Every Road a Toll Road 621
Great Britain is looking at a couple of different proposals for "universal road pricing", making every public road a toll road via GPS and black boxes in vehicles. There are also articles by the main proponent of universal tolls, and an editorial from the paper suggesting higher gas taxes instead.
Mis-read (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Mis-read (Score:2)
What about the poor? (Score:4, Insightful)
But, if all roads are toll, then what about the poor fellow? Over time, the use of roads will become the realm of the wealthy...
Is this what we want?
Re:What about the poor? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about the poor? (Score:3, Insightful)
The right approach, would be to really beef up public transport, and possibly subsidize (in some cases at 100%) the fares of poor riders.
Sure, public transport isn't perfect, but it can be pretty good, even in US cities. (I'm from Portland OR by the way...)
Too many US Cities suffer from massive sprawl - think LA. This makes building adequate roads very difficult, because ot the huge costs and great travel lengths. Next, it also makes building a good mass transit system a real bitch and expensive too.
Finally, I don't think we're ever going to build enough roads to keep congestion down. (LA and Seattle sure haven't, what makes any other city think they can...) What people do understand is money. If it costs more, and you actually see it, you'll probably look for ways to save those costs. That would help spark change in behavior - and that's the crux. Pollution and congestion aren't caused by someone else - you and I do it. To fix it, you and I need to change...
I haven't given this time to percolate, but a comprehensive plan to charge and cause users of roads accordingly would be great. Tying this to actual emissions would be an even better thing. Thus, you might travel lots, but if you have a very clean emission vehicle, you're charges would be much less. Gas taxes only solve some of the problem. They don't take into account emmissions, as the same volume of fuel can produce lots or little emmissions. Also, the congestion thing - force a "market" economy! Heh, all those right-wingers are probably turning over in their graves now huh! [Grin] Supply and demand. Lots of supply and low demand (few cars on big roads) means low price. Lots of demand and low supply (Rush hours) means a high price. These things if allowed to work, might actually effect business. Workers might "tele-commute" more, or demand higher wages for employers in "expensive" locations/hours. That in turn might cause employers to move from massive down-town centers, to more localized live/work/shop communities.
This is an interesting idea, I'll have to ponder it more!
Cheers!
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2, Interesting)
Too many people complain about "urban sprawl" without realizing what the alternative is.
I currently live in Monterrey Mexico. It's a city of about 2.5 million people in an area about 10 miles by 10 miles (100 sq. miles). "Good" (middle class) houses are built on lots that are about 30 feet wide by about 82 feet long. A 2-car garage takes up half of the front of your house. Houses are built right up against the road so that people can get as much out of their property as possible.
In Denver, a city about the same size population-wise as Monterrey, the city has "sprawled" to cover something like 20 miles by 30 miles. It covers about 6 times as much area as Monterrey.
Visit both cities and then tell me which seems better.
I'll take urban sprawl any day.
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2)
The max in Portland is probably the best american mass transit system I have seen. It still has a long way to go, but it really works well.
Re:What about the poor? (Score:3, Interesting)
How much are you willing to pay to live in a society where people worse off than you don't hunt you down for food? Don't you think it would be cheaper to spend some of your money on wealth redistribution rather than all of your money on fortress housing, private security, and corpse removal? Isn't it nice to be able to go outside with little to fear from the destitute other than annoying begging and unpleasant odors?
Social welfare programs are incredibly cheap compared to the economic costs of going without. Is there a single country in the world without a social welfare system that you would want to live in for more than a month? What sounds like more fun: Discussing the minutes of the Federalist Society in some income tax (if not protection money) free fiefdom of subsaharan Africa or discussing the features of the latest Nokia phone while drinking aquavit with heavilly taxed Scandinavian babes?
And as you sound like a capital L Libertarian, don't you believe that the capital M Market should decide these things? Apparently, the market for governments has decided that a minimal safety net is a good thing to have. Deal.
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2)
The gas tax is a good idea, it just doesn't nearly cover the costs (e.g., the largest portion of my city and county property taxes go to roads).
Re:What about the poor? (Score:5, Insightful)
In urban areas, many poor people can't afford a car (plus insurance, plus parking fees, plus maintanence...) So tax-supported roads help them very little. They need good mass transit.
In rural areas, the situation is different. But the proposed scheme would have much lower costs-per-mile in rural areas.
Economically, this seesm like a good idea - it makes the paid price of driving closer to the true cost. But politically...the possibility of the state tracking my movements is not something I welcome with open arms. Not to mention the draconian enforcement measures that would be needed to prevent tampering.
Re:What about the poor? (Score:4, Informative)
But they could not find an affordable and reliable technology.
So now they propose a charge for distance covered regardless wich road you're on.
Only the time of day will be recorded and influence the charges.
If the Brits pull this off it'll be nice for Dutch car owners like me, as I make at least half my kilometers on foreign roads I'm realy pissed off at having to pay Dutch tax while abroad!
As an info for the Americans reading, in Europe these schemes are generally sold on the "Environmental" ticket as they hope it'll get you out of your car into public transport.
And as the UK has one of the most backward train systems in Europe this is a challenge....
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2)
Then there is the government. If you don't think the government will use this against you, do kid your self. In Connecticut (USA), there were two rental car companies using the GPS to track your speed. It's only a hop skip and jump away from this type of tracking. I for one do not want to get a monthly bill for all the traveling I do. This will hurt England's economy in the long run. Especially for companies that have a district manager setup where the manager has to travel to several stores a month!
This idea is no good. It would reverse any idea of being inocent until proven guilty if they extended it to include tracking speed. They could do also tack on extra fees per mile. The list is endless. This is a very bad idea.
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2, Informative)
True enough.
Or better mass transit.
