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In all honesty, the only proper way to do the "pay-per-mile" tax. Would be for the government to equip all cars with a GPS tracking device that emitted some sort of "beacon" transmitter which can be detected by the police to make sure you haven't tampered with your GPS device(IE, would prevent you from disconnecting it).
Of course, that would mean the government could feasibly track every move you make in your car.
Electric is considered fuel and not subject to the road tax.
Very very few Hybrids on the road take electricity as a fuel. Most generate it from gasoline. When you start talking about less than a tenth of a percentage... the tax doesn't make sense. It'll cost more in administration than will be collected.
Everyone who uses the roads should pay for them including electric cars and bicycles.
That is what is being suggested. The weight of the vehicle and mileage be taxed. That way a light vehicle such as a bike doesn't have to pay as much as a truck.. as it should be.
Very very few Hybrids on the road take electricity as a fuel. Most generate it from gasoline. When you start talking about less than a tenth of a percentage... the tax doesn't make sense.
I'm not going to argue the point because it's irrelevant. This is not a fuel tax, it's a road tax and when you have such wild difference where one 3000lb car will pay $0 if it's all electric and the gasoline equivalent is paying $300 to drive the same distance that needs to be addressed.
Quote:
It'll cost more in administration than will be collected.
Having extensive knowledge with databases and billing I can assure you that adding it to the cost of registration shouldn't cost anything. There is already multiple categories for vehicles especially for trucks, this would just be another category.
That is what is being suggested. The weight of the vehicle and mileage be taxed. That way a light vehicle such as a bike doesn't have to pay as much as a truck.. as it should be.
It costs as much per mile (or whatever unit you want to use) to build the road so the bicyclist can use it as the Hummer driver.
^^Not according to the OP and the link in it. It just says money would be used for "roads" and gave several examples. It's unclear from the article if these are new roads or road repairs; one at least sounds like a new project (zoo interchange).
It costs as much per mile (or whatever unit you want to use) to build the road so the bicyclist can use it as the Hummer driver.
Before I address your statement. Lets imagine a world without cars altogether. What would the roads look like? How expensive would the roads be?
The truth is, not only are bike lanes much more narrow than streets. But an actual separated bike path is far cheaper to build even in the same total surface area. A road is usually "very thick" and heavily reinforced. Because trucks up to 80,000 pounds drive on the roads/interstates.
Most bike lanes are made of very thin and cheap asphalt.
Your basic argument is "Bicycles need roads. Without cars paying for the roads, bikes wouldn't have anything to ride on. Thus the cost of building roads should fall on each road user equally. Including bicyclists."
What you should remember is, the average cost of building a two-lane bike lane is about $135,000 per mile. It is about $10 million per mile for a four-lane interstate. That is a factor a 74 to 1.
The issue we have, is that cities are going to build the roads to accommodate cars/trucks regardless. Since the bicycles can use the streets, in most cases, the bicycles simply use the streets. The city sees no reason in building extra dedicated bike lanes.
Regardless. If we consider the fact that "transportation related fees" already pay such a small percentage of the total cost of buildings roads. Then all things considered, in most parts of the country, people who ride bicycles are already paying significantly more than their fair share to fund the roads.
I'll concede that bicycles shouldn't get out of paying altogether. But if you consider the actual costs of building dedicated bike lanes vs city streets, and on top of that consider the weight of a bicycle(IE the damage it does to the streets). I would say the difference between what a Hummer should pay and what a bicycle should pay would be at least a difference of 100 to 1, if not more.
$50 isn't enough. Charge them $100-$200 a year. I'm sure they'll pay because it's just right to do for using less gas.
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