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It's frustrating how poorly most people understand economics and the distinction between price and cost. Everybody in the world is being asked to blithely accep
by tootie 11mo ago
It's frustrating how poorly most people understand economics and the distinction between price and cost. Everybody in the world is being asked to blithely accept the massive unpaid costs of motor vehicle usage. This is a tiny step towards recouping some of this costs. Roadways, parking, collisions, pollution, noise have all be costs born by all of us. And in NYC that's a load of non-drivers. We should be adopting all sorts of policies to pass those costs on to drivers.
People panic over the thought of free buses when we have millions of miles of free roads.
- apparent 11mo ago> we have millions of miles of free roads. Are you familiar with the gas tax? Vehicle registration fees?
- adgjlsfhk1 11mo agoThey don't begin to cover road construction costs (not even mentioning fair market rent for the amount of area they take up)
- postflopclarity 11mo agoare you familiar with how negligible a fraction of the costs that car-dependent infrastructure imposes on society those two taxes represent
- rcpt 11mo agoRoads are very expensive. Those taxes are never high enough to pay for the roads.
- apparent 11mo agoI did not say they cover 100% of the roads. I was responding to a comment claiming that roads are free.
- dzhiurgis 11mo agoWait until you learn how expensive railway is
- orwin 11mo agoTo maintain? Way less, even high speed track are less expensive than highways (especially per traveller)
- lmm 11mo agoNeither of which is required to use the road in all cases.
- apparent 11mo agoTrue, you can ride a bicycle/scooter/etc. or just walk on roads without paying. All motor vehicles pay registration fees if I'm not mistaken. And in at least some states, they hit EVs with higher fees, to make up for lost gas tax revenue. I think some states are even moving towards per-mile fees for EVs, for this purpose. But most road damage is done by big rigs and other heavy vehicles, which are basically all ICE.
- bdangubic 11mo agothere isn’t a yard of a road that is free
- bmicraft 11mo agoIf you're only paying for a couple of those yards, does it matter if the others are literally free or if you distribute that payment to all of them while paying a couple percent each? It's a distinction without a difference.