I've had friends on welfare, and have witnessed their transportation woes in trying to deal with either the expense of vehicle ownership, or the very poor local mass transit system.
Re:What about the poor? (Score:3, Insightful)
Anybody who travels less than the average is effectively subsidising anyone who travels more than the average - and the poor, likely to travel least, come out worst from this arrangement.
I don't agree with this proposal (I'm an expat Briton living in Germany, where roads and taxes are both cheap and highly usable, and public transport is comparitively excellent), but you certainly can't say that it disadvantages the poor.
Re:What about the poor? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ha! Not in the US they don't.
The rich pay more than their fair share. [boortz.com]
The richest 1% of Americans earn 16% of all income but pay 30% of all income taxes. The poorest people pay 0% of income taxes. Hell they even get refunds! Where the poor get shafted is on the other forms of tax - sales tax, Cigarette tax, and maybe in the future road tax.
BTW, I also consider the lottery to be a tax too - on people who are bad at math.
fair (Score:3, Insightful)
7. Being in accordance with relative merit or significance: She wanted to receive her fair share of the proceeds.
So, given that definition, wouldn't the most fair system be that every citizen pay the exact same amount in tax? We are all the exact same amount a citizen, and thus are all eligible for the exact same benefits that come with that status. Whether or not we take advantage of the benefits or not is largely irrelevant.
Let me use this analogy to explain that last comment: Two people buy a month-long membership to a sports club. They're both members and are eligible to use all of the equipment whenever they want. One member has a job and a family, thus only has time to use the gym about one hour per day. The other is a high school student had has a lot of free time; he uses it 4 hours per day. It it unfair that the former pay the same as the latter? I propose that it is not: in the eyes of the club, they are both equally eligible to use the facilities. The former, through his circumstances, which are for the most part under his control, has himself in a situation which prevents him from getting as much value out of what he has paid than did the high school student. This does not mean that he has been treated unfairly. He had the chance, he simply didn't take advantage of it.
By the same token, we are all citizens of our respective countries, we are all equally eligible for the protection and services that come with citizenship. If I never use Interstate 90, that fact is irrelevant when deciding how much I should pay in tax. The road is there for me to use if I ever want or need to.
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2)
*Bzzzzzzzzz* Wrong. Thank you for playing.
A HUGE ammount of road taxes (here in the states) come from gasoline tax. Thus, the farther you drive / the heavier your vehicle the more taxes you pay. Frankly, that's probably the best (fairest) proxy for "wear and tear" on roads.
The Obvious Fix (Score:4, Interesting)
The obvious fix is not to use a Big Brother, GPS tracking and monitoring (and billing) system to extract tolls from road users, it is to pay for all highway and road expenses solely from gasoline taxes. No gasoline tax should pay for anything other than automotive/road related public expenses, and no other tax should pay for roads.
Since gasoline use is proportional to road use, modula the effeciency of the vehicle, roads will paid for in reasonable proportion to how much they are used. Think your road tax is too high? Then drive less.
Problem solved, and no need to big brother satelites, black boxes, and monitoring where each and every citizen has driven their car and spent their time, a la Orwell.
This approach is used in the United States for General Aviation
Yeah, we tried that (Score:3, Interesting)
Its basically unfair, because most of the traffic is individuals in cars, but most of the road-miles, and hence gallons of gas, are put in by lorries, driven, in many cases, by people who work for very small companies that can be put out of business by a small rise in gas prices. The problem is the traffic.
Re:The Obvious Fix (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole point of this proposal is to penalise people for using congested, urban roads, while allowing much lower cost - or free - use of uncongested rural roads. Tax on petrol/'gasoline' would not achieve the same effect at all.
As another person writing from Britain, I think this is a really good idea - I support it wholeheartedly.
Think of rural areas,don't worry about Big Brother (Score:3, Insightful)
FreeUser wrote: pay for all highway and road expenses solely from gasoline taxes
Bzzzt! Wrong!
Urban areas have high pollution, congestion and public transport.
Rural areas have little pollution, no congestion and no alternative to the car.
As for Big Brother UK, well he is watching you already with his existing network of car numberplate recognition cameras [trafficmaster.co.uk] so this new legislation won't allow him to track you significantly more than he already does today (do you seriously think the police can't get your numberplate off the traffic camera company? Don't make me laugh!).
Speaking as a rural Brit, I'm tired of paying 70p a litre (US$4 a gallon) for petrol to pay for pollution and congestion that simply doesn't exist in my localle, whilst having a grand total of three busses a day to my village which don't even go to the town where I work. So what if I have to park my car and get the bus/train/tube when I enter a town, busses are every five minutes in towns, that sounds fine.
Of course, the *real* answer is telecommuting, but there isn't broadband in rural areas either.
--
Andrew Oakley, Gloucestershire, UK
Re:The Obvious Fix (Score:2)
Fair enough (and I agree, now that the poor pay a disproportional amount of taxes regardless).
Taxes should always be targeted.
Gasoline (or Hydrogen) taxes should only fund road/car related projects.
Water taxes should only fund piping infrastructure, pumping stations, and the like.
Electricity taxes should only fund electricity related costs (perhaps publicly owned wiring that competing electricity providors use in competition, the way competing shipping companies use the same road/airports/etc.).
And so on.
Property taxes shouldn't exist. Income tax shouldn't exist.
You want a general fund? The need is debatable in a well governed society, but be that as it may, take it from a flat sales tax
Re:The Obvious Fix (Score:2)
My 20 year old Ford drives 11 km on a liter of octan 95 (leaded, thus more expensive), however it seems to me that it applies just as much wear and tear on roads as a brand new japanese car, going 30 km on a liter of unleaded 95.
I did not say it was proportional to road expenses. I said it was roughly proportional to road use, and it is. Look up what the word "proportional" means if you really don't understand.
