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Road usage fees can solve many big problems: - Congestion, aka "traffic". Road usage is currently sold for pretty much nothing. Which means highly desirable ro

Road usage fees can solve many big problems: - Congestion, aka "traffic". Road usage is currently sold for pretty much nothing. Which means highly desirable road usage is overused, turning 20 minute commutes to 2 hours. Setting road prices so that road demand matches supply would solve many such problems. It also seems politically impossible, since most people have a strong emotional reaction against it. Maybe it can be eased in. I have some hope. - Pay for real road wear. The gasoline tax is a very imprecise measure of road wear. Trucks cause orders of magnitude more road damage per gallon than cars, but a gas tax can't fix that. With each vehicle category paying closer to its actual costs, the system would be healthier. - Electrical vehicles. The instigating cause for this. If we're abolishing gas driven cars, a gas tax can't really keep paying for roads.

jameslk 5y ago
> - Congestion, aka "traffic". Road usage is currently sold for pretty much nothing. Which means highly desirable road usage is overused, turning 20 minute commutes to 2 hours. > Setting road prices so that road demand matches supply would solve many such problems. Finally, a solution to help poor people work from home too /s
TulliusCicero 5y ago
> With each vehicle category paying closer to its actual costs, the system would be healthier. Yes, but consider that road damage isn't the only thing that it makes sense to charge road users for. Even in a hypothetical system where road damage from weight didn't exist, roads would still deteriorate over time, plus as you say, there's the value of the space itself.
wcunning 5y ago
This is very hard to make into a progressive tax when you take into account that structurally it will 1) raise prices for all goods and most services, disproportionately impacting the poor and 2) higher paying job categories demand less driving structurally. On top of that, it will significantly change incentives on where people live and work -- rural areas are already very expensive in terms of difficulty to acquire goods and services, so adding a massive tax because you have to drive a lot when you live there will significantly damage an already poor population and wreck property values. This is a correct cost application, but there's massive political power against it, both in terms of the Senate's structural ruralness and the structural rural power inside most states.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Paying the true cost when you haven’t been previously is understandably inconvenient. I find it absolutely fascinating how much this occurs across human civilization (benefit programs, infrastructure, fossil energy consumption are a few examples) and critiques of it are quietly ignored or pushed aside. A Ponzi or pyramid scheme aren’t the right words, but it’s closer to a species wide confidence game at scale. Everyone knows it, no one wants to fix it, they just want a chair when the music stops.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  I expect this scheme to raise costs for two main categories: trucks and big city commuters. Regular rural car drivers should pay considerably less than they do now, at least if the total amount stay the same.
gregors 5y ago
Just wanted to point out congestion charging in London exists. "The Congestion Charge is a £15 daily charge if you drive within the Congestion Charge zone 07:00-22:00, every day, except Christmas Day (25 December)." https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge

jameslk 5y ago

> - Congestion, aka "traffic". Road usage is currently sold for pretty much nothing. Which means highly desirable road usage is overused, turning 20 minute commutes to 2 hours. > Setting road prices so that road demand matches supply would solve many such problems. Finally, a solution to help poor people work from home too /s

TulliusCicero 5y ago

> With each vehicle category paying closer to its actual costs, the system would be healthier. Yes, but consider that road damage isn't the only thing that it makes sense to charge road users for. Even in a hypothetical system where road damage from weight didn't exist, roads would still deteriorate over time, plus as you say, there's the value of the space itself.

wcunning 5y ago

This is very hard to make into a progressive tax when you take into account that structurally it will 1) raise prices for all goods and most services, disproportionately impacting the poor and 2) higher paying job categories demand less driving structurally. On top of that, it will significantly change incentives on where people live and work -- rural areas are already very expensive in terms of difficulty to acquire goods and services, so adding a massive tax because you have to drive a lot when you live there will significantly damage an already poor population and wreck property values. This is a correct cost application, but there's massive political power against it, both in terms of the Senate's structural ruralness and the structural rural power inside most states.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Paying the true cost when you haven’t been previously is understandably inconvenient. I find it absolutely fascinating how much this occurs across human civilization (benefit programs, infrastructure, fossil energy consumption are a few examples) and critiques of it are quietly ignored or pushed aside. A Ponzi or pyramid scheme aren’t the right words, but it’s closer to a species wide confidence game at scale. Everyone knows it, no one wants to fix it, they just want a chair when the music stops.
BurningFrog 5y ago
I expect this scheme to raise costs for two main categories: trucks and big city commuters. Regular rural car drivers should pay considerably less than they do now, at least if the total amount stay the same.

gregors 5y ago

Just wanted to point out congestion charging in London exists. "The Congestion Charge is a £15 daily charge if you drive within the Congestion Charge zone 07:00-22:00, every day, except Christmas Day (25 December)." https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge