Toll roads are good economics. If a choice has negative externalities (more traffic, more pollution, road damage), tax it.
Rich people pay the tolls without a second thought. For the poor they are yet another obstacle to trying to make ends meet.
Tolls are a regressive tax on the working class. The rich don't even need to use the roads as much because they have other people delivering for them. When they need the road system, the tolls are nothing to them.
The working class, which are generally required to be driving to survive, are left holding the bag for tolls. In places with bad public transit, tolls are just a forced wealth transfer from working class to private firms managing the tolls.
The very well-known in Germany satiric news website "Der Postillion" had an interesting provocative piece just yesterday (German, but auto-translate takes care of that): https://www.der-postillon.com/2023/12/weihnachtsmann-ungerec... -- "Schlimmer Verdacht: Bevorzugt der Weihnachtsmann die Kinder reicher Eltern?" ("A disturbing suspicion: Does Santa Claus favor the children of wealthy parents?")
Being able to get to places by car is one of the most basic needs in the US. I think it leads to cementing the monetary status quo and monetary class affiliation when that becomes even more dependent on how much money one can spend on it. A nicer car being more expensive is fine in that regard, it does not get you from A to B much or any faster than the cheap one. Being able to choose roads or lanes that will take you there much faster is different.
It removes one's personal "hard work" contribution to success if more and more of it is out of your control - after all, how much money you start the game of life with is nothing one has control over. Maybe making that kind of mechanism worse is not the best idea in the long term. Unless we are really aiming for what all the dystopia movies and anime have been showing us.
There are also tons and tons of indirect effects. For example, I would make the claim that wealthy shareholders benefit a lot more from roads than poor people, even when they don't drive, since the companies they own and the entire economy needs them. The poorer people driving to work "paying their share" does not look so clearly justified to me, unless one believes that their salaries are perfect indications of their role in value creation.
Canadian stand-up comedian Casually Explained (I don't actually know if he stands up to record his videos) had basically the same joke a few days before them.
We have removed all tolls here in Nova Scotia,including for small car ferry's , were not rich or populous,but are building out our infrastructure bit by bit to facilitate ease of transport and the prevention of accidents and traffic jams. The other thing they added are info signs accross the main hyways comming in, giving times for the main transit routes, making it easy to redirect , 45 MIN!, yikes! sounds like coffee and grocerie shopping to me! It has realy made a huge difference getting around the city and has opened up options for travelling rural routes that have ferries.
Why? That doesn’t seem like a good way to run society.
Why should I pay the toll to drive to a friend's house? They're the one getting the benefit out of having easy access to transportation.
What if my taxes pay for all the roads in my town, while the neighboring town chooses to implement tolls instead? Why should I get double-taxed? Prisoner's dilemma and race-to-the-bottom?
Why should I have to deal with having my license plate stolen, and police time wasted (who are paid out of taxes), because of people who don't pay the tolls?
Fee-for-service city parks? Public libraries? Fire departments? Sidewalks? What about investing in the "public good"?
"You could say they are a flat tax since every driver pays the same per usage. You could even argue it is a progressive tax since richer people use toll roads more. The only way you CAN'T describe a toll is a regressive tax. Words have meaning."
A toll is absolutely regressive because the burden it imposes is constant, irrespective of income; poorer individuals will pay a proportionally higher percentage of their income than wealthier counterparts. As income increases the "effective rate" asymptotically approaches zero, which is regressive by definition.
Maybe EVERYTHING shouldn't BE "constant prices". Maybe where there are practical alternatives to constant pricing, those should be preferred and used.
> Charging $10 for a t-shirt is regressive.
No. Not unless there is only 1 type of t-shirt in the world available. If I'm poor I can go find cheaper t-shirts either less stylish, poorer quality, from a generic brand, from a discount retailer, second-hand (used), packaged in bulk, etc., or maybe wait around for a sale on the t-shirt.
The dominant automobile oriented transportation system is very unaffordable and requires high costs of entry. The best thing we can do to make transportation more affordable in general is giving people more options aside from the car. Taxing the wealthy in order to raise revenue for public transportation and active transportation options dominates any sort of regressiveness issues around road tolls and less traffic makes buses more effective.
Wait until you hear about the true costs of transit. A transit ride in a large city is typically MORE expensive than a car ride. Even when you take into account the cost of depreciation, insurance, financing and other related expenses.
The transit ticket price in the US is typically covers just around 15-20% of the _operational_ _cost_ ("farebox recovery rate"). And the capital costs for transit are off the charts. Seattle is going to pay $180B (yes, that's "B" for "billion") for about 20 miles of new lines. And for one mile of subways in Manhattan, you can build 1500 miles of 6-lane freeway.
It's THE real reason we have a failing democracy. Thoughtless social experiments with subsidizing transit have led to distorted housing and job markets. You can't just subsidize one facet of life and hope for it to work.
And it's the main reason for polarization. You have large cities (SF, Seattle, Chicago, NYC) that are the centers of economic growth, and you have thousands of small cities that are slowly dying. These large cities and their satellites are growing at an unsustainable rate, even though the _overall_ population is flat.
And then the cities themselves, they have a huge population of low-income workers who can't afford to live there without some form of subsidies. It started with transit, but now the freaking NYC mayor is talking about subsidized grocery stores. This is another source of polarization.
Want to see an even starker example? Look at Japan. Tokyo is in a literal housing price bubble in a country with a _shrinking_ population.
> Tokyo is in a literal housing price bubble in a country with a _shrinking_ population.
> Also, Japan effectively has zero NIMBYism due to a national building code. New housing is constantly being built in Tokyo.
Yup. It's a great example of why "just build more" leads only to misery.
> Yes, overall, the population is shrinking in Japan. However, the population of Tokyo continues to rise.
Thank you for making my point.
I suggest looking at Germany and the rapid ascendance of the AFD. And then looking at real estate prices in Berlin.
Also worth noting that comparing capital costs of underground transit to above ground private travel is pretty apples and oranges. Buses would be fairer comparison IMO.
There are several ways you can look at it. The easiest way is to divide the opex budget by the ridership. E.g. MTA ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Transportation_Au... ) had a $19B budget in 2023 for 1.15B rides, resulting in about $16 per ride. Assuming conservatively 60 rides a month, that's $960 a month for transit in NYC. Without any capital expenses taken into account.
The average total car cost in the US in 2023 was around $1000 a month ( https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-does-it-cost-to-own-a... ). And this includes _everything_, including the capital cost.
> Also worth noting that comparing capital costs of underground transit to above ground private travel is pretty apples and oranges. Buses would be fairer comparison IMO.
Buses don't scale for large cities.
Meanwhile, we're barreling toward 2-3 C of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100. Oh, sorry, that doesn't have a line item on the toll receipt, silly me.
>It's THE real reason we have a failing democracy. Thoughtless social experiments with subsidizing transit have led to distorted housing and job markets. You can't just subsidize one facet of life and hope for it to work.
Lol. Lmao, even.
Money is a pretty good proxy for CO2. So the carbon footprint of large cities is unsustainable.
The most eco-friendly model? Low-density semi-rural areas, with EV-based infrastructure, with sane-sized cars (not SUVs).
I can see it being both ways.
Land aside, building a single story house is much cheaper per sq ft than a tower.
Medium density streets, like UK terraces can have enough density to support commerce nearby etc. but also low enough density to use a lot of solar to power houses directly.
Land may be the constraint given the population of the world.
Though there are few clear cut real world examples to point to because land use is one of the most highly politicized things and it is rarely exposed to real market forces.
It's a great thing to have arguments about because whenever you can point some examples, people will always nitpick at why it's not real (eg. Tokyo is affordable and dense thanks to low regulation and the market, but people will point at the relatively poor Japanese economy etc).
But from basic geometric principles it makes sense that automobile oriented infrastructure is ultimately unsustainable and more expensive because of the constraints of the real world.