If you drive your gas guzzler 100 miles you will burn, and pay taxes on, 10 gallons (using 10 mi/gal instead of 11 to make the illustration easier to calculate in one's head). If you drive the same car 1000 miles you will pay tax on 100 gallons. Tnat is what mathematicians call proportional.
As for comparing your 20-year-old ford to a brand new japanese car, what part of "modulo the efficiency of the vehicle" didn't you understand. Of course there is a built in benefit to driving a more effecient car. Nevertheless, the usage of the roads by that car will be proportional to its usage of gas. Want to pay less taxes? Drive less, or get a more effecient car.
Sorry, I can't even remotely see the obvious in your statement.
Your blindness isn't my problem. It is simple math
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2)
1) Gas taxes go towards roads, this, in a way, balances things a bit
2) This is the way with almost ALL government spending of tax dollars. Rarely is something for absolutely everyone.
I am not an artist. Should the government be giving grants to artists out of my tax dollars?
There are many, many examples of government spending for one particular sector or another. Roads are a part of our society. If you don't use them today, but your children may tomorrow.
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Over time, the use of roads will become the realm of the wealthy... "
Do you think that the wealthy are going to want to pay 100% of the costs of maintaining the roads? It's much better to spread the cost out even if you have to share them with the lower classes. Besides, what would be the fun of sitting in your Bentley if nobody else on the road was impressed because they had one too?
Let's face it, over time everyone in America gets richer and has more access to things that only the rich used to be able to afford. It's kind of a beautiful thing.
Everyone complains about the poor getting screwed but they generally have it better off now than in the past. It has never been nice to be poor but it certainly sucks less now than in the past.
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2)
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2)
New Hampshire will never get rid of their tolls. Nor will Delaware. Why? Because they're great revenue sources. Most of the money (especially on the stretches of I-95 in either state...) comes from out-of-staters who were going to another state. It's just about pure profit for NH/Del.
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2)
Good. Why shouldn't people pay a an amount closer to the actual cost of the public good that they consume? We in the West (and, sorry folks, but the USA in particular) have become far to used to the idea that cheap personal transport is a right. Well, it ain't so. We've been heavily subsidised through hidden (future) environmental costs, and the insanely manipulated cost of fuel.
Disclaimer: I'm a paid-up member of Greenpeace.
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2)
Re:What about the poor? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you sure your gas taxes are used for what they were intended? Are they separately accounted for and distributed to road budgets? I would be very surprised if they are.
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2)
Re:What about the poor? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What about the poor? Taxes hit them harder (Score:2, Insightful)
Poor people would like to own economy cars...but they cannot afford new cars. So they get old, inefficent gas guzzlers. Most economy cars, like the Geo Metro, are not built to last. They shave off $100 bucks on the new purchase price by using crappy parts.
Poor people want to buy small used cars with high gas mileage and low maintenance. This type of car simply does not exist. So we end up with the poor owning gas guzzlers and paying a regressive tax on fuel. This is the problem of being in a secondary market.
But that's not the point. (Score:4, Interesting)
And if you really, truly have a problem with being tracked by GPS, or with being taxed, bloody well take public transit to work. Anyone with the intelligence of the average housecat would realize that it saves you huge amounts of time and money in no small part because you don't need to mess around with parking.
Re:But that's not the point. (Score:2)
Well then they should make companies who don't offer flex-time or telecommuting pay the taxes for it-- because I sure wouldn't be on the roads during peak hours if my job didn't mandate it.
~Philly
Guess driving backwards won't help... (Score:2)
Public Transport not viable option in UK (Score:2)
Phillip.
Re:Guess driving backwards won't help... (Score:2)
Renter: Yeah, I guess you owe me money then.
Here's an idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, are you a military fan? How about taxes on SUVs and other High Fuel Consumption vehicles (tax the fuel, as stated in the article). You don't need a 4 wheel drive urban tank to get to point B from point A in a city.
Re:Here's an idea (Score:3, Funny)
That would be a second amendment issue, since these SUVs can in a pinch be used as tanks (weapons) by the militia.
Re:Here's an idea (Score:2)
Actually, from what I see on the news, most ragtag militias seem to prefer compact pickup trucks. These have a convenient platform to mount a large machine gun on. SUVs just don't look that practical for post-apocalyptic conflict.
Re:Here's an idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless, of course, you live in the midwest during the wintertime. After driving my Dad's new (to him) Izusu Rodeo last Christmas, I'd never consider owning a two-wheel drive vehicle anyplace where there was significant snow for most of the year.
Look, you can make a reasonable SUV -- look at the efficiancy of the hybrids coming out this year. The real problem is the people who own really large vehicles (Excursions and the like) who don't need them. Notice the emphesis -- I have an aunt with five kids and an exchange student all trying to get places. She needs a big vehicle. The old woman who lives alone in the apartment next to mine here in Cali does not.
Figure out how to tax people who don't need big SUVs and I'll be happy.
Re:Here's an idea (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Here's an idea (Score:2)
Re:Here's an idea (Score:2)
I live, and have lived, all over the midwest (Minneapolis,Lincoln,N. Dakota). You dont need a 4WD to get around in the winter. What you need is to learn the basics of how cars handle in the snow and you will have no problem. Anti-Lock Brakes, and a Manual Tranny will do you just fine in anything less that 11 inches of snow (at that point the snow hits the level of the car which is another problem entirely.)
THe problem with SUV's is that people think that it is an invinvible snow machine. I am tired of people buying huge-ass SUV's and thinking that it gives them the god-entitled right to go 50 mph when there is 1 foot of snow on the ground and then watching them smear themselves across a ditch or a storefront. Course, evolution in action I suppose..
Re:Here's an idea (Score:2)
Unless, of course, you live in the midwest during the wintertime.
Gee, I've driven in the midwest for 29 years without a 4 wheel drive urban tank, and I've yet to slide off the road. I wonder how I managed.
How to rate this movie? (Score:2)
While I agree that US military spending needs to decrease I think that decommissioning nuclear weapons will probably be quite costly due to the disposal and handling issues, and cruise missles don't cost multi-millions - most are less than $1 million.
If it were up to me the first thing I would do is close all US military bases in Europe. A fifty-year free ride on defense is way more than we have any reason to pay for. Europe is planty well capable of footing the bill for it's own defense. The time is long past to pull the plug there.
Re:How to rate this movie? (Score:2)
Frankly, when I see the cries of "Build up the military" from mostly the right, I hear..."Oh, I need some big perks for my friends in the defense industry. How can I send them some real big bucks? Oh, how about ~$1000 toilet seats?" etc.
I dunno, but I think the US would be a whole lot better off without any miltary at all. We learn to treat others kindly, rather than acting like a bully, because we couldn't just whack em' eith the millitary. (I know, there are lots of whackos that would attack us regardless of what we did to them, but we do create the bed we lie in often. Think Iran...who pissed them off so bad? US! (Pun intended) We supported and trained the Shaw who abused his people at our behest. They got sick of it, and threw him out, and looked around to find the keeper of the pitbull. It was the US, and then they came after us.)
A steady decline in the military would give us time to patch up "the bad things we done" and mend relations. It would cost us a whole lot less, and we could tax-rebate or pay back our debts.
It's a hard situation. We've created a real monster. The falls of almost every other world power in the past has been because of the military. (Bad wars, huge costs, etc) I hope we're smart enough to lean from history.
Cheers!
Re:How to rate this movie? (Score:2)
The USA *needs* those bases in Europe!
Haven't you seen Air Force One? When the President's plane is hijacked, they try to land at Ramstien AFB in Germany.
Re:Here's an idea (Score:2)
There's one component you've missed. Motivation. Democrats would spend much of the tax revenue on social programs. They would redistribute wealth in order to buy votes. Democrats are socialists. Republicans are not known for buying votes - but they are known for reducing government waste [cagw.org].
In short, I'd give GWB a little more leeway when he says he's going to increase spending for two reasons: 1. He isn't a socialist. 2. there is at least a non-zero probability that the increase will be accompanied by a reduction in government waste.
that's very amusing (Score:2)
The Republicans tend to spend a lot more than the Democrats, but because it's on military use they think it doesn't count as government spending. You want to talk about WASTE, check out how the Pentagon works. The deficit grew at an astounding rate under Reagan and Bush. Under Clinton we had budget surpluses. Now, since we're back in Republican hands, we're increasing the deficit.
Republicans are not known for buying votes - but they are known for reducing government waste [cagw.org].
Were you awake during last year's Presidential campaign? The corporations bought Bush with campaign donations, then Bush tried to buy votes with harebrained tax cuts. When the election was in contention, the Republicans PAID people to travel to Florida and protest.
May be bad, but... (Score:2)
Not true it's environmentally friendly (Score:2)
Phillip.
Universal toolroads == universal tracking (Score:4, Insightful)
If _every_ road was a toll road, then it would be simple enough to just have a tax based on your odometer reading when you renew, along with the odometer being required to be functioning, that would serve the goal and be much less intrusive.
Re:Universal toolroads == universal tracking (Score:2)
A great idea, if people can accept it. (Score:2, Informative)
There's a separate reason for distance-based charges: auto insurance. Every car on the road, especially a busy road, imposes a large externality on the others: even drunk drivers are mostly harmless even to themselves if they're lucky enough to stay off busy streets. (It takes two to tango in most accidents, in other words, even if one of them is more "at fault" legally or morally.) Charging for car insurance by the mile, rather than the year, would get more cars off the road and reduce accidents for all of us.
Long live corrective taxes!
No more Traficjams..... (Score:3, Funny)
That's right get stuck in a beowolf cluster on the way to work, finish of 2 seti units while you wait.
US already taxes commercial truckers on mileage (Score:2, Informative)
It seems to me that the British plan is flawed.... the expense of outfitting cars with the "Black boxes" would cause a bigger hit than it would be worth to most people.
Of course, this is the same country that taxed TV viewing, so what can you expect from the crazy socialists there.
Re:US already taxes commercial truckers on mileage (Score:2)
Close, but not quite. You know what those weigh stations are for? They weigh the truck when it enters and when it leaves. Based on this and the miles it drove in the state, they determine how much gas was consumed. The trucker than has to prove that he paid the gas taxes on that gas in that state.
Creates real inequity. Poor priced out of rushhour (Score:4, Insightful)
"The CFIT report argues for congestion to be the measure for charging, not miles or time travelled or city limits. Prices would be based on historical traffic patterns, regularly updated, and aimed at smoothing out notorious bottlenecks, rush-hour gridlock, school-run snarl-ups and motorway tailbacks. "
The GPS system enables location and time to be priced in addition to miles travelled. That is fair... but..but..but it also creates inequities.
Basically it means that the poor are less able than the rich to be in some locations at some times. Roads currently are a democratic system of equal suffering. The limosine is stuck in traffic with the Escort during rush hour.
Is it a better world if the limosine can travel fast because the Escorts can't afford to be in that part of town at that time of day?
The inefficiency of petrol based taxes, or our inability to price time and location of travel, creates a more equal distribution of suffering.
Does the reduction in suffering from traffic jams for the well to do represent such a public good that we can ignore the fact that the poor can no longer afford to commute to jobs at certain hours and days?
The more I think about it the less I like it.
