn't just in constructing and maintaining them. Adding bike lanes in cities means dropping car lanes because there's not enough space. That ends up creating potentially huge opportunity costs.
- SilasX 7y ago
  I wasn’t missing that, I just wasn’t addressing it; I was just addressing how to assess maintenance taxes. If there are other costs of having the road there, like its real estate usage, I agree that’s another factor to consider.
  - read_if_gay_ 7y ago
    Okay. If we're just talking maintenance taxes then I agree the idea isn't nonsense. Excuse the misunderstanding.
- Retric 7y ago
  Bike lanes can handle more traffic per surface area than car lanes. Utilization is unfortunately low in most areas, but capacity wise it’s a clear net gain for city centers. Oddly enough, sidewalks are the most efficient use of space, but require good public transportation and extreme density to reach that threshold.
- dragontamer 7y ago
  Not quite IMO. Anyone who has done any amount of virtual traffic engineering (aka: Factorio, City Skylines, OpenTTD) knows that intersections are where the bottlenecks are. Its incredibly difficult to design a max-throughput intersection. Roads have a huge amount of throughput, most "traffic" just gets stuck at offramps and traffic lights. Narrowing a road to make room for bike lanes is a lower cost than people might think. If you're all going to get stuck at the next intersection anyway, it doesn't matter if you're a 2-lane, 4-lane, or 8-lane road.
  - allovernow 7y ago
    > it doesn't matter if you're a 2-lane, 4-lane, or 8-lane road If you halve the capacity of the road, you're just going to spread the same cars (and congestion) among twice as many lights...and make traffic far worse.
    - Marsymars 7y ago
      Depends. My commute home from my office has a 6km of a three-lane road and then a single traffic light. The road never gets backed up more than a couple km from the traffic light, so even dropping it to a single lane wouldn't make any real difference to the throughput. The speed you drive on the three-lane road also makes no real difference to the throughput as long as you get the same amount of cars through the traffic light at each cycle.
      - pedrosorio 7y ago
        > as long as you get the same amount of cars through the traffic light at each cycle. Isn’t this proportional to the number of lanes in the road?
        pmiller2 7y ago
        If all the lanes are used at capacity, yes. Otherwise, no.
        Marsymars 7y ago
- fpoling 7y ago
  In Oslo, Norway the city builds a lot of bike lines . It narrowed streets for cars or removed parking places. I talked with a few folks with cars in the city and their typical response that it made them to get work faster with a car. Surely they have to walk more to a parking spot, but after that they drive faster through the city. Apparently street parking creates a lot of congestion.
- jbay808 7y ago
  There are opportunity costs in the other direction too.