Ultimately the issue one runs into is that a car is a box several feet wide by several feet long (6.7x17.4) for an F150. That's a lot of space both parked and on the road. So if everyone buys one (and largely drives around themselves) it's clear that one quickly fills up the size of the road. The cost of expanding roads is very expensive, disruptive, and occasionally impossible. And then it doesn't even really work in remarkably improving traffic because due to Induced Demand, it reprices driving cheaper, which encourages more people to drive, which refills the road again. Everyone's time is being wasted sitting in these large boxes that cost tens of thousands of dollars.
So the core problem is that cars are enormously space inefficient. The system simply doesn't scale and eventually reaches break down.
You simply have to give up and can't grow the city any further. So you have to push people out to other cities.
But if we think of moving people instead of cars, there's a lot more space efficient opportunities since people are very small.
So you look at things like a bicycle, whose costs are relatively near nil, a protected bike lane that is also effectively near nil (put some jersey barriers on an existing road) and you can move that same person for much less. Obviously the problem is that they can't go very far but a combination of different modes for different uses and you have a system that can actually scale.
Build compact mixed use neighbourhoods that one can walk and bike to for local needs, buses for inter neighbourhood, and trains for intra and inter city long distance travel.
Only with this approach can you can continue to scale a city and continue to have a large city that is functional.
Houston, TX is the same population as NYC. Except that it has faster commutes and vastly better housing cost (especially on a per sq.ft. basis).
So we KNOW that sanely-designed people-oriented cities like Houston can scale.
This is the relief valve I mentioned here:
> You simply have to give up and can't grow the city any further. So you have to push people out to other cities.
So a city that can sprawl like Houston, does so, and it grows outward, adding more cities on the edge and becomes effectively a loose federation of many cities, which aids in the transportation issue.
That is a solution that some cities on a plain can make use of to kick out the runway further, but it's unavailable to others with more constrained geography.
E.g. density doesn't decrease housing prices: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/4/26/upzoning-might...
The CO2 footprint question is a tricky one. The vehicle _itself_ is not the main source of pollution. Even if you compare the vehicles, the answer is not straightforward: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint The main source of pollution for transit are _drivers_. E.g. each bus needs around 3 drivers to function, resulting in driver-to-passenger ratio of just around 1:7.
So when computing true CO2 footprint, you need to look at a counter-factual scenario where bus drivers are doing something else. But this becomes extremely tricky extremely fast, as you can move into fantasyland where bus drivers are building CO2 scrubbers instead of driving CO2-emitting vehicles. Or where drivers are working on chopping forests for agricultural lands, resulting in huge CO2 increases.
The next best option is to look at different regions and compare them. E.g. Houston, TX with EVs would have smaller CO2 emissions than the current NYC, with climate corrections.
The article you cited doesn't support that assertion. Its thesis is that upzoning alone — i.e. relaxing regulations such that it is legal to build higher-density housing, without further interventions — may not be sufficient to create enough vacancies to lower rents.
And you need a state-driven corrupt system of subsidies for socialized housing to make it "affordable". For the right kinds of people.
Could you quote a passage that supports your interpretation?
The cited article alone simply admits that upzoning won't result in cheaper housing. Because the market is broken (and only socialized housing can fix it), but we must do upzoning anyway.
No, it's not. Because for that to work, you'll need a large underclass that has to waste 2-3 hours a day in commutes and subsist on groceries from state-run stores.
But yeah, the elites will be able to live in nice walkable areas. I know, I lived in an apartment overlooking the Union Square in Manhattan.
Who says "the Union Square?"
The area is great and walkable, with tons of restaurants around. But of course, nobody working in these restaurants can afford to live anywhere close to it.
> Who says "the Union Square?"
What's wrong with that?
I don't see this. The cost of a month pass on new york subway is $130 a month. That is less than my monthly parking fee in sf
If you’re saying subsidized transit increases local quality of life, leading to higher demand, sure. But the cost itself has nothing to do with housing prices. Property taxes do not make mortgages more expensive. (Wouldn’t it have the opposite effect, high property taxes making houses harder to afford and therefore decreasing demand?)