Re:Creates real inequity. Poor priced out of rushh (Score:2, Insightful)
The proposal is to charge more for driving when/where there is more congestion - if the limo is driving fast, then the Escort can afford to be there. This plan essentially means that rich people have the 'right' to spend more time in traffic jams. Sounds good to me.
Seriously, though, there's a fundamental flaw in this plan, and that flaw is that at certain times, *all* roads are congested. People don't *want* to be stuck in traffic, they do it because they have no other choice. Taxing them more because they are stuck just adds insult to injury, it doesn't do anything to alleviate the problem. I'd much rather have the government give people tax rebates for riding bikes to work; it would help the congestion problem, the pollution problem, and the obesity problem all at the same time!
Re:Creates real inequity. Poor priced out of rushh (Score:3, Insightful)
Gas Tax All The Way (Score:2)
Driving on roads per se is a relatively harmless occupation; I'd favor the gas tax. Burning gasoline has any number of extremely undesirable side effects including distorting foreign policy, air pollution, using up resources that are irreplacable, etc.
For those too lazy to read... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:For those too lazy to read... (Score:2)
And before you say "get a different job", or "use public transport" not everyone has that luxury, and public transport doesn't go everywhere.
Re:For those too lazy to read... (Score:4, Interesting)
The U.K. has some other qualities the U.S. doesn't have, all that must be considered. Their population density is high, yet they still have loads of rural areas. The way they do this is through strict zoning and green belts around cities. A city gets so big, it stops growing, it has to grow up or within. This helps transit, unlike in the U.S. where it's suburban sprawl everywhere and therefore it's near impossible to design a transit system that goes everywhere, like you said...)
They are also heavy on social programs. You can get benefits for just doing some care for a disabled relative, for example. With that comes loads of taxes. They are taxed to death.
Already happens with trucks (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the every road is a toll road concept. This currently exists in trucking. Truck drivers fill out logs showing which states they cross. (You notice how trucks always have to stop at ports of entry). State troopers audit these logs and the trucking companies pay taxes according to the miles driven in each state.
Basically, the current system gives us everything we need. The only problem I see is, if in the future, we introduce electric or alternate fuel vehicles that could avoid fuel taxes.
Re:Already happens with trucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh. No you don't. The US has some of the lowest gasoline prices in in the world. And the taxes you levy on your gasoline are the reason. By and large, roads are built with money from taxes on property or retail sales or personal income (depending on jurisdiction) more than anything else.
Britain on the other hand, entirely pays for its roads with gas taxes. That's why the price of gasoline there is the highest in the world. It never ceases to amaze me that when the price of gasoline in the US gets to almost half that of gasoline in Europe and Asia, everyone is up in arms and ready to nuke the Middle East. For the love of god, if it bothers you so much, just stop burning so goddamn much of it.
Does fuel tax really encourage economy? (Score:2)
Libertarians Rejoice (Score:4, Interesting)
On the flip side, there are problems with this. Of course as someone mentioned it does hit the lower income people harder, but current taxes do that as well, because almost all taxes except for income tax are regressive taxes, which mean that lower income people pay a higher percentage than higher income. Sales tax, Gas Tax, even the lottery are all regressive taxes. At least with this system, you would only pay for what you use.
This will, I'm sure, provide much debate, however at this stage it seems rather impractical to employ, especially with the current road system the way it is.
I'd also be afraid of the privacy issues here as well... but that's a whole other topic.
Re:Libertarians Rejoice (Score:2)
Not really. Especially in Britain, where a good chunk of the population bikes anyways. This is in no small part due to the fact that most of their towns and cities were never built with cars in mind, but pedestrians and horses instead, and many of the landmarks and heritage buildings would suffer if they widened the roads to accomodate cars. These towns are also much more compact as a result, which means that getting around by foot or bike is not as much of a problem as it is in the US.
Re:Libertarians Rejoice (Score:2)
I wonder if the cost of public transportation like buses would go up with this?
George Harrison was right (Score:3, Funny)
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet
Taxman!
...
Re:George Harrison was right (Score:2)
- the 1797 Clock Tax (taxing your clocks!)
- Window Tax (taxing your windows!)
- poll tax (taxing your head!)- OS tax (thanks Microsoft- and you get to pay it even if you don't have their OS!!!!)
None of which worked very well...
Digital anonymous cash (Score:2)
Holy shit... (Score:2, Interesting)
Given the choice, I'd rather pay for a little more than my actual road use to retain my privacy. Then again, I'm a different breed of cat-- I'd also be willing to pay a little more for my magazine subscriptions if I could get a copy without those annoying fucking blow-in cards and such in each issue.
~Philly
Cell phone billing (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps they could get some pointers directly from the cell phone industry? If you take this to where cells are today, you can already see the deals: Act now and get 500 anytime miles/month! Stop by your local BP station and purchase your MyMiles(c) prepaid miles card today!
Is it something in the water over there? (Score:2)
A while back comp.risks [comp.risks] had an submission about a British proposal to use GPS systems in cars to enforce speed limits. There were the predictable criticisms of the plan - sometimes you need to exceed the speed limit, sometimes weather conditions make the speed limit unsafe, what about limited access roads with minimum speed limits and adjacent access roads? Plus the usual privacy concerns with the government knowing where you are - and more importantly where you routinely stop.
Now it's being proposed as a tool to smear out peak traffic loads. Because the Brits are too damn dumb to figure out for themselves that if they could shift their work hours by an hour or so then they could avoid a lot of aggrevations. (Not that Americans are any brighter, but at least I've seen ads aired for years encouraging employers to provide flexible hours.)
To me, this looks like there's someone in the government who really wants to get GPS systems in to every car and they're just trying different rationalizations until they find one the public will accept.
