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So you're agreeing with me that you use the infrastructure system and need to pay for it.
As I pointed out, you can't have the infrastructure there only when you need it and then not there when you don't.
Nobody's forcing you to go to Walmart or use the roads system directly. But you are still the beneficiary of the infrastructure that delivers goods, services, medical emergency, fire department access, police services, mail, and a broad spectrum of the things you depend upon for your existence to your residential doorstep or where you work.
As you say, it's gotta be paid for by the folk that use it and derive benefit from it. You may not need an ambulance to have reasonable access to your doorstep today, but you can't build the road to your house for only the day that you do need that ambulance ride. That infrastructure needs to be in place and paid for in advance of your other limited needs.
Even if you didn't own or operate or ever set foot into a private motor vehicle ... or, for that matter, a public transit vehicle on public roadways ... you still derive a substantial benefit from the roadway system. Pay up.
Perhaps your real concern is that you see inequities about how you pay for the road infrastructure. For discussion's sake, let's say that WI institutes a most accurate ton-mile tax structure for all motor vehicle use. Everybody pays per mile on the road according to their loaded GVW at the time of use, and factor in that heavier vehicles are more destructive to the roadway than lighter vehicles so a sliding scale of fees is imposed. How do you differentiate between the car that has one occupant and the one that has a fully loaded seating? How about when the private pick up truck has a loaded bed vs when it's at a minimum? Do you weigh every vehicle for every segment of every trip that they take? What do you suppose the cost of such a management and taxation system would be? What do you forsee will be the impact upon the price of all the goods that you consume, do you think that they will have to go up to pay for the taxation imposed at that point of use? Doesn't that mean that you'll be paying more for your delivered consumables and hard goods?
FWIW, you don't advance the disccusion by putting words in my mouth re sidewalks or other straw man arguments. I haven't mentioned that, nor has anybody else on this thread.
I didn't bother reading your entire post, you'd rather someone else pay for roads, that's clear.
Why shouldn't semi's pay for their use? Why shouldn't cars pay for their use? C'mon, we don't need an army of accountants to come up with a better system.
Road users paying for roads, is that really complicated? It's kind of pathetic arguing otherwise...
Then there are the to be expected smart arses that do their chest pounding and other nonsense that totally avoids the topic discussion. Oh well.........
Cash for Clunkers made a huge difference in the number of fuel-inefficient vehicles on the road. This raised the average MPG of the remaining vehicles significantly.
Stop laughing, damn you.
Cash for clunkers produced a temporary burst in sales of cars. It replaced about 650,000 vehicles averaging 15.8 MPG with vehicles averaging 25.4 MPG.
If each of those vehicles are driven 10,000 miles per year, that improvement in MPG saved 155,000,000 gals of gasoline that year. Since the US consumes about 137,916,660,000 gals of gasoline per year, Cash for clunkers reduced fuel consumption 0.11%. My analysis is of course just an analysis and ignores that some of the clunkers were diesel.
Cash for clunkers did NOT raise the average MPG of remaining vehicles much at all. One analysis says that the program improved the MPG of vehicles sold in that period by between 0.6 and 0.7 MPG. This vehicle replacement would have happened anyways, just not as soon. Remember - there are over 250 million vehicles registered in the United States. Cash for clunkers replaced just 0.26% of them.
I didn't bother reading your entire post, you'd rather someone else pay for roads, that's clear.
Why shouldn't semi's pay for their use? Why shouldn't cars pay for their use? C'mon, we don't need an army of accountants to come up with a better system.
Road users paying for roads, is that really complicated? It's kind of pathetic arguing otherwise...
Roughly 51% of the costs of highways and roads are covered through direct user fees such as tolls, registrations, fuel taxes, etc. The rest is paid for out of general fund dollars. What is not included in that number is the fact that both federal and state governments have redirected fuel taxes to other purposes over the past several decades. Approximately 40% of federal fuel taxes are now allocated to covering remediation of leaking fuel tanks, funding of mass transit projects or are directed to the general budget. So, fuel taxes are being used for other purposes besides road maintenance.
Overall if all funds collected in the name of road and highway maintenance were actually used for the same, users of the roads would pay for around 75-85% of their cost with direct fees.
Now comes the interesting part, who is a user? It is very hard to make any case that says that there is anyone who is NOT a user of the highway system. Like it or not the roads are an integral part of America's infrastructure and we all benefit from their existence in a much more direct way then we do from say mass transit.
Now, transit is great, I love it and it serves a needed purpose, however, if we are to pick on highways over "users paying their own way", then we certainly need to point out the flaws in mass transit. Nationally, only around 50% of the costs of operating a mass transit system are actually paid for by the users. The remaining 50% is subsidized by the general populace (most of whom will never use or receive any benefit from the system) and in technical terms transit is subsidized directly by ROAD USERS since a portion of fuel taxes are dedicated solely to mass transit.
Overall nationally, road users pay for more of their use then do users of mass transit and the reality is that road user fees are the main source for subsidizing mass transit systems.
Now I do agree with you in general terms, but it really isn't a matter of making road users pay their way as much as it is fixing how we pay for roads in general. There was a thread I posted not to long ago citing the problem with funding roads through fuel taxes. As effeciency of cars increase, they use less fuel, which means less revenue from fuel taxes. Electric vehicles consume no fuel, but cause wear the same as any other vehicle. Meanwhile the cost of maintaining and constructing roads is constantly increasing do to inflation. Overall, we need to come up with a better solution, that I agree with, but I disagree that this is only a problem for those who "use" the roads, since it is impossible for you to argue that not everyone uses them. It comes down to whether you want to pay more for everything you buy as companies pass on the elevated transportation costs or pay for it through some combination of taxes.
all the goods and services which reach your point of consumption via the infrastructure.
If someone who doesn't own a car buys stuff that was transported on the roads, then part
of the price of that stuff is the tax on the fuel that the vehicle used to transport that stuff.
I do like the idea of paying for roads with fuel taxes.
If the funds were used for road improvements, another 10-20 cents would be great.
It's not like anyone would notice these day.
I ride my bike and walk to help control my out-of-control gut.
It saves gasoline for people that want to drive their corvettes in the mountains.
It also saves me money, but if money was that important, I'd get a second job.
For the time invested, it would make me more money - even if at min wage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NJGOAT
... only around 50% of the costs of operating a mass transit system are actually
paid for by the users. The remaining 50% is subsidized by the general populace
(most of whom will never use or receive any benefit from the system) ...
No benefit? I beg to differ.
I ride the bus. I've seen the people riding the bus. For at least 50% of them;
you do not want any of them driving an automobile on the same road that
you are driving your automobile on. Many of them are DUI offenders.
I drive a car, also. I am glad to subsidize the bus if it gets more
people - especially many of "those" people out of my way on the road.
Seems that there is a trend among motorist to use less fuel by using , or not using, their vehicles differently than at any time in the past.
It stands to reason that the higher the price of gas and just about everything else for that matter will all conspire to get people to use less gas whether that leads to buying ever economical cars or reduce driving and driving more economically.
Personally as some one who liked big cars when i was younger am now into the high economy car 2 Yaris sit in our driveway and where just 5-10 years ago i'd drive 500 miles a week300 of which were for pleasure in a sportscar i now barely do 100 miles a week,filling up both cars once a month.
So these gas companies may think they are getting more money out of me by raising there prices but in reality i just drive less..
Roughly 51% of the costs of highways and roads are covered through direct user fees such as tolls, registrations, fuel taxes, etc. The rest is paid for out of general fund dollars. What is not included in that number is the fact that both federal and state governments have redirected fuel taxes to other purposes over the past several decades. Approximately 40% of federal fuel taxes are now allocated to covering remediation of leaking fuel tanks, funding of mass transit projects or are directed to the general budget. So, fuel taxes are being used for other purposes besides road maintenance.
Overall if all funds collected in the name of road and highway maintenance were actually used for the same, users of the roads would pay for around 75-85% of their cost with direct fees.
Now comes the interesting part, who is a user? It is very hard to make any case that says that there is anyone who is NOT a user of the highway system. Like it or not the roads are an integral part of America's infrastructure and we all benefit from their existence in a much more direct way then we do from say mass transit.
Now, transit is great, I love it and it serves a needed purpose, however, if we are to pick on highways over "users paying their own way", then we certainly need to point out the flaws in mass transit. Nationally, only around 50% of the costs of operating a mass transit system are actually paid for by the users. The remaining 50% is subsidized by the general populace (most of whom will never use or receive any benefit from the system) and in technical terms transit is subsidized directly by ROAD USERS since a portion of fuel taxes are dedicated solely to mass transit.
Overall nationally, road users pay for more of their use then do users of mass transit and the reality is that road user fees are the main source for subsidizing mass transit systems.
Now I do agree with you in general terms, but it really isn't a matter of making road users pay their way as much as it is fixing how we pay for roads in general. There was a thread I posted not to long ago citing the problem with funding roads through fuel taxes. As effeciency of cars increase, they use less fuel, which means less revenue from fuel taxes. Electric vehicles consume no fuel, but cause wear the same as any other vehicle. Meanwhile the cost of maintaining and constructing roads is constantly increasing do to inflation. Overall, we need to come up with a better solution, that I agree with, but I disagree that this is only a problem for those who "use" the roads, since it is impossible for you to argue that not everyone uses them. It comes down to whether you want to pay more for everything you buy as companies pass on the elevated transportation costs or pay for it through some combination of taxes.
I don't need that many words to say: pay for what you use, don't expect me to pay for what you use.
I really don't get it, why is that so controversial?
I see these long-winded responses... I'm not some extremist talking about transit this or live where I tell you... just pay for what you use. If you need that many words to disagree, you're on the wrong side of the fence.
I can see it now. You call 911 for an ambulance. They check your balance. I'm sorry. You haven't driven that much. You have only funded the road to your house 20%. Call us back in a few years.
I can see it now. You call 911 for an ambulance. They check your balance. I'm sorry. You haven't driven that much. You have only funded the road to your house 20%. Call us back in a few years.
So, can I nominate you to pay for all the roads? You're ok with that right?
So, can I nominate you to pay for all the roads? You're ok with that right?
Can I nominate you to not have access to all the roads?
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