Funding roads (taxes, user fees etc)

[SammyOES2]

I didn't include hst on the gas. I included only the hst on the gas tax - which just seems completely obvious to me.

The report mentioned that they didn't include vehicle costs. It's a reasonable thing to mention since people bring it up (it was brought up even in this thread) and they then discredited why you would count it.

As for the rest of your post, you could be right. But you're making assumptions yourself and it doesn't seem like you have much to back them up. So I guess, feel free to post actual data and calculations about road cost recovery or I'll just let this thread die. Maybe to go find an anti-public transit thread where people bitch about people getting a free LRT because something something their taxes are paying for it but they'll never use it.

[KevinT]

Battery electric vehicles (a trivial number now, but growing) pay no gas tax, but are heavy and thus do disproportionate damage to our roads.

I tend to disagree.  Lithium ion batteries are fairly light weight, and a quick comparison of a Tesla Model S to a Hyundai Genesis sedan (yeah, I'm a Hyundai man) shows only a difference of 261 kg (base model) to 399 kg (high end).  Compare to an SUV and the differences are smaller to non-existent.

[tomh009]

Battery electric vehicles (a trivial number now, but growing) pay no gas tax, but are heavy and thus do disproportionate damage to our roads.

I tend to disagree.  Lithium ion batteries are fairly light weight, and a quick comparison of a Tesla Model S to a Hyundai Genesis sedan (yeah, I'm a Hyundai man) shows only a difference of 261 kg (base model) to 399 kg (high end).  Compare to an SUV and the differences are smaller to non-existent.

Lots of variables in automotive construction!  Batteries are heavier than a (full) fuel tank, but electric powertrains are simpler and lighter than ICE ones.  Could be a wash in the end.  Maybe.

But the point that EVs don't contribute to road costs through gas taxes is very much valid.  I expect that annual registration feels (or usage charges/tolls) will eventually be needed.

[Coke6pk]

Tomato Tomato. [Without the accent, I guess it makes no sense ]

In a country like ours, those who don't use still pay... and I'm OK with that. The "road tax" / "tolls" / "driving is free" debate will not be solved here. Its no different that those without kids who have to pay school taxes. (As a parent I thank you. I'm sure I am paying for a service you use that I don't).

Coke

[danbrotherston]

Tomato Tomato.  [Without the accent, I guess it makes no sense ]

In a country like ours, those who don't use still pay... and I'm OK with that.  The "road tax" / "tolls" / "driving is free" debate will not be solved here.  Its no different that those without kids who have to pay school taxes.  (As a parent I thank you.  I'm sure I am paying for a service you use that I don't).

Coke

It absolutely is different.  We as a society are perfectly willing to pay for things which provide net communal benefits.

Mass motoring has enormous social and environmental costs which offset those benefits.

Education has no such costs.

They're entirely different.  I'm happy to pay for education.  I'm happy to pay for transit.   I'm not happy to pay to buy out entire neighbourhoods of homes, pave over enormous swaths of the Earth, just so we can continue to pretend that automobiles are the *only* way to get around.

[ijmorlan]

Tomato Tomato.  [Without the accent, I guess it makes no sense ]

In a country like ours, those who don't use still pay... and I'm OK with that.  The "road tax" / "tolls" / "driving is free" debate will not be solved here.  Its no different that those without kids who have to pay school taxes.  (As a parent I thank you.  I'm sure I am paying for a service you use that I don't).

Coke

It absolutely is different.  We as a society are perfectly willing to pay for things which provide net communal benefits.

Mass motoring has enormous social and environmental costs which offset those benefits.

Education has no such costs.

They're entirely different.  I'm happy to pay for education.  I'm happy to pay for transit.   I'm not happy to pay to buy out entire neighbourhoods of homes, pave over enormous swaths of the Earth, just so we can continue to pretend that automobiles are the *only* way to get around.

Also, each child needs but can only consume one education from the publicly funded system. By contrast, one person can use an enormous amount of road resources, or none, depending on how they structure their life.

Then, on top of a massive social expenditure for the benefit only of those who choose to drive, we require everybody to participate through parking minima. It is literally illegal to build a development in most places that is optimized for the use of non-drivers.

Then as if that’s not enough, some “libertarians” are gung-ho road boosters. It’s just absurd. To be fair, some of them think that highways should be privately built and operated toll roads, which is at least consistent (and might actually work better than we think).

[ijmorlan]

ijmorlan, let's go with this.  Why don't you post a source showing that motorists get "(almost) free roads"?

I showed one showing there's 65-85% cost recovery.

This is an absurd question. Ok, this afternoon I drove to an appointment. Did I have to pay to use the roads?

[....]

I thought of another way of writing that post: 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.

[SammyOES2]

Ijmorlan, your idea of paying for something is simplistic and dumb.

I watched a movie on Netflix today, but my finances didn't change. Is Netflix free?

I pay a bunch of taxes and a health care charge. But when I go to the hospital it doesn't change my finances. Is health care free?

As far as I'm concerned you're a zealot. Making logically poor arguments and being willfully ignorant.

[danbrotherston]

Ijmorlan, your idea of paying for something is simplistic and dumb.  

I watched a movie on Netflix today, but my finances didn't change.  Is Netflix free?

I pay a bunch of taxes and a health care charge.  But when I go to the hospital it doesn't change my finances.  Is health care free?

As far as I'm concerned you're a zealot. Making logically poor arguments and being willfully ignorant.

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

Netflix is not free because you pay for it, and can opt out of it.  Healthcare is free, because we've decided as a society we should give it to everyone, regardless of whether you pay for it, and you cannot opt out of 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.

[darts]

Ijmorlan, your idea of paying for something is simplistic and dumb.  

I watched a movie on Netflix today, but my finances didn't change.  Is Netflix free?

I pay a bunch of taxes and a health care charge.  But when I go to the hospital it doesn't change my finances.  Is health care free?

As far as I'm concerned you're a zealot. Making logically poor arguments and being willfully ignorant.

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

Netflix is not free because you pay for it, and can opt out of it.  Healthcare is free, because we've decided as a society we should give it to everyone, regardless of whether you pay for it, and you cannot opt out of 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.

If you make no income you cant afford a car to drive around and didn't buy gas for the car and didn't pay to register it, and aren't contributing to health care either which we don't give to everyone and isn't free. 

This whole thread is beyond stupid, it's like no one has ever lived out in the sticks and realized that roads are a needed part of life, of course I guess we can not tar and chip roads out to farms, who needs them.

I prefer my 30 minute drive to waterloo than my 2 hour trip on the bus..

[Canard]

This whole thread is beyond stupid, it's like no one has ever lived out in the sticks and realized that roads are a needed part of life, of course I guess we can not tar and chip roads out to farms, who needs them.

I prefer my 30 minute drive to waterloo than my 2 hour trip on the bus..

This. So much this!

[danbrotherston]

If you make no income you cant afford a car to drive around and didn't buy gas for the car and didn't pay to register it, and aren't contributing to health care either which we don't give to everyone and isn't free. 

This whole thread is beyond stupid, it's like no one has ever lived out in the sticks and realized that roads are a needed part of life, of course I guess we can not tar and chip roads out to farms, who needs them.

I prefer my 30 minute drive to waterloo than my 2 hour trip on the bus..

Now it's you on the defensive. And frankly, lots of people who don't have an income have cars. That's simply not true.

And I have lived out in the sticks, and it's sad that there are no other options for people to get around, and I advocate fixing that.

And as I've said a number of times, your 2 hour bus trip vs. 30 minute drive has far less to due with transit vs. cars, but instead 60 years of investment and policies favoring one, vs. the other.

But you are right, this conversation is getting stupid, because you are continually being defensive when it is pointed out that driving is so much better because it has been favored, and that it is heavily subsidized.

[darts]

If you make no income you cant afford a car to drive around and didn't buy gas for the car and didn't pay to register it, and aren't contributing to health care either which we don't give to everyone and isn't free. 

This whole thread is beyond stupid, it's like no one has ever lived out in the sticks and realized that roads are a needed part of life, of course I guess we can not tar and chip roads out to farms, who needs them.

I prefer my 30 minute drive to waterloo than my 2 hour trip on the bus..

Now it's you on the defensive.  And frankly, lots of people who don't have an income have cars.  That's simply not true.

And I have lived out in the sticks, and it's sad that there are no other options for people to get around, and I advocate fixing that.

And as I've said a number of times, your 2 hour bus trip vs. 30 minute drive has far less to due with transit vs. cars, but instead 60 years of investment and policies favoring one, vs. the other.

But you are right, this conversation is getting stupid, because you are continually being defensive when it is pointed out that driving is so much better because it has been favored, and that it is heavily subsidized.

Not being defensive, just tired of listening to a few people who seem to think everyone is or can live within 15 minutes of their place of work and don't have other obligations that just make using transit very inconvinient to use, even if it was running optimally due to locations of schools, parents whatever. You can look in my car and see one driver, but what you don't see is the 2 hr drive alternative, you don't see me dropping off my partner or swinging by daycare earlier, or me being on standby because I have to pick up a family member who is having issues at school, medical or from other students.

Somehow I don't have an income so I can't pay for netflix but I can pay for gas for a car, and longerterm, licensing and car payments?

I live in Cambridge, I take one bus to the main line and I take that all the way up and than take a small trip off from there. It's pretty much the most direct route, its just the nature of transit. My alternatives are to spend more money to buy a more expensive home closer to work and hope I don't get fired/get a new job that is somewhere else or buy a condo giving up living space and bedrooms among other features I enjoy, or rent some place, have less control over the possibility of bed bugs, and have to set aside additional money for retirment and hope I don't lose it and it keeps pace with inflation since I would be paying rent until the end of my life.

As for the sticks, I'm not sure what you are expecting to see, a bus driving around randomly on streets (that magically would need to be built anyways but now won't have gas taxes supporting it since everyone takes the bus) collecting them all to take them to the centre of town where other buses will take people out in different directions to starford, woodstock, kitchenr, waterloo, baden, st jacobs every hour

I think this is my first, maybe second post about driving, you seem to be trying to build me up as a knuckledragger while ignoring that even if Gas tax etc covers 60% of road costs and we made all the cars dissapear tomorrow we would still need something like 80-90% of the roads that exist.

[danbrotherston]

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.

[ijmorlan]

Ijmorlan, your idea of paying for something is simplistic and dumb.  

I watched a movie on Netflix today, but my finances didn't change.  Is Netflix free?

I pay a bunch of taxes and a health care charge.  But when I go to the hospital it doesn't change my finances.  Is health care free?

As far as I'm concerned you're a zealot. Making logically poor arguments and being willfully ignorant.

No, you pay for Netflix monthly. You have the option of not paying and not watching. You are trivially correct that some pricing schemes aren’t strictly per individual use — sometimes things are bundled or packaged in particular ways. But a price has to be in some way connected to your consumption of the good or service, and it must be at least in principle possible to avoid the payment by avoiding consumption.

You do not have the option of not paying your taxes and not using the roads.

Any payment that does not depend in any way on whether or not you use the roads is not a road price. So, your income tax, consumption taxes (possible exception of gas tax but not HST on gas), and property tax are not road pricing. Do you pay any other payments that could reasonably be called road pricing? If not, you are benefitting from roads that are free to you as a driver. Of course they are not free, in fact far from free, and that is the point — they are a massive drain on the public treasury, and I believe that individuals should have at least some choice as to how much they participate in the use and payment for roads.

I’ll refrain from returning the personal comments. They don’t seem helpful.