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You mean someone offering a different opinion than what appears to be the consensus of the thread? I think that's good!
No, I mean someone coming in with unsubstantiated and outright inaccurate points about the value proposition of cars. Suggesting that most scientists think climate change isn't real? Time and again it's been show that, while there is differences in opinion on the anthropogeneity of the change, the agreement that there is change is in high 90 percent. Pointing out that cars have become more efficient over time without relating them to other technologies--bikes, buses, trains--is not, in and of itself, a reason to support cars, it's just a statement of fact.
To make statements without supporting them, some of which are highly inflammatory, is not adding to the conversation by offering a new perspective, that's trolling.
Which can be quiet expensive. I went through that with one of LA rail lines, can't remember which one, and the cost per user in a year was somewhere around $100,000. East Link in Seattle has a $2.8 billion price tag and they are projecting ridership of around 50,000 or $56,000 per user.
Any the logical conclusion of making the individual pay for what they consume would be that people would change their living habits. If it's expensive to travel, people would travel far fewer miles and would use the cheapest option to do so. Cities would be designed around keeping things proximate.
At least, by charging everyone their cost, we'd get demand that wasn't distorted by subsidies.
Ha! Drivers should pay for everything, and PT users should only pay unsubbed fares! The PT users use the roads, or they use the LR infrastructure, but they shouldn't pay a fair share for those! Sounds right to me, not.
The poster clearly and explicitly said that everyone should pay their share. That wasn't limited to private transport. It was everyone, including PT.
Any the logical conclusion of making the individual pay for what they consume would be that people would change their living habits. If it's expensive to travel, people would travel far fewer miles and would use the cheapest option to do so. Cities would be designed around keeping things proximate.
At least, by charging everyone their cost, we'd get demand that wasn't distorted by subsidies.
I can meet pretty much all my daily needs within four miles of my house. There's a good choice of restaurants, several grocery stores, movie theater, coffee shops and bars with some local music. Obviously the bigger stuff I need to go into either Sacramento or San Francisco for. For example, if I want to see a play other than the junior college which actually has a decent theater department and less than three miles from my house, I do need to go into either Sacramento or Davis at the Mondavi Center.
Again, using the MTC's figure of an extra $1/gallon to fully fund roads and catch up on all the deferred maintenance, that's not that expensive. Even an eight-mile round-trip errand is only subsidized by about 30 cents for the average 25 mpg car versus a similar, and much less convenient, transit trip being subsidized by about $5 (assuming no transfers and a cost per boarding which averages around $4 less the $1.50 fare) for just the operating costs. Usually I combine errands which is much easier done with a car. I can easily pick up my dry cleaning and go grocery shopping in one trip with a car but really couldn't do that with transit so it would be two trips. Pretty tough to do the weekly shopping for a family on transit as well. Even being a single person I know I typically went grocery shopping more like two times a week when I didn't have a car and then every few months either used Zipcars or coordinated a ride to Fred Meyers or Costco.
Anyway, I'm much less attached to the downsides of the huge subsidies that transit gets relative to the car distorting the market demand in favor of transit. All in all, I don't think it's a bad thing to subsidize transit much more than the car. While I agree it distorts demand and encourages more transit usage than automobile usage given the much larger subsidies to transit, there's other things like accessibility and social equity that to me justify the non-market solution. Having gas taxes pay for all the road costs and transit fares pay for all the operating costs (even if you still excluded infrastructure which you probably would say also should be covered in fares) would shift the tax burden to the lower income. I'm much more moderate libertarian than that. I'm okay with transit getting something like 20x the subsidy the car does for a typical everyday trip. While it isn't efficient, it provides mobility for people that either can't afford a car or can't drive. Yes, they'd take FAR fewer trips if it cost them $8 instead of $3 (or $300/mo instead of $60 for a transit pass)... but really a lot transit users simply couldn't afford $8 or $300/mo.
