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I called it coercion because the guy to whom I was replying called it that. He was referring to discouraging automobile use through penalizing taxation. He was proposing this as if it were a good idea (to some it is, to some it is not).
When a gas tax is used solely for the purpose of maintaining, upgrading, etc, the existing roadways, and does not get used for any other purposes, a majority of voters can be expected to agree to raising that tax when it is deemed to be insufficient.
A friend of mine at work was just raving about how the AZ gas tax money has been appropriated to keep DPS funded for the last couple years though. Resistance to raising gas taxes is justified to many when the money is borrowed in this sort of underhanded way, or when it is openly borrowed to fund things they would not themselves agree to funding - like MT projects that seem dubious to them.
Many MT projects out here in the west are met with a great deal of skepticism by the everyday voter, because they have a good feel for the logistical problems of our very spread out cities. Those MT projects often will fail if they are put up for an up or down vote for independent funding - so gas taxes get co-opted.
i think the guy you were responding to also said the tax was the easiest way to fund / repair / upgrade the roads. the ancillary consequence of this would be it would also discourage automobile use. i didn't take his post to mean 'penalizing taxation', but that's because i thought he was referring to how grossly underfunded road repair/upgrade/maintenance is right now with the current gas tax.
Funding MT projects with the gas tax isn;'t as illogical as people like to argue. Mass Transit keeps cars off the road, reducing congestion and wear and tear. It also moves goods and services across the locality. for every person that takes mass transit, that's one less 9x18 box travelling along the road, opening that space up to others. just because something would fail a popular vote doesn't mean it's a bad something.
I've always advocated for a huge hike to the gas tax. It is the easiest way to fund / repair / upgrade our roads, coerce people into smarter transportation choices, and reduce our carbon footprint.
Damn the economy. It needs to be done.
Driving currently is way too subsidized. Make drivers feel the real cost of driving.
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Originally Posted by bradykp
i think the guy you were responding to also said the tax was the easiest way to fund / repair / upgrade the roads. the ancillary consequence of this would be it would also discourage automobile use. i didn't take his post to mean 'penalizing taxation', but that's because i thought he was referring to how grossly underfunded road repair/upgrade/maintenance is right now with the current gas tax.
Yes he said that, even before the coercion comment. My response was specifically responding to the coercion point. Genuinely good ideas usually do not require coercion. Which choices are the "smarter transportation choices" depend an awful lot on preference, location, type of employment, etc. People generally come up with the smartest solution for their own circumstances when they need to do so and are free to do so.
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Originally Posted by bradykp
Funding MT projects with the gas tax isn;'t as illogical as people like to argue.
Its not illogical at all. It is however, broadly unpopular when roads are going to ruin. Every time I go to Tucson I am reminded how awful the roads are there compared to when I lived there. We seem to be doing better in NM.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bradykp
Just because something would fail a popular vote doesn't mean it's a bad something.
Not a bad something no. Just probably not appropriate for the location where it fails the vote.
New Yorkers would no more vote to discontinue the subway than Arizonans would vote for rail between Phoenix and Tucson (that was the one that always came up when I lived there).
In Seattle there are conflicting problems right now. While the transit system is planning huge cuts due to budget issues, the City is approving 40-60 unit "apodments" with zero parking for the tenants, based on their location near bus stops.
Recipe for a future mess when all of those people fight for a parking space on streets that have very few already.
Beyond that, when people start complaining about the "aPodment" costing the same as a 2-bedroom apartment in Kirkland due to a lack of inventory, guess what the net effect will be? More people moving out to the burbs, more people driving cars.
Seattle proper is in denial. Has been for years. And what's silly is that they don't need to do all that much to their freeways to get things on track. All one has to do is head down I5; once you leave Seattle, the freeway becomes perfectly logical. They only need to do that all over the place and the city would thrive.
I don't sit in gridlock, because I work an overnight shift. But the only decent job opportunity I have Is about 75 miles from my home; so I rent part of my house out, rent quarters near the job, and commute weekly. Both my permanent residence and place of employment are in predominately rural areas, with limited bus and no rail passenger service. Without a car, I'd still be a $9/Hr. galley slave in the call center that's the only alternative "back home" at present.
Millions of American workers hold employment patterns somewhere outside the 8-to-5 pattern, and many of us like it that way. Forced use of public transit where I currently work (a fast-paced distribution center) would be viewed as just one more method by which your life is micro-managed and scripted by someone else.
Public or privatized, Big Brother/Sister is getting a little too big for his/her britches.
You aren't forced to use public transit. You are given an option that is much faster for rush hour commuting. If you work a graveyard shift, good for you, traffic isn't a problem for you and you won't use the train... So what? One less lane will not harm you either because there is no traffic in the middle of the night.
Or, you could move to a smaller, livable city where you can not only afford to live in the city, but you're not afraid to send your kids to the public schools, and even if you live in the 'burbs, you've got a short commute into work. There are a lot of cities like that in the US, but lots of people want the big, popular metros, so don't whine about your crappy commute because you chose it.
I would rather live in a smaller city, but those cities aren't where the jobs are.
Well I actually did get a job in a small city, Maui County, but just by luck. I spent many years in Houston trying to find jobs in Austin and other smaller cities. There are so few it's a waste of time.
And what do you think happens to small cities when people in the big ones get sick of sitting in gridlock and decide to move? The small ones get overrun. Actually I guess that's what is happening to Austin-- tons of transplants fleeing the California cities. Now it has bad traffic too.
And of course this is irrelevant. The cities are the ones building the rail systems. They're solving the commuting problem for people who live there. For people who don't live in those cities it doesn't directly affect them.
That's because despite what many want us to believe, many people still prefer to drive even in cases where public transit is more convenient (which is rare). NYC is probably one of a handful of places where public transit is actually more convenient yet people still still clog up the streets...because driving is the preferred method of travel for those who can afford it.
not sure if you live near NYC, but a lot of people driving in the NY metro area aren't doing it because they've got gobs of money. i had to drive to a client in long island for a few months. then a client in CT after that. then a client in north jersey. i much preferred when i was staffed on clients that were accessible by transit instead of car, but sometimes i had to drive. that's just how it is. when you've got millions of people going to various destinations, some of those trips will be by car. also, you've got a ton of people doing the reverse commute, which the public transit isn't set up to handle at all.
You actually proved my point. I didn't say it sucked...I actually said it was more convenient..yet %50 of people still prefer to drive despite NYC having a good transit system.
67% of NYC commutes are non-car. not sure where you're getting that 50% of people prefer to drive.
I would argue that not everyone does that, and there are not always homemade solutions. Your example with the glue is awesome, a great money and time saving idea. But in many other ways that kind of solution just isn't possible. An example just the other night- the baby became rather sick with a fever, and we were unprepared, did not have any baby Tylenol- so I had to drive to the store to get some. And that is all I bought- I didn't get side tracked and go pick up a DVD or the latest video game or a TV or anything- I just bought the medicine. If I do make extra purchases they are just other things I remembered I needed so I can avoid another unexpected trip the very next day- such as a gallon of milk, or a loaf of bread, or a bottle of mouth wash.
It would be a ridiculous pain if we were forced to limit these trips, or make them all via public transportation, which would involve planning around a scheduled departure time, a long walk to the bus stop (or even a drive to one), then waiting for the bus and taking far too much time once on the bus as it moves slowly- when I could just hop in my car, open the garage, and go any time of day or night- and be to the store in ten minutes.
And to others who have mentioned how harmful these short trips are to the environment. The fact is modern cars are quite clean- they have good pollution controls in them so you don't have much nastiness coming out of the exhaust pipes these days. Sure there is SOME, but it is very minimal. And with the fuel efficiency our cars get I am using a small fraction of a gallon of gas to make these trips, so it's not like I am burning through lots of our limited fossil fuel resources.
And on the bigger picture, I think people need to stop looking at this as somehow we were forced into using cars by the auto industry back in the day. They came out as an option and people quickly started moving to that mode of transportation because they liked them- they liked how comfortable and convenient automobile transportation is. And it exploded from there as car ownership soared and cities developed to accommodate that mode of transportation. After all, when a massive majority of your population uses cars as their primary mode of transportation, why would governments NOT design around that? And besides, up until recently gas tax money did pay fully for the roads- it's only a more recent issue where that tax income did not completely cover the costs, due to cars getting better fuel economy so less fuel is being purchased (leading to less gas taxes being paid) and fairly significant portions of gas tax revenues being diverted to other things such as transit.
honestly, we're a highly adaptive species. i happen to live close to a pharmacy, but we make sure we have the essential medicines on hand for our young children. if you're unprepared for your child's fever, what do you do if the store is closed?
as for your piece on modern cars...they are cleaner than 30 years ago, but they are not "quite clean. you're consuming gas, using up oil, wearing down rubber, among numerous other parts. there's very few "clean" things about it.
and we're a couple of decades into the gas tax not covering the cost. it's not because cars have gotten more fuel efficient either. that's part of it, but it's because roads last for a little while, then need to be repaired. so the annual costs aren't a fixed amount. also, the materials to create and maintain those roads are more expensive now. there is not a "significant portion" of gas tax revenues diverted into other things, either.
I live in Jacksonville Fl where we have the inconveniently high water table that prevents a subway from being economical. If we were to put an L Train in place properly the city would have to buy billions upon billions of real estate. So we are left with a bus system thats an absolute joke, which still congests the roadways. I would LOVE a subway or L train, cars are way too expensive compared to transit. Its also far too hot here to ride a bike or walk to work. So some towns like ours are FORCED to be auto towns.
To the person that said we need to increase the fuel tax in order to repair the infrastructure of the roads....dont forget that increasing fuel costs increases the cost of EVERYTHING. Because everything is transported at some point in time, or multiple times during production. You think we should collapse the already fragile economy in order to clean up the roads? How about we just reduce the military budget and use that 1.2 Trillion to repair the roads instead.....
yes, it would increase the cost of goods, or it would move more transportation of goods to things like rail, or move more companies to convert the type of fuel they use (my local garbage collection company's entire fleet now runs on natural gas).
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