Or is it that subsidized road systems don’t work? The pure miles of a system are completely irrelevant. Transit systems are meant for high density areas, costing more but covering less ground. The cost of tunneling under a mile Seattle for a road is absolutely more expensive than building a mile of highway in the middle of nowhere.
What the fuck are you on about re:democracy? “Thoughtless social experiments” are pretty far from the truth there. Democracy gets ruined by political parties unwilling to hold their own members accountable and by allowing corporations to exert more political power than human beings.
Well. Look at your two statements again. Now think about this, what would have happened if Seattle didn't have buses and light rail? And didn't permit new dense office space as a result?
> If you’re saying subsidized transit increases local quality of life, leading to higher demand, sure.
It DECREASES the quality of life. It promotes crime and inequality.
> Or is it that subsidized road systems don’t work?
In most states, drivers already pay most of the cost of road maintenance through direct taxes/fees: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-infrastructur... Absolutely no state has unsubsidized transit.
And a bus will waste the time of 49 people while stopping to load/unload just one person. Mild carpooling (think: a van for 3-5 people) can work.
Longer term, work from home for most jobs will eliminate the need for high-capacity transit. Outside of special use-cases like sports areans.
E.g. $5 for a 30 min trip and a change or $20 for a 15 min trip direct taxi experience.
If the road is a bottleneck optimising for usage it may let buses have a fast lane and the difference is less.
> If the road is a bottleneck optimising for usage it may let buses have a fast lane and the difference is less.
Ha. The dirty little secret of bus lanes is that they don't work as people think they do. They don't reduce the overall aggregated travel time (the sum of commute time for all the people traveling the route) in most cases. Instead, they force people out of cars by reducing the car throughput.
The commute time for each person who is forced out of their car typically becomes longer. As is commutes for the people in cars that now have to navigate more congested roads.
If there is low cost public transit available, then a toll could be an incentive to use public transit instead of driving. But if there is no other viable transportation option, then it is effectively just a regressive tax.
At least in theory, this means the toll lane accomplishes the same total road throughput, but shifts the entire cost of its construction to its users instead of depleting public funds. It then appears regressive, but is arguably progressive.
During covid the IRS sent everyone a check. No reason this also can't work at a state level and just have toll funds sent out as checks to lower income brackets.
Thus entirely defeating the point of taxing it in the first place.
If you want less driving, make it more expensive. Yes, some people will be in unfortunate situations where they can't afford it, but that's the point.
Only if there is no other way for them to get from point A to point B. If there is, it’s a time vs $ value question to the driver and not regressive, nor an “obstacle”—it’s simply a decision.
What's the problem with that? It's an opt-in tax. Also if it's without a second thought then i'd suggest the price is a touch too low.
We had a proxy for that via gasoline taxes but with EV becoming more common we need to find a replacement for that revenue.
If that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car.. so "taxes equivalent to 35k miles" isn't far off.
Ref: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/bevs-could-also-damage-ro...
It sounds like this is actually close to what you would be expected to use.
Not even close to what the average driver drives.
55 miles/day, 365 days a year? Also, look at lease mileage limits.
And it's an EV, a closer comparison should be something more like a hybrid. It's not a giant truck.
Meanwhile that base model equivalent weight F150 gets about 24mpg and thus pays about half as much gas tax while doing the same amount of damage driving the average mileage. Further proving my point, I pay twice the state fuel tax for an equivalent weight pickup truck. Is that fair?
But also, isn't the whole point of the pickup truck to load it down? If all it's doing is carrying 1-4 people it's whole life, seems like a lot of waste. I'm told people buy trucks to actually load them down a lot and not just commute and get groceries? So while it's about the same weight dry and unloaded shouldn't it's weight really be quite a bit more in practice? Or are we all agreeing now trucks are just for commuting and getting groceries?
If that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car.. so "taxes equivalent to 35k miles" isn't far off.
Ref: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/bevs-could-also-damage-ro...
When you look at taxation from a "charge the people who use it" or the "the rich should pay more" perspective, this appears to address both.
Is the problem simply that you want to pay less taxes?
