Funding roads (taxes, user fees etc)

[SammyOES2]

Dan, I'm going to try really hard to make this my last post to you on this subject and give you the last word after this.  So this might get rant-y.  But letting threads die on the internet isn't one of my strong points.  So... no promises.


"First of all, healthcare is free because if you make no income and don't pay any money to healthcare, you still can go to the hospital for free."

This doesn't make healthcare free.  It means that 'rich' people subsidize 'poor' people because we live in a relatively 'enlightened' society.  But its not free.  The users still pay for it through taxes (If we want to be less simplistic, there's some amount of subsidy across provinces and time as well... but I don't think we need to get into that).  If you think Healthcare is free, who do you think is paying for the hospitals, doctors, ambulances, etc.?


"Netflix isn't free, because if you make no income and don't pay Netflix, they won't let you watch movies."

OF COURSE NETFLIX ISN'T FREE!!!  ijmorlan said: "Think back to your last non-407 automobile trip. What fee or charge did you pay to use the roads on that trip? ... ... ... I thought so." and "Ok, this afternoon I drove to an appointment. Did I have to pay to use the roads?  No. My finances are exactly the same now as they would have been if I had walked to the appointment."  He seems to think that if you don't pay per unit used of something, right when you used it, that you didn't pay at all.  Netflix doesn't charge users per movie used.  They charge a fee up front.  And after that if you watch 0 movies or 500 movies - you pay nothing else.  ijmorlan, doesn't seem to understand that you can pay for complete unlimited access to something and thats still paying for it.


"Calling someone a zealot is not conducive to a useful conversation.  You're just going to put them on the defensive and make them more unlikely to listen to your arguments."

Quite frankly, I don't really care about your opinion on this.  I've had a number of people ITT assume the worst about me despite the evidence or incorrectly 'correct me' and when I reiterate or correct the person I get no response.  Where's your comment about the usefulness of ijmorlan repeating his same dumb claim but then adding "... ... ... ... ... ... I thought not?".

Threads like this always develop a mob like mentality where people refuse to correct or challenge the people that are "on their side".  And let's not pretend this was a useful conversation!  Neither you or ijmorlan added a single piece of substance.  You just keep making your same assertions w/o any shred of actual data.

And one big reason people like you and ijmorlan drive me crazy is because it feels like you're actively hurting the public transit side.  There are a LOT of good reasons to build transit.  And a LOT of low hanging fruit where its such a no brainer.

As a side note, I still work closely with a group of people in NYC.  They get a good kick out of discussions like this(*) because its so obvious to them both mass transit and "mass motoring" (as you call it) are important.  Some of these people don't even own cars!

And finally, I have no idea how to quote properly on this forum.  It also drives me crazy.  Lots of things drive me crazy.



(*) To be fair, I have local friends that get a kick out of a lot of things that the NYC people do.  It's all relative.

[ijmorlan]

I think you are not understanding what's I'm saying.  Nobody is attacking you for driving, nobody is suggesting that you should be taking transit.  What I am suggesting is that you continue to live in a mindset of how things are.  I hope you can imagine a different world.

Agreed with everything you’re saying, and thanks for the additional points I didn’t think of. What I find weird about this is that people seem to be assuming that because I’m pointing out the fact that roads are free to the user, I must be against all car use and I must believe that car users are evil people intent on mowing down pedestrians and poisoning the air. Even crazier, they are denying that roads in Ontario are free to the user. If I understand correctly, which I am beginning to doubt because this is well past the point of making any sense at all.

[darts]

I think you are not understanding what's I'm saying.  Nobody is attacking you for driving, nobody is suggesting that you should be taking transit.  What I am suggesting is that you continue to live in a mindset of how things are.  I hope you can imagine a different world.

For example, one with a 200 km/h train between Cambridge and Kitchener instead of the expressway.  Now your house is a higher density transit oriented neighbourhood.  Now it's a 40 minute drive to your work, and a 5 minute walk to a bus which takes 5 minutes to a train station which takes 20 minutes up to Kitchener, that's a 5 minute walk away from your work.  Now it's a 35-40 minute transit ride to work.  This is a different type of world, with different investments and priorities, all of a sudden transit *can* be a feasible option for the vast majority of people.

And then the vast majority of these roads wouldn't be needed.  Yes, we still need roads to everywhere, but we no longer need a massive 6 lane wide expressway.  We no longer need huge parking areas, and wide roads with parking on both sides.

This world is hard to imagine, but conveniently, you can go see it first hand if you want, it's a short trans-Atlantic flight away.  And you'll find that Europe does also have plenty of rural areas, with small towns, with people who mostly drive, but who also usually have bus service.  But in larger cities, certainly ones the size of Cambridge or Waterloo, there's much much better transit and many more people can make use of it.

