All the money from these taxes should go to planting forests, renewables projects etc.
How exactly is buying a tool or grocery shopping (what I assume is meant by "the store") driving out of boredom?
But to your point, a tax on driving ICE vehicles may indeed incentivize different behavior in areas where there are other transit options. Proposing such a tax is a very urban-centric view, however. Anyone in an even somewhat rural area would immediately realize how impractical it is. For example, if I personally wanted to use public transit I would first need to walk 5 miles each way along a 50mph road without sidewalks to get to the nearest bus stop.
Of course increased public transit options are a piece of the puzzle here, but there are huge areas of the US that have a population density far too low for any type of public transit system to make sense. These areas also tend to the be the areas where buying an electric car is far out of reach economically as well. Like it or not, ICE cars aren't going anywhere for a while.
Except I live in a rural area and that’s where I see all the wasted trips, in cities people just get an elevator downstairs and buy food.
I’m talking about just encouraging basics like, planning your shopping for the week, instead of going to the store everyday to buy milk, eggs etc.
Planning your jobs better so it’s two trips to the hardware store and not ten.
The cost of being sloppy is too low imo and it just means people drive around a lot more than required.
Personally, every time I think about staying my car I think if there is another way to accomplish my mission without the vehicle, or I bundle my trips / get something shipped.
They are. Heavily. In California, right now with gas at $3.59 (Costco), gas taxes are adding around 50% to the price of gas. ($1.15 of fixed fees, plus sales tax)
> All the money from these taxes should go to planting forests, renewables projects etc.
Those types of taxes get passed, but eventually end up in general funds or borrowed against to fund general funds. But people still keep proposing these like next time it won't happen.
Now look at how that still doesn’t come anywhere near paying just for the roads, much less the other subsidies like parking or the cost of all of the extra healthcare needed.
You'll be punishing people who can't afford an electric or hybrid which would in turn reduce their employment opportunities, either by taxing the fuel at a higher rate or by making their vehicle more expensive upfront (so they either don't want to put miles on it or they're forced to get a cheaper vehicle which is more prone to issues) -- and let's be honest, public transport outside the major city centers is a joke in America and probably always will be because of how spread out we are.
Rural residents (frequently low income) often don't have a stable enough grid to charge electric vehicles reliably either.
Don't get me wrong, I think we need to make the shift but there are still a lot of unresolved practical issues. I expect there's a lot more room for technological improvements in the next 5-10 years which will drive the cost so low that people won't even want an ICE unless it's really necessary for something. Honestly, there's bigger fish to fry with carbon emissions anyway.
I'd be surprised to hear of a community with trunk lines that actually can't handle 1-2 EVs per house.
Edit: Having said that, we are in the middle of an extended outage, so I just charge the EV in town. There are fast DC chargers in grocery store lots and near restaurants, so this isn't inconvenient at all. Our ICE pickup wouldn't fit well on the (often one bidirectional lane) roads this week, due to slides, debris, and rerouted heavy equipment / repair trucks.
The EV has 135 mile range (more like 100 in current conditions). EVs are fine in rural areas (probably up to abput 100 miles from town, assuming a car with a 300 mile EPA range). Also, we'll be buying a generator, ASAP, for other reasons. We could use that to charge the car on cloudy days after a Puerto Rico style grid collapse.
2) It is extremely simple to make a progressive gas tax. You set the tax at a high enough level to establish a consumer incentive. Say, $2 per liter. Every month, everyone gets a check for their share of the revenue, divided among the whole population. At current rates of consumption this would be $160/month/person. For anyone who burned the average amount of motor fuel, it's a wash. But for people who used less fuel than average it's profit, and motor fuel consumption is proportional to income so it is naturally progressive. If you make the refund taxable income then it is even more progressive, because the median person doesn't even pay income taxes.
With the above plan suddenly everyone wants to use less gas than the average guy.
> motor fuel consumption is proportional to income so it is naturally progressive
Counterpoints:
- Older, cheaper cars are less fuel efficient and use more gas.
- Rent is cheaper further from job centers, meaning long commutes.
- Places where rent is cheaper tend to have less investment in walkability and public transit, meaning cars are used more often.