For a car taking away the subsidy would be much less dramatic as it's much smaller but still, 30 cents to me is really nothing. For a lower income household that's really struggling and the average household making about 9.5 trips per day, 7.8 of them by vehicle, that really would impact them as it would be an additional $853/yr. They'd have to have much fewer trips whereas a marginal cost of 30 cents for me just isn't relevant. If I feel like something stupid like a Starbucks Frappuccino, I'm just going to go to Starbucks whether or not it costs me an extra 30 cents. If the $60 bus pass means a transit user makes that trip whereas at $300 the pass is too expensive and $8 is an awful lot to spend traveling for something pointless... well, yes, it's not efficient. It's silly and inefficient to subsidize some economically fairly useless Frappuccino trip but it's not seeing the forest from the trees. The forest is they need to spend $8 per trip for all the trips they really need to make, like to work or the grocery store. That's a huge burden to place on low income households just because you're worried about them making some non-essential trips they wouldn't normally make if they actually paid the cost of the trip rather than having it subsidized mostly by the wealthier taxpayers.
The poster clearly and explicitly said that everyone should pay their share. That wasn't limited to private transport. It was everyone, including PT.
Well, you could interpret that posters words several ways. The fare for a ride would be about $50 if you charged for all direct and indirect costs of running a transit system. I honestly don't have a problem with either subsidized transit or subsidized roads. Both are serving a public good.
Maybe the difference between my political approach and some posters' perspectives.
No, I mean someone coming in with unsubstantiated and outright inaccurate points about the value proposition of cars. Suggesting that most scientists think climate change isn't real? Time and again it's been show that, while there is differences in opinion on the anthropogeneity of the change, the agreement that there is change is in high 90 percent. Pointing out that cars have become more efficient over time without relating them to other technologies--bikes, buses, trains--is not, in and of itself, a reason to support cars, it's just a statement of fact.
To make statements without supporting them, some of which are highly inflammatory, is not adding to the conversation by offering a new perspective, that's trolling.
That poster didn't so much talk about climate change as he did about Al Gore. Al's another one who probably hasn't taken a science course since high school, and is a hypocrite as far as his own lifestyle is concerned vs what he preaches. https://www.google.com/search?q=al+g...IU0Qf4Y61eM%3A
Of all the threads I visit on CD, this one has the most "groupthink", where ideas that differ from the group are regularly put down.
Sales Tax is about 10% across the board for much of California... so that new 50k car is 5 grand and the new 200k over the road truck is 20 grand.
Then there are annual registration and use fees... can be over $1000 starting out on a passenger car... my 30 year old van is still $270 per year...
Then there are the fees for emissions... the first 5 years the State simply charges and lieu fee and pockets the full amount...
A lot of the municipal garages in Oakland are city owned and much of the city has expensive parking meters...
Owning a car comes with a lot of expenses...
Then there is mandatory liability insurance... not too long ago a cyclist in San Francisco killing someone blowing through a light... he did not have liability coverage.
Yes, cars are very expensive to own, I'm with you. But the cost of maintaining millions of miles of roads, emergency vehicles, parking, indirect costs associated with free parking, consumer debt costs to society, emissions impacts, healthcare impacts associated with deaths and injuries, etc. is insanely high. Let's not forget the trillion dollar oil wars to make gasoline cheap, but that's probably a conversation for another forum. No question there is substantial taxpayer subsidies. And more subsidies fall on the public because of road use by businesses and tractor trailers who don't pay a higher fee for doing far more damage to roads than cars.
Ultimately, the government wants everyone to own a car, keep buying, even if you go into debt. Costs are hidden and baked in to provide a more car-centric lifestyle because consumerism drives our shallow economy. I believe that's one reason subsidies are so decentralized for car ownership in the US.
Any the logical conclusion of making the individual pay for what they consume would be that people would change their living habits. If it's expensive to travel, people would travel far fewer miles and would use the cheapest option to do so. Cities would be designed around keeping things proximate.
At least, by charging everyone their cost, we'd get demand that wasn't distorted by subsidies.
Including the demand for light rail. What's the issue with people traveling? Should we go back to the middle ages, or even the 1950s when people rarely went beyond a very small radius?
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