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I'll bite. Fines and fees are a difficult topic. Fines and fees should never be used to fund the government. They are a perverse incentive. We have seen ove
by pooper 4y ago
I'll bite.
Fines and fees are a difficult topic.
Fines and fees should never be used to fund the government.
They are a perverse incentive.
We have seen over the years how horrible politicians try to "lower taxes" by shifting the cost of running a town to people who can't fight back.
For traffic management, I like the idea of roundabouts and twists to control speed better. Red lights and stop signs have inherent deficiencies and we should phase them out. I'd argue that drivers should feel they are going to fast and need to slow down by cues like narrow streets with no onstreet parking, not four lane stroads with 30mph plastered on a five mile perfectly straight stretch.
Most importantly though, we need better public transit or any public transit. Ideally free of cost for the riders and paid for by taxes.
- zopa 4y agoRoundabouts and public transit improvements cost millions or billions and take years or decades to roll out. They’re great, and we should build them, but there’s a lot to be said for quicker, cheaper solutions in the mean time.
- jononomo 4y agoIt is a pathetic commentary on our society that we can't implement roundabouts without spending millions of dollars and a decade of time. I feel that an intersection could be replaced with a roundabout in a single weekend if people cared enough. Didn't the Japanese recently reroute tracks and reconfigure a train station overnight, before the 7 AM train arrived?
- earthling8118 4y agoAt some point this attitude has to be given up. There's no reason traffic circles should cost millions to billions. I'd be willing to wager that this short sighted, quick and dirty meantime fix strategy has been employed too much and now we've arrived at this reality.
- zopa 4y agoIt’s not an “attitude”, it’s an objective fact about how capital project go in the US right now. I’ve got theories, but I don’t really know what the best way is to fix that. We probably need to try a bunch of things, and I’m all for that. But drivers running red lights kill people. I’m for for the ideal, elegant solutions, and also for the imperfect incremental ones. I really don’t think worse-is-better, if that’s what you’re advocating, is appropriate.
- yowzadave 4y ago> Fines and fees are a difficult topic. Fines and fees should never be used to fund the government. They are a perverse incentive. Perhaps it would be better if all of the fines went into a social wealth fund that every citizen has a share in?
- catmiral 4y ago> I'll bite. Fines and fees are a difficult topic. Fines and fees should never be used to fund the government. Fines should be used to fund insurance for victims of lawless drivers, or to improve road infrastructure, build bicycle roads, etc.