Good idea, but not implementable... (Score:2)
I'm all for the idea, that people should pay for the roads to the extent they use them. The only valid argument against that would be that of the roads becoming a tool for the rich, but I think that can be solved by simply having rebates for low income individuals, or even by having a "standard deduction", say 25 miles a day, before you start getting charged.
That being said, I don't think this is implementable in practice. GPS solutions pose two major problems. The first is that they are almost certainly easy to hack. Just find a way to jam the signal (after parking in an underground garage where there is no signal anyway). The second, and perhaps bigger problem, is that I don't want the government (or anyone) tracking my every move by GPS.
I'm all for pay-per-use, but the easiest way to do it is by taxing gasoline. Maybe when electric cars become commonplace we'll have to come up with a better solution, but that seems like a long way off, if ever.
Britian would make itself more useless to world.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Producers of goods and services would have an even harder time trying to survive in Britian when they have to pay even more to transport goods on routes they've already paid for once, on roads and other forms of transport that are still congested. This discourages free trade, even slowing trade with other nations, and if they are serious about trying to run a prosperous economy, they should strike this idea down quickly.
Let's face it, they've got enough trouble competing with the rest of the world, what with being stuck out on an island (for all intents and purposes) by themselves.
Circumvention? (Score:2)
If this happened in the US, bicycles would have to be declared "illegal circumvention devices".
From Taxes to Use Fees (Score:2, Interesting)
The basic problem with systems like this is not that they violate your privacy, nor that they cost money, but that they privatize public assets without, at the same time, shifting the tax base to net assets rather than economic activities.
Governments defend legally defined rights. Why, then, aren't those in posession of said rights paying for the cost of protecting them? If I have title to an asset, that title is worthless to me without enforcement of the entitlement to the asset. Why should some kid who is trying to get a family together be potentially subject to the draft at the same time that he is paying taxes on everything from income to capital gains to groceries to pay for enforcement of my title with his money as well as his blood?
There are alternatives. Just before the time I worked on the toll road archive system, I was politically active [geocities.com] and my last ditch attempt to address via political reform the core problems I saw was a proposed net asset tax reform based on risk-adjusted net present value calculation [transarc.com] (arguably the most fundamental business calculation of all). Since then I've become very disenchanted with politics as a viable route to reform and come to a more radical proposal I have called warrior's insurance [geocities.com] where governments and international mutual defense treaties are replaced by reinsurance networks that indemnify in the event of loss of asset value due to force or fraud. The insurance premiums would usually be paid in scrip issued by the insurance companies, thereby displacing fiat currencies. The insurance companies could adjust their premiums to account for risky behavior by their clients (like building huge fixed assets in placed like NYC for people who go around the world tormenting Muslims). Global markets trading varieties of scrip would naturally turn into a reinsurance network supporting emergency action by groups of warrior insurers.
Said insurance premiums and their risk-adjustment are the way guys who own lots titles that need enforcement can pay younger guys who put their lives on the line to protect those entitlements -- and pay them something that might be remotely called fair compensation -- all without resorting to rhetoric about how "we're all one big happy clan around here". Of course, the warrior insurers themselves may be very clanish, but that's their business. Clans -- real clans [geocities.com] -- do have a place in the foundation of such a reinsurance network. Clans are, after all, highly territorial.
privatization (Score:2)
Not that that'll happen, but I can dream
Just make the congested roads toll (Score:2)
If the idea is to be able to finance the peak capacity of the congested roads, and otherwise discourage the peak time usage, then the simple, and probably cheaper, way is to just put tolls on the congested roads. GPS will be less popular and possibly easier to defeat. Instead, put ID sensors on just those congested toll roads, which also detect when a vehicle w/o ID passes by. Many toll roads already do this, especially in metropolitan areas where the users are regulars. Then add a peak time surcharge (with published and stable schedules). Give tax breaks to employers who schedule people to arrive and leave work at off-peak times or give them at least 3 hours variability flex time.
Thoughts from a Brit (Score:3, Insightful)
On the face of it, this scheme seems a reasonable way to apply weighted charges to different roads according to the time of day. In that sense it would be more appropriate compared to upping car road-tax or fuel duty. It also seems better that the London Mayor's flat-rate charge to enter central London.
There are a few problems though:
David Begg's quote: "... we can never road-build our way out of this or provide enough public transport." is quite interesting. Rail transport is in a pretty poor state. If the government had been in the habit of giving British Rail the 6 billion pounds a year that they are currently spending on a supposedly privatised rail system (haha) instead of the 1 billion/year that BR got in the last years of it's existence, we'd have a damn fine rail system and a whole lot less cars on the road.
Overall, the goverment needs to commit to public transport asap. Let the roads become choked. If the trains and busses get good, people will start to move over - principle of the carrot.
On an aside, Uncle Tony's New Labour Transport Department isn't having a very good time:
Time to leave the country...
Make all superhighways toll roads (Score:3, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I am from Western Massachusetts (west of 495 for over a decade, west of Worcester for about 9 years, and west of the Quabbin for two), where various proposals have been floated that would make the people west of Boston pay for the Big Dig [bigdig.com], a massively expensive (and arguably necessary) highway reconstruction project which, at any given moment, is not being used by many people west of Worcester. I'm also somewhat of a road geek. As a young child I would spend hours sketching out designs for highway interchanges. There are few things I find more enjoyable on road trips than studying the design of the roads and watching their construction and rebuilding.
Under the Interstate Highway and Defense Act passed in 1956, the states would receive a sum proportional to the amount of federal gasoline taxes taken from the state. Originally, those funds could only be used for building highways. As a result every state, through about 1970, went on a highway binge. By 1972, save for major portions in Northeastern cities (Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston) most of the system had been built. Why? Because state politicians knew that construction brought good union jobs for free (the Feds were paying 90% of the cost).
