Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Reducing taxes is unacceptable. We have decreased the national deficit due to closing loopholes and allowing tax cuts to expire. Tax cuts are detrimental to the economy.
You may think so if you please. A large number of your fellow taxpayers do not agree with you.
No it is not. If people stopped pissing away so much money on commuting and overpriced mortgages, they would have more money to spend or invest, which benefit the economy. Wasteful spending is never necessary.
Cars users pay for approximately half the cost of driving.
Even in NYC, the bridges (with their $13 tolls) are extremely subsidized by general income funds. You wouldn't even want to know the real price.
Prosopis, apologies in advance if you genuinely have never considered the plight of people who cannot drive. But this is an opportunity to educate yourself. If you have eyesight below 20/40 (+/- depending on the state), or epilepsy, or a couple of other physical problems, you can never operate an automobile. It's not a "free choice".
How produce is shipped to markets has nothing to do with private automobile ownership. The near-impossiblity of buying food that has not touched a vehicle at some point only speaks to the total dominance of the automobile in today's society.
If you were legally banned from having children because of something you were born with, I suspect that you would feel differently about these taxes.
Non-drivers have every right, indeed a duty to oppose the very existence of an efficient road system along with their tax dollars paying for it. Every advance in the road system means more places where they cannot live and more employers who won't hire them.
Forgetting, or ignoring, that some people in the world are denied the privileges that you take for granted -- and have constructed an entire society around -- would be the very definition of "self centered".
Non-drivers still use the roads too, right? Rides from family members and friends, taxis, buses, etc.?
Transit doesn't work in very low density places, but we can build some higher density places, even in suburbs. Setting aside a few blocks for denser mixed use development for living, working and shopping is good for everyone. It creates a town center. Preferably connected with commuter rail. Even without that connection, many people would be able to make their trips on foot. Or park once and walk around to do everything else.
Many are.
Todos Santos Square in Concord is walking distance from BART. Massive office complex for work, lots of restaurants, apartments, movie theater. The so-called "Transit Villages" are popping up. Walnut Creek's is finally moving ahead apart because the developer wanted to be exempt from the fees. The city was never very excited because it was a financial loser that would cost more than it would generate in revenue, so it just let it languish. Older peninsula suburbs like Redwood City, San Mateo, and Palo Alto all have mixed-use neighborhoods. Heck, even Moraga has some apartments near what passes for the commercial area. Someone who cared could easily walk form them to restaurants or the grocery store. Moraga wouldn't be the first choice if I cared about that.
Okay, I did something silly recently; I sold my car to a friend. I don't know about where you live, but here it would be extremely inconvenient to take the bus everywhere. They only run once an hour and don't go everywhere one may need to go.
Watched a show on japan 583 KPH super train the other night. the Japanese had wanted to sell to US .basically tho it said japan was going to at one time put in from Baltimore to Washington I hope of selling further up east coast which Japanese say is only feasible location for such in US fiscal wise. But they have concluded that US is not fiscally able now and for distant future. That they say would have lowered cost to both Japan and US which was the reason for their building the first line between Baltimore and Washington.for most US the cost way out weight the advantage of having a line of high speed rail. as it could compete with airlines on cost basis.
If people stopped pissing away so much money on commuting and overpriced mortgages, they would have more money to spend or invest, which benefit the economy. Wasteful spending is never necessary.
Most economic activity consist of consuming unnecessary goods and services, from people not qualified to produce them, with money that we don't have. If we truly eschewed waste, our society would resemble a monastic commune. We can make wasteful purchases privately, for instance by driving cars. Or we can make wasteful purchases publicly, for instance through mass transit. But the private sector is more efficient, ergo, it's better to go with cars.
I stay pretty busy at work, and enjoy doing it. But mostly it's waste. Sometimes I do scientific research, writing papers that nobody cares to read... or if they do read them, the papers mostly motivate other researchers to follow similar lines of reasoning, also wasteful. I participate in the mentoring of graduate students... minting fresh PhDs, who will either find wasteful but remunerative employment, or will remain underemployed, wasting their degrees. Other times I just push paper... signing forms for people, approving test-requests, submitting purchase-requests... all for studies which ultimately generate final-reports that get input somewhere on the internet. But all of this employs lots of people. It employs scientists directly, and indirectly all sorts of administrators and janitors and security guards and lawyers to watch over it all. The alternative is for me to stay home, grow my own food, sew my own clothes from wool sheered from sheep grazing on my property. Instead I waste money by going out for lunch nearly every day (sometimes eating lamb), and help keep Chinese workers employed by buying cheap clothes made from artificial fibers. Hopefully the sheep don't mind.
Prosopis, apologies in advance if you genuinely have never considered the plight of people who cannot drive. But this is an opportunity to educate yourself. If you have eyesight below 20/40 (+/- depending on the state), or epilepsy, or a couple of other physical problems, you can never operate an automobile. It's not a "free choice".
How produce is shipped to markets has nothing to do with private automobile ownership. The near-impossiblity of buying food that has not touched a vehicle at some point only speaks to the total dominance of the automobile in today's society.
If you were legally banned from having children because of something you were born with, I suspect that you would feel differently about these taxes.
Non-drivers have every right, indeed a duty to oppose the very existence of an efficient road system along with their tax dollars paying for it. Every advance in the road system means more places where they cannot live and more employers who won't hire them.
Forgetting, or ignoring, that some people in the world are denied the privileges that you take for granted -- and have constructed an entire society around -- would be the very definition of "self centered".
It should be rather obvious that society - any society - will construct systems based on what works well for the vast majority of its people, and in democratic societies even more so. This has almost nothing to do with having or not having sympathy for the plight of those who cannot drive; rather, it is common sense.
Non-drivers are NOT prevented from living on part of an efficient road system, as many of those systems use their very efficiency to operate bus lines. Your contention to the contrary is a triumph of angry rhetoric and non-sequiturs over objective rationality and common sense.
The lady who lives in the townhouse adjoining mine lives on an efficient road network and utilizes that network to take the bus into downtown Los Angeles to her job five days a week, no transfers required.
Todos Santos Square in Concord is walking distance from BART. Massive office complex for work, lots of restaurants, apartments, movie theater. The so-called "Transit Villages" are popping up. Walnut Creek's is finally moving ahead apart because the developer wanted to be exempt from the fees. The city was never very excited because it was a financial loser that would cost more than it would generate in revenue, so it just let it languish. Older peninsula suburbs like Redwood City, San Mateo, and Palo Alto all have mixed-use neighborhoods. Heck, even Moraga has some apartments near what passes for the commercial area. Someone who cared could easily walk form them to restaurants or the grocery store. Moraga wouldn't be the first choice if I cared about that.
Not all are well executed. It isn't quite as simple as putting up a mixed use building. But I have seen the development in Concord, it is pretty good. Much of the Peninsula has good potential if it isn't already working. Their problems are a little different.
I have only been to Moraga a handful of times. So I don't know. But the thing is, there are plenty of people who might want to live in a place like Moraga, but not want a single family home. Denser development is ideal for this.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
