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> Neighbors keying each others cars for taking up a space for too long. People need to stop being shitty to each other. > Without readily available and reliab

> Neighbors keying each others cars for taking up a space for too long. People need to stop being shitty to each other. > Without readily available and reliable public transportation this is just lining developers pockets (because fewer parking spaces needed means more units they can build). I don't think this is fair. Fewer parking spaces might mean higher profits for developers on a per-unit basis, but I'd rather them make money and provide more additional housing units that are sorely needed, especially in cities, than build apartment complexes with garages or parking which then necessitate higher taxes and more public spending to support roads, car crashes, and other related externalities. "But public transit costs money too" yes, just redirect state highway department budgets to transit 1-1 and then you're not spending any more and getting higher ROI.

arcticbull 3y ago
Further, we should move to a model where the highways are paid entirely by usage fees (gas tax, tolls, etc) instead of subsidized. They're for the benefit of private operators, so the private operators should pay for them. The investments should be in public transit instead.
- wharvle 3y ago
  A great deal of highway spending is subsidizing truck shipping. Most of the damage done to highways comes from big trucks, and taxes on them don't come anywhere near paying for it. [EDIT] Incidentally, maybe we shouldn't subsidize truck shipping! But using usage taxes to pay for highways while not shifting the burden such that truck shipping is paying the lion's share of the cost and is no longer (so very much, at least) subsidized, would be making non-commercial drivers subsidize truck shipping (even more than they already are) which subsidy (to some degree) benefits everyone, including non-drivers, which seems like a weird and/or bad move to me.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    Truck shipping has never made sense to me. It's significantly less fuel efficient than rail shipping, and paying people to just sit there and drive for their entire lives feels kinda torturous to me...
    - wharvle 3y ago
      Lots of communities aren't served by rail, ship, or barge (or nowhere near enough capacity of those, or efficiently connected to the wrong places—how much raw iron ore or coal does a small town need?) so truck shipping's all they've got. Rail may pass through nearby, but without unloading capability or sufficient capacity at a proper train yard. Trucks drive to them from the nearest hub or notable train yard, which may be way more than your usual "last mile" concern that a city or whatever has. Tens of miles, to the warehouses that serve them, then tens of miles more to the nearest major store, that kind of thing. Rural living would be way more expensive and inconvenient without truck shipping subsidies. Which, maybe making rural living artificially cheap is a good idea and maybe it's not, but that's one big shift that would happen if we made truck shipping pay its way entirely. [EDIT] For true long-haul, I'm with you, the majority of that's surely only viable because of those subsidies, and we'd be better off pushing that to rail, ship, and barge.

arcticbull 3y ago

Further, we should move to a model where the highways are paid entirely by usage fees (gas tax, tolls, etc) instead of subsidized. They're for the benefit of private operators, so the private operators should pay for them. The investments should be in public transit instead.

wharvle 3y ago
A great deal of highway spending is subsidizing truck shipping. Most of the damage done to highways comes from big trucks, and taxes on them don't come anywhere near paying for it. [EDIT] Incidentally, maybe we shouldn't subsidize truck shipping! But using usage taxes to pay for highways while not shifting the burden such that truck shipping is paying the lion's share of the cost and is no longer (so very much, at least) subsidized, would be making non-commercial drivers subsidize truck shipping (even more than they already are) which subsidy (to some degree) benefits everyone, including non-drivers, which seems like a weird and/or bad move to me.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  Truck shipping has never made sense to me. It's significantly less fuel efficient than rail shipping, and paying people to just sit there and drive for their entire lives feels kinda torturous to me...
  - wharvle 3y ago
    Lots of communities aren't served by rail, ship, or barge (or nowhere near enough capacity of those, or efficiently connected to the wrong places—how much raw iron ore or coal does a small town need?) so truck shipping's all they've got. Rail may pass through nearby, but without unloading capability or sufficient capacity at a proper train yard. Trucks drive to them from the nearest hub or notable train yard, which may be way more than your usual "last mile" concern that a city or whatever has. Tens of miles, to the warehouses that serve them, then tens of miles more to the nearest major store, that kind of thing. Rural living would be way more expensive and inconvenient without truck shipping subsidies. Which, maybe making rural living artificially cheap is a good idea and maybe it's not, but that's one big shift that would happen if we made truck shipping pay its way entirely. [EDIT] For true long-haul, I'm with you, the majority of that's surely only viable because of those subsidies, and we'd be better off pushing that to rail, ship, and barge.