In the 1970s, Congress allowed Interstate funds to be used to build public transport systems. With many states having finished their interstates, save for useless spurs that are still built to this day, the party was over. But now that they could build public transport, they started with a vengeance.
Nowadays, very little of the gas tax money goes to construction or maintenance, because the construction has been done and most of the maintenance is cheaper, but the gas tax money has increased dramatically as the number of miles driven increases.
Thus, in many states, the legislatures have gotten addicted to the road money. If their state has lower gas consumption, less money goes to the State House. So it's no surprise that nowadays, public transport gets cut (because the more driving gets done, the more money flows in for political pork projects (stadiums, etc.)). It's also no surprise why the States are perfectly willing to roll back emissions standards, as an Excursion generates some 3 times more gas taxes than a Saturn SL1, and some 5 times more than a Toyota Prius. So few states really encourage their citizens to buy non-SUV's.
If the gas tax were abolished and roads were paid for by who actually used them, things wopuld change for the better, IMHO. If this happens we might actually see states doing sane things like discouraging massive fuel inefficiency (for example, charging extra for registrations of low-efficiency vehicles in urban areas (as a practical matter, restricting trucks in rural areas isn't going to work. The farm lobbies are too powerful). Remember, the problem with monster SUVs are the people in urban/suburban areas who drive them and don't need them). Also, there's this simple fact, which is nice. Those who use the superhighways pay for them. A decent-sized number of Americans drive a lot (thus paying gas taxes), while only utilizing superhighways (which account for the majority of expenditure) rarely. This is a slight inequity.
The reason that more roads, especially in cities, aren't toll roads, is because of the historical overhead of tolls, such as widening the roads and the traffic problems. However, nowadays most toll roads have an electronic option, with EZPass being the most common. By using this option, existing highways can be made toll roads with little overhead.
It's bullshit. Will never happen. (Score:2)
Some minister has some bad news that they don't want to get into the headlines so they've released this utter flight of fancy to distract the morons that run news desks.
Road congestion is not a feedback loop (Score:2)
When are they congested, I wonder?
The hours right before and right after everyone goes to work.
So, the net effect, since the work hours are that way so most businesses can work together, will be that everyone pays more money, the roads are just as congested as before, and the government is richer.
The only way this outcome will change is if work hours are changed to accomodate (and randomly, too, since whatever hours become the norm will create the same outcome then!) and I don't see that happening.
Aversion Therapy Doesn't Work (Score:2)
UK Politics and the DoT (Score:4, Interesting)
The underlying politics here are that in the UK all taxes go into a central pool. The Treasury has always opposed 'hypothecated' revenues - that is taxes that are tied to specific purposes.
So the reason why the DoT is calling for new taxes on transport is first, middle and last a scheme to raise taxes in a form that the DoT think they could keep for their own ends. The Treasury meanwhile is happy to allow the DoT to believe in this dellusion up to the point where a new tax is created for them to grab, which they will.
If you think about it, a fuel tax is in effect a toll on road use that is indexed to the fuel efficiency of the vehicle and very cheap to collect.
I suspect that the so called government adviser is not going to be one for very long. An adviser's job is to inform policy making, it is not to make it on the minister's behalf. Attempting to bounce the government into a particular policy through the media is a sure way to find yourself out of a job.
The problem with the proposal is that the costs of deploying the necessary infrastructure are vast. Each car would require a certified GPS system that could not possibly be installed for less than #200. The system would have to be certified regularly or people would soon start finding ways to circumvent them.
The other problem is the threat to civil liberties which is taken rather more seriously in the UK than the US. In the US there is often the belief that it is not necessary to block legislative attacks on civil liberties because the constitution will provide protection. In the UK the checks and balances are in the parliamentary process alone. It might well be possible to impose the scheme on heavy goods vehicles since they pay far less than their share of taxes and people are willing to support any proposals that will reduce tailgating by them. Meanwhile the government has not forgotten nor forgiven the antics of the lorry drivers who tried to hold the country to ransom with blockades. A GPS system in the cab would discourage attempts to repeat.
The UK government is not going to be allowed to install spies in private cars any more than the US government is going to be allowed to confiscate all firearms.
There is a similar process at work behind the regular proposals to introduce identity cards. The police don't want them, the social security dept does not believe they will reduce fraud. The home office attempts to corner each new Home Secretary into proposing them, usually in response to some terrorist attrocity.
In each case the 'decision' is announced in the press as a fait acompli, it is going to happen and MPs and their constituents have no ability to affect the process. In each case the proposal is squashed in cabinet before legislation is presented. Typically the last home secretary or transport secretary squashes the scheme. If not representations from the back benches cause the plan to be swiftly forgotten.
Blair Accidentally Sells The Roads (Score:4, Insightful)
I expect, nonetheless, that if the British government attempts to do top-down road-pricing by political committee, with centralized book-entry transactions, GPS transponders, and, probably, politically odious "is-a-person" identity schemes to clear and settle such transactions, such a system would choke on its own data-effluvia.
One need only look at the original proposal to have central automated control of the San Francisco Bay Area's Bay Area Rapid Transit system for reference. That kind of centralized traffic control still falls down, even 30 years after BART tried to do it.
If such a top-down, positive control system did manage to be built, however, it would probably still "morph", with the addition of financial cryptography on a ubiquitous internet, into a completely private system in the long run anyway. The dramatically reduced transaction cost of a streaming internet bearer cash toll system would be so much cheaper to operate than the proposed virtual highwayman's panopticon that it would eventually behoove the government to literally sell the roads to the abutters someday -- resulting the the fulfillment of that long-standing cause of libertarian nocturnal emission, selling the roads.
So, from a libertarian perspective, would-be totalitarian market controllers and transportation bluenoses and busybodies everywhere should be very careful of what they wish for.
