Bay Area proposes per mile toll for using the freeways | Hacker News Reader

Bay Area proposes per mile toll for using the freeways

nbcbayarea.com

Things have a way of getting worse. The cost of electricity to charge batteries (and my lights, air conditioner and so forth) keeps rocketing up.

A mileage tax is regressive in the extreme. Blue collar workers can't afford to live anywhere near jobs, and mass transit hasn't advanced at all, IMO, in 25 years or so.

The PUC used the incredible excuse to reduce buyback on home solar by saying that subsidizing "wealthy" homeowners burdened the less wealthy. BTW, they allowed a rate rise, so my electricity about doubled in cost.

I expect only negative progress on everything as long as agencies run things, and they are small enough to ... well, you know ....

Not surprised. Though this plan is about easing congestion, it will eventually have to be implemented state wide in order to replace gasoline taxes that go towards road maintenance. By 2035, 45% of new car sales will already be electric, and after that the sale of new non-zero emission cars will be banned altogether. That means by 2050 half of the cars actually on the road will be electric. In just 25 years, there will be roughly 50% less gasoline taxes coming in (give or take - commercial trucking accounts for a lot of it).

That shortfall will need to be made up somehow. License plates will soon be e-paper, and it won't be much of a stretch to imagine them having a transponder in them, or for new cars to be required to have them. Or for every mile of highway to have cameras.

You have an error in your formula. Gas taxes in California have been used mostly for anything -but- road maintenance. What California needs to do is solve their wasteful spending problem. They do not have a taxation problem.

You have zero idea what you're talking about. Which is typical of anti-tax zealots.

California's legislature is constitutionally prevented from diverting gas taxes for anything but transportation expenses like upkeep and law enforcement. Additional laws prevent it from borrowing from the funds as well.

Thankfully people like you are in the minority and not running the government.

Just do a search for gas tax diversion and you'll see you are wrong.

Good thing people like you are on the internet though.

Here’s a link to exactly where gas tax goes:

https://lao.ca.gov/Transportation/FAQs#how-does-the-state-sp...

Electric cars pay an extra tax in California as part of the registration which is a replacement for the gas taxes.

Road damage is caused at a rate of something like (weight ^ 4) / (# of axles), right?

So, a proper road use tax would have to be based on that same formula times the distance driven. That seems pretty simple and unavoidable, no matter how distasteful some people might find it.

Same for big trucks, although they should probably get a reducing scaling factor applied because they're usually hauling commercial products that benefit larger numbers of people.

You task a bunch of people with reducing congestion and put them to work at a cash-strapped government agency and this is what you get. The one and only way we know which will reduce congestion which also generates revenue for the agency. Pay no attention to the fact that the result may be worse than the problem being solved.

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