“ The highest income quintile (making at least $95,000 per year) spent slightly more than $4,000 on gasoline in 2013, while the lowest income quintile (making under $18,000 per year) spent about $1,200 on gasoline. Higher-income households also have more vehicles: 2.8 per household for the highest quintile compared with 0.9 per household for the lowest quintile.”
But yes, the gas tax is exactly what the prior commenter is looking for. It's just far, far too low. US Federal gas tax, last raised in 1993, is 18.4¢/gal. Compare this with Europe, where the average is ~$2.47/gal [1].
[1] https://taxfoundation.org/gas-taxes-in-europe-2022/#:~:text=....
The way shopping for groceries works here in the US is that we buy enough goods to last us a week or two. That simply isn't happening with just two hands and feet, or even a bicycle.
I'm not saying it's practical for everyone, especially large families. But there are more options than people may consider at first, simply because everything in the US is so car centric by default.
Electric cargo bikes are the last bastion of hope here. https://youtu.be/rQhzEnWCgHA
Where we live, we'd really have to drive to the store, that's it; However, we go once a week maximum to avoid more trips.
You want to get rid of particulate, gotta go fewer cars altogether.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438942...
Or road sweepers that wash the road and collect the tire dust, not just the trash.
Machines with moving parts don't last forever. This is more true under more load. Also, if you wanted to change the number of pollutants, you'd really need everyone to get these new magic tires, so it would have to be a cheaper product, and specifically not a premium product.
It's also worth noting, that the person at risk for all of this is not the driver. The person at risk for all of this is anyone else. You're not kicking up particulates for yourself, you're kicking up particulates for everyone around you.
Another option would be an EV albeit sub-optimal. I've been looking at getting an EV side-by-side. [1] There are several street legal options. Many here use side-by-sides to go into town.
The EV cars have a long ways to go before I will consider one. Highly dystopian telemetry, standard features sold as subscriptions, battery tech is still ancient in my opinion, too many features and too many attempts to make the cars self driving and the tech just isn't ready. The EV side-by-sides are still a bit pricey and it would be entirely useless for going up into the mountains as the range / battery tech is still ancient. Producing this EV also emits a lot of emissions. To be carbon neutral might take a lifetime, especially when having to replace the batteries. It gets really cold here so I would need batteries that can handle it and Lithiom Ion requires heat pads so I will be using more solar/grid power. I do not get much solar power here. I am starting to see EV's as shiny luxury golf carts but that is just my take.
I could just walk. It's only a few miles into town but then I would have to make many trips and pulling a cart of groceries through ice and snow is much harder than one might imagine. Even pushing a shopping cart 50 feet when I have a few bags of oats and the store was too cheap to clear the ice from their parking lot is quite comical and quite a workout. Walking along the highway is super dangerous in the winter. There are no buses or trains anywhere near me and I doubt that there ever would be. People here are expected to have snow capable vehicles.
I've thought of e-bikes with super-fat snow tires. It turns out those don't work so great. I have a neighbor that tried it and they just went back to using their truck.
[1] - https://www.polaris.com/en-us/off-road/ranger/2022/ranger-ev...
Why shouldn't you pay for the cost of your choice to live in a rural area?
Absolutely, yes. I chose the path of freedom as in governments, geopolitics, philosophy and ethics keep to themselves for the most part. I could not in my wildest dreams make a dent positive or negative on the global air quality even if I bought the biggest diesel engine, deleted all the emissions systems and drove up and down the highway twelve hours a day. That said I do not do that. I rarely leave the house.
Why shouldn't you pay for the cost of your choice to live in a rural area?
The cost of living in a rural area is having to be more self sufficient which I am making a significant effort to be so I am doing my part. I see no reason that big city cultures should impose their lifestyle choices and fallout from their mistakes upon me. Air quality in big cities is horrible and I moved away from that. I suggest everyone that can get out of big cities do so. Big cities are unhealthy in many ways, air quality being only one of them.
Big cities were important at the start of the industrial age. I believe we are leaving that age and moving into something else though I am not sure what to call it. In the case of tech it won't be long before people can live in just about any part of their country including in very rural areas. I envision a hybrid of industrial and rural agrarian lifestyles where people can be more self sufficient and also contribute to the whole economy. This pretty much as to happen as boomers are retiring, gen-x is tiny and that doesn't leave many people to contribute to the economy. People will have to get back to growing families and that is very challenging in cities whereas kids can be free labor in rural areas.