General Road and Highway Discussion

[Markster]

Gas taxes and road tolls are different things for different purposes.

Gas taxes are nominally supposed to pay for road maintenance, but every year, the tax stays the same while road maintenance costs increase due to inflation.
   
https://mowatcentre.ca/the-last-time-you...victories/

And so there is a funding shortfall.

On the one hand, the solution is to start raising the gas tax again. But, as people in this thread are pointing out how the advent of plug-in cars means increasingly, people will be effectively dodging paying gas tax, and by extension, road maintenance. Sure, it's a commendable idea to think of the gas tax as a carbon tax instead of an infrastructure tax, but ultimately, that's not a solution long term. Should those who can afford electric vehicles be permanently exempt from paying for roads? And what happens when mass adoption begins and gas tax revenue crumbles?

Meanwhile, in many places (i.e. Toronto) congestion has hit critical levels, and it is literally impossible to expand the roads any further. Road tolls are an excellent, targeted, way of combating congestion right where it occurs. They have the side benefit of paying for the roads that they are on.

Should Waterloo Region toll the expressway? Maybe not yet, but it should at least be considered before any major expansion.
Should Toronto toll the Gardiner? Absolutely.

[SammyOES2]

New idea - you pay a road infrastructure usage fee in the same way you pay for electricity. Based completely on personal usage.

It gets based off of mileage driven per vehicle. It can be estimated at times and then verified occasionally (license plate renewal, bringing it in to a verified checker, on changes of ownership, etc.). Make it provincial (or even better Federal!) to minimize the number of non-paying