Paying 3x the same taxes while having less externalities isn't fair.
> With that information, the British newspaper calculated that BEVs [battery electric vehicles] could expose roads to 2.24 times more damage than gas cars.
Ref: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/bevs-could-also-damage-ro...
If that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car in the externalities of road wear & tear.. so "taxes equivalent to 35k miles" is at most 25% higher in a "damage per mile equivalent" but could be as little as 6% using the averages.
If your actual mileage is over 15625/year, then you're paying less than the equivalent.
What's your annual mileage?
> If your actual mileage is over 15625/year, then you're paying less than the equivalent.
The average is less than that by a decent bit, so more than half of US cars are paying more even with your unproven, contorted math based on some estimates done once in the 70s and never really looked into closely again.
It's also assuming the difference in weight. The closest hybrid I would have bought instead is only like 100kg lighter than my EV. And it gets like 40mpg, better than 35mpg.
It would also mean semi trucks should pay like 20,000x more in registration fees. Does this make sense?
> What's your annual mileage?
Less than 15k on that car (like most people), so even with your assumed math it's overpaying.
https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10308
Are you suggesting the average car burns less than 1 gallon of gas a year?
A 20mpg car driving 12,500mi (the average ICE in the US) would use 625gal of gas. So more like 20x, maybe 40x if the per gallon tax of diesel is double. Pretty dang far off from 20,000x.
And they're doing way more miles while being massively heavier, meaning incredibly more harm on the road than whatever EV you're thinking.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent>
(Most tractor-trailor rigs burn diesel rather than petrol.)
Do you have an alternative analysis? I'd love to check it out.
I do agree the relationship probably isn't linear, but the fourth power rule doesn't necessarily have numerous studies confirming it. It was a small collection of studies on road wear the US highway administration did in the 1950s and pretty much everyone has just gone with that. Other studies have pointed to it being less than previously thought.
https://discovery.ntroknowledge.com.au/discovery/fulldisplay...
Throwing even more weight against your 12,000mi is really 35,000mi equivalence.
Regardless, it would be interesting to see the actual number worked through to see what the equivalent EV registration fee should be if road damage/maintenance is the sole factor.
> that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car.. so "taxes equivalent to 35k miles" isn't far off
You absolutely did suggest me paying taxes for 12k miles is practically the same as ~35k miles, you said it several times. That it's not far off. How else am I supposed to read that? You were so sure of it you mentioned it many times.
> Regardless, it would be interesting to see the actual number worked through to see what the equivalent EV registration fee should be if road damage/maintenance is the sole factor.
Sure, but it's likely far less than what I'm paying. As mentioned elsewhere, a similar weight unloaded F-150 pays half the taxes. So I'm at least paying double for similar weight vehicles, and yet you tell me it's really only 6%. But sure, tell me again how I'm really just paying my fair share and 12 = 35.
^ As you quoted, I used the formula to estimate 12k would be equivalent to 27k and said paying taxes equivalent to be 35k miles is "at most 25% higher", neither of which is "12 = 35". Using their approach, I calculated 35k to be equivalent to 15625 specifically, again, not 12k.
If the underlying approach is wrong, we should replace it with something better.
Alternatively, the OTHER reasoning of "the rich should pay more" still applies, so I assume that's a factor here. Hoping States charge rich people (or high income earners, if you prefer) less isn't likely to work right now.
Once again, your assumption is incorrect. That base model F-150 that pays half the taxes costs more than my EV. The registration fee doesn't factor in income or valuation at all. A $100k Hummer EV pays the same as a $15k used Bolt. Meanwhile that Hummer EV is going to do a hell of a lot more damage to the roads than the Bolt.
It probably has more to do with the government being in the pocket of oil interests and acts accordingly.
According to your link, an EV that is 700lb heavier => 2.24x damage
Civic: ~2900lb SuperDuty: ~5700-7600lb
I understand the point you're trying to make - and you may be right - but you're leaving out the math to demonstrate it.
+700lb (+25%) => 2.25x damage +2800lb (+100%) => ???x damage
Your story doesn't provide a formula, but seems obvious it is much, much greater than 2 - this isn't a linear relationship
And that's the very lightest SuperDuty model, unloaded.
Not sure where you are but in Indiana, gas tax for unleaded is 36c while diesel is 62c so on a per-gallon basis, that's an additional +72% in taxes. Back of the envelope: Civic at 30mpg pays 1.2c/mile vs SuperDuty at 15mpg pays 4.13c/mile so the multiple is closer to 3.4 vs 2
So yes - assuming registration fees are comparable and mileage is comparable - the SuperDuty should pay more.
By the fourth power law, an unloaded diesel Superduty creates ~22x the road wear of a honda civic. Loaded can be 100x more.
If it was, it would be based on vehicle weight and distance driven. Where I am, at least, it's simply a tax on efficiency.
if you're trying to pay for wear and tear on the roads, or reduce congestion, making people feel like they have to "get their moneys worth" on the registration surcharge really isn't helping.
Heavier users aren't causing the damage though. Heavy vehicles like busses and semi's cause the most damage.
The people who can least afford to move closer to their jobs are the ones who are regressively taxed in time, energy, and money the most.
A proper solution would be to require more housing NEAR the jobs to make it easier for people to save time and money by moving closer.
I am speaking of most of America, where that is NOT happening because densification of areas is blocked by those already nearby who like the way suburbs near jobs are. (I don't blame them, apartments and probably condos SUCK, the building codes don't protect me from the choices of those nearby so everyone suffers the most annoyance.)
In effect, I am encouraging at least some of those nearby areas to experience zoning upgrades. Like in a city simulator when low density residential gets replaced with high, and mid and high rises replace older single family homes and suburbs.
Gas taxes also work (ignoring electric vehicles), but paying a specific amount for a specific road certainly seems more direct.
I think most people will just be burdened by it.
I think taxes would be a more efficient way of collecting these fees, and ensuring they go to fund mass transit in a way that traffic/pollution/road damage was mitigated directly and the people were still served.
Chicago is the poster child here. Constant rate hikes. Diverted funds meant to maintain the roads going elsewhere. "Temporary" tolls that become "permanent", etc.
It's bad, stop the madness.
With a side of handing off management and a slice of the revenue to private entities. With minimum revenue guarantees that then act as a disincentive to improving nearby roadways.
It's so clearly a net win for society and humanity to have open and available roads.
Aside from that if you want to tax me then just charge me more for a license plate. Don't stop me in the middle of driving to hustle me for a buck and some change. Utterly ridiculous management of the problem.
Meanwhile... private jets exist...
> More efficient economy, more citizen capabilities, better access for emergency and maintenance equipment.
congestion pricing literally improves every single one of those.
It’s just another form of rent seeking.
Now, gov run tolls seem like a good idea in areas where congestion needs to be managed. But also needs to be careful not to be a secret tax on the poor.
In order to implement tolls, you need several components involving middlemen. This includes frontend software, backend, payment processing, transponder management, all the hardware involved, support staff, sometimes toll station staff, among other things.
These toll companies are often owned by foreign companies that are in it for the long haul, offering sweet deals up front then gradually charging more and more with no end in sight, as roads diminish in quality and rest stops fall into disarray.
Toll roads are a scam, a regressive tax on the working class, and downright immoral. We should not limit the mobility of people.
Road management should be administered by federal and state agencies, including the administration of tolls when they are foolishly utilized. It should not be a for profit venture, it is a mechanism of taxation for public logistics.
It should not be possible to offload management to private orgs outside of very specific subcontracting / purchasing of components.
Instead, often times full road management is given to private orgs. They are not given a robust legal incentive to act in the interests of the road system, and how could they? They are interesting in using the road to maximize their profit, at the loss of everyone needing the road.
If you reg a secondary car’s plate to an ezpass account without using the transponder, a lot of states will just think it was a read fail and charge you the regular rate but it depends.
I think rationing is more fair and the only way to prevent massive outrage until maybe we have reduced the wealth gap to a large degree.