I am not trying to build you up to be a knuckledragger because you're faced with the reality of the world you live in.  I respect that.  If I still lived in New Hamburg (or even a suburb of KW) I'd also own and drive a car.  I am fortunate enough not to have to.  But I am suggesting that you should understand and acknowledge exactly why and how we do have the world we have.

And as for the sticks, I lived in New Hamburg.  When I lived there my *ONLY* options for getting home were a 6 hour walk along dangerous roads, an 80 dollar taxi ride, or driving myself.  Guess which I did.  Right now, there is a bus to the town.  It's not terribly popular but now everyone who lives there at least has an option.  They at least have the freedom of travel.  That's what I'm talking about.

a 200 kmh train from cambridge to kitchener costs would outweigh the cost of building a road network, tokyo can do it because it has real density, cambridge has a few busloads of people an hour. How is my home in a higher density area unless all the homes in the area are torn down and replaced with condos. Given the popularity of milton I think people prefer a single detached dwelling or a townhouse vs living in a condo. The only location with real density nearby is toronto.

As for attacks there are post after post suggesting my cost of living needs to be dramatically higher now when there is no way to get me to work in nearly the same amount of time or price.

If you want to take transit, take transit

[darts]

I think you are not understanding what's I'm saying.  Nobody is attacking you for driving, nobody is suggesting that you should be taking transit.  What I am suggesting is that you continue to live in a mindset of how things are.  I hope you can imagine a different world.

Agreed with everything you’re saying, and thanks for the additional points I didn’t think of. What I find weird about this is that people seem to be assuming that because I’m pointing out the fact that roads are free to the user, I must be against all car use and I must believe that car users are evil people intent on mowing down pedestrians and poisoning the air. Even crazier, they are denying that roads in Ontario are free to the user. If I understand correctly, which I am beginning to doubt because this is well past the point of making any sense at all.

Roads aren't free to users, they are only free if I steal someones car and drive it. Roads would still be needed if no one has a car and paying gas taxes etc.

[danbrotherston]

Roads aren't free to users, they are only free if I steal someones car and drive it. Roads would still be needed if no one has a car and paying gas taxes etc.

So the cost of walking down a sidewalk should include shoes?

Just because you must bring your own ball to play, doesn't make it not free play hour at the basketball court.

[ijmorlan]

Roads aren't free to users, they are only free if I steal someones car and drive it. Roads would still be needed if no one has a car and paying gas taxes etc.

So the cost of walking down a sidewalk should include shoes?

Just because you must bring your own ball to play, doesn't make it not free play hour at the basketball court.

Be careful … next they’re going to claim that the parking at Conestoga Mall is actually paid parking, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

Minor nitpick — the cost of walking down a sidewalk (comfortably, for most people) does include shoes. However, the price does not.

The strangest thing about this is how we are getting disagreement about basic facts. There are actually a wide variety of supportable positions regarding how various types of roads should be paid for, and in one of my early posts I even indicated that I wasn’t sure that I myself fully supported the position I had stated. But reasonable people cannot disagree that there is in fact no price charged to use most roads in Ontario.

[jamincan]

The strangest thing about this is how we are getting disagreement about basic facts. There are actually a wide variety of supportable positions regarding how various types of roads should be paid for, and in one of my early posts I even indicated that I wasn’t sure that I myself fully supported the position I had stated. But reasonable people cannot disagree that there is in fact no price charged to use most roads in Ontario.

This seems like a semantic argument. Road users aren't being charged to use the roads, but those same users are the ones paying for a significant percentage of road costs through gas taxes. A certain percentage of the costs is subsidized, just as it is with transit and other infrastructure, which doesn't seem particularly unreasonable to me.

I think the frustrating thing to me reading this thread is that arguments that road users are getting a free ride and not bearing the cost of their choice in transportation is a rather extreme interpretation of the facts and does not gel at all with the experience of most drivers who are well aware of the financial costs of driving (even if being ignorant of some of the nuance being debated ad nauseum on here). The merits of transit funding and alternative funding models for road maintenance and construction can stand on their own without alienating a significant portion of the population who are more likely to just shut-off and ignore what is being said than engage with debates like that.

Just looking at the debate over tolling the Gardiner and DVP in Toronto. The main reason this seems to be gaining traction is that the justification is fair and reasonable. Torontonians are the ones paying for the infrastructure (principally through property taxes) while it is primarily 905ers using it. A toll seems like a reasonable approach for Toronto to recoup the cost of maintaining those roads from the people using it.

[creative]

With that reasoning then we have 0% cost recovery on bike lanes as well which are part of those roads!

[danbrotherston]

With that reasoning then we have 0% cost recovery on bike lanes as well which are part of those roads!

You're right, there is 0% cost recovery with bike lanes, same with parks (generally).  But their costs both direct construction costs, as well as social and environment costs are far far lower.

[ijmorlan]

With that reasoning then we have 0% cost recovery on bike lanes as well which are part of those roads!

That is correct, although I wouldn’t use the word “reasoning” — it’s really just a direct observation, not the conclusion of some sort of chain of evidence and argument.

My real point is that people who complain about the cost recovery ratio of public transit but don’t even notice that roads are expensive and are (mostly) not tolled are not worthy of consideration. There is a wide range of legitimate opinion on how transportation costs should be paid, but the idea that public transit is an unjustified benefit to a bunch of moochers while roads are just the triumph of the free market is not valid.

Although now that you mention it, there are also people who whine about the supposed expense of providing bicycle lanes (freeloading bicyclists), but those same people would probably have conniptions if you suggested that maybe we should consider having some sort of road use fee or congestion charge.

[creative]

I never complained about bike lanes or transit costs. I only pointed out your rediculous opinion regarding road cost recovery. I thought that we dropped this topic but you chose to bring it back up.

[ijmorlan]

I never complained about bike lanes or transit costs. I only pointed out your rediculous opinion regarding road cost recovery. I thought that we dropped this topic but you chose to bring it back up.

Not this again. There is no user fee to use local roads. The municipality pays to construct and maintain roads and does *not* recover a use-fee from those who use said roads. Fine, you want to count the gas tax, a portion of which is now sent by the province to the municipalities, there is a few-percent recovery, but given that the gas tax probably doesn’t even cover the appropriate level of carbon taxation that’s pretty questionable.

By contrast, as we all know, GRT riders pay something like 40% of operating costs, and TTC riders pay something like 80% of operating costs.

What is ridiculous is people claiming that road costs are recovered from users of the roads when they plainly are not. The fact that there is a large overlap between taxpayers and road users does not affect this. The same is true of transit: I’ll bet substantially all users of GRT pay taxes to local municipalities, either directly, or via their landlords. The whole point is that there is a difference between transit (some cost recovery) and roads (none, or almost no cost recovery).

Anyway, my original point this time around was not about this board or anybody here. It was about another board where somebody was in effect complaining about transit money but staying completely silent on the issue of road money. As it happens that discussion was about Manhattan, so there is the additional issue of how exactly that individual thinks all the bus riders are supposed to fit on the road in a larger number of smaller vehicles.

I just thought of question that may shed some light on this: who pays for our local police, the WRPS? Taxpayers, or the users of the service?

[SammyOES]

What is ridiculous is people claiming that road costs are recovered from users of the roads when they plainly are not. The fact that there is a large overlap between taxpayers and road users does not affect this.

Lol. Of course it affects that claim. Just because it is inconvenient for your whole argument doesn't mean you get to ignore it. And the vast majority of people are going to care only if the money is coming out of their pocket - not whether its coming out of their left or right pocket.

The same is true of transit: I’ll bet substantially all users of GRT pay taxes to local municipalities, either directly, or via their landlords. The whole point is that there is a difference between transit (some cost recovery) and roads (none, or almost no cost recovery).

Yes, there's a difference between the two. Although the percentage of transit users is much lower than the percentage of drivers in the general tax base, even counting indirect taxation through rent to a landlord. It is very likely that transit is more subsidized by "Non transit users" than driving is subsidized by "Non drivers". I don't have a problem with that. Nor do I have a problem with you pointing out that the funding of transit and roads are different. The problem is when you jump to the illogical claim that driving is completely subsidized.

I just thought of question that may shed some light on this: who pays for our local police, the WRPS? Taxpayers, or the users of the service?

Taxpayers - who are also the users of the service. Of course, even more than roads, a big chunk of the benefit is the presence of the service and not an actual explicit incidence of usage.

[MidTowner]

You’re right that most people are drivers- but should someone who drives occasionally all of a sudden be responsible for a share of the maintenance of the roads calculated based on the value of the property he owns? Is it really appropriate that someone who drives 20,000 kilometres a year on local roads might pay the same towards their upkeep as someone who drives a tenth of that distance?

I would guess that the biggest cross-subsidy is not from “non drivers” to drivers, since the former are a small percentage and do glean benefits from the road network even if they never drive a car on it. It’s more likely that it would be from light users to heavy users. That’s also a big problem for everyone, since the way things are set up now, there’s no signal as to the actual cost of the road system, and people are therefore encouraged to use it wastefully.

[KevinL]

It's important to note that a well-maintained road network does benefit everyone - they can travel safely (no matter how often they travel) and it keeps the local economy moving well. But a well-maintained transit network has the same ultimate goal - make efficient use of those roads, and let those without the means or ability to drive to contribute to the economy as well.