For an example of that, remember what happened to telephony. In the US, the industry demanded from the state a Morganized monopoly to "prevent ruinous competition". In exchange for same, the various local political machines controlling the nation-state required universal service to keep the mob from voting them out of office, and to create a larger pool of deposits in the political favor-bank.
It took a quite a while, but the creation of a so-called "natural" monopoly eventually backfired on both of the industry and the state. The achievement of universal service required automated switching to prevent the telephone monopoly from hiring a significant percentage of the population (half of all females was the apocryphal statistic) from becoming telephone operators. As a result, electromechanical switching (rotary dial) begat electronic switching (touch-tone; Shockley invented the transistor for the phone company, remember), which, in turn, begat microprocessor switching and Moore's Law.
The resulting exponential drop in the price of switching completely inverted the economies of scale of network operation, changing its very structure from an increasingly larger, more unified hierarchy with exactly one fixed-price circuit-switched route from any two network nodes, to a massively geodesic network with a combinatorical number of routes between any two nodes, each route with its own possible auction price depending on latency, noise, and lots of other factors.
The result was a dramatic reduction in transaction cost, price discovery, market entry, and of course, firm size. That gave us a dramatic increase in the number of phone companies, even vertically integrated ones, and we haven't even started cash-settlement of network bandwidth yet. The paradox, of course, is that every "information worker" who sits in front of a microcomputer to work these days, sizeably more than half the female population -- even a MacDonald's cashier -- is doing exactly what a turn-of-the-20th-century telephone operator does, reprocessing and routing information from one part of the network to another.
Someday, the same thing will happen to roads, and to electricity, and to natural gas, and to any system requiring the movement of one ostensible commodity from one place to another, including physical goods in the commercial distribution chain, with internet bearer bills of lading and warehouse receipts being traded against instantaneous internet bearer cash settlement -- just like cars paying internet bearer cash to a road's intersection "nodes" as they travel down it.
We are going to hell in a handbasket (Score:2)
So, what is the end result? The rich get richer. (auto makers can charge more for smart vehicles, the list goes on) The politicians get more power. The poor get poorer. And the middle class now has to work twice as hard to get by (not only to pay all the new fees, but to get a job since our society seems to enjoy systematically ruining peoples lives by replacing us with robots).
So, as you can see those within the sphere of the power elite enjoy a richer and stronger world, while the rest of us get the shaft. You just have to love human nature....
Uhhhhh... can this work? (Score:2, Insightful)
First... GPS would certainly collect the info as to where the vehicle is... BUT... how are they intending to get the info out of the little black boxes. GPS does not report anything - unless they're sticking wireless in there as well. I would think that aquiring the data is going to be a major problem. What, you have to have your car hooked to a phone line at least once a month?
Second... GPS is subject to error. No problem on rural roads... but what about in cities? It could very well error enough to put you on a different cost road. What about time of war (which as bush reminds us contstantly - we'll be wageing for the next 10 years) - when GPS jitter is increased? Less accuracy. Just the fact that your in a city with tall buildings, versus open country, means your error rate is much greater (wanna laugh? just turn your GPS on and sit still - watch it move all over the place).
What about people who live in the city or park in the city - won't they show excessive use of roads they *park* on?
Finally... this has got to be terribly easy to foil. Simply puting a good metal block around the box would certainly stop it from seeing the sats. I would think that (A) they would simply disconnect the devices and (B) they would block the signals or (C) they would confront the person who was collecting the data with a shotgun.
Good chuckle though.
Higher gas taxes make much more sense (Score:2)
Gas taxes are much more reasonable. They're easy to collect and regulate. They're also an established and trusted way to do it, so there's no need to setup another tax collecition agency. As a side-effect, they reward people for having more engergy efficient vehicles.
I see this as an application of the KISS principle [vub.ac.be]. Do the bare minimum to get it done.
Gas taxes. (Score:3, Insightful)
The last time I checked, gas taxes were probably the most direstly proprtional tax in US history. You use it for transportation, you pay for the roads. Toll roads are of course toll roads because they lack certain funds.
Honestly, is there any John Q Public that uses gas for much more than transportation? Not many.
It guages usage... it taxes it accordingly. It is expensive, and proprtional. Gas usage is also proportional to the expense of the enourmous SUV or a truck.
Lets get to the point, the GPS is needed to TRACK YOU, not your gas usage. You can do that through the pumps already, and it doesn't require expensive equipment or expensive bookkeeping.
Some thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
First off, saying that charging for toll rods is going to hurt the poor is like saying that charging for groceries will hurt the poor. When done right, toll charging would create more incentive for competition and provide an environment much more healthier for the poor and provides better service to boot.
So the question is - how to do it right.
I don't like the GPS idea, I think it should be done per road, and per how crowded it is.
I don't like that the government would own the roads also - anything that charges should allow for competition and private controll.
And tax payers souldn't be expected to pay what they've always been paying.
One thought might to be to allow the roads to be free, but to give paying drivers higher priority to get on. Using digital cash and wireless technology, cars could auto-bid for the front of the line position. The freeway onramp signals would always be optimized for speed throughput and during rush-hour people who don't pay would wait a much longer time.
Re:news for nerds? (Score:2)
Re:haha (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Reversing subsidies to auto manufacturers (Score:2)
I agree. The US Govt botched Amtrak. They should have taken over the infrastructure and improved it (electrifiying, etc), while creating a more open market to do the actual moving. The government does a good job of running infrastructure but not of serving customers (witness Amtrak delays and horrible service). This is analogous to roads: the government builds and maintains the roads, but private concerns run buses and trucks.
While not my favorite governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis [neu.edu] proposed essentially the same thing a while back. Unfortunately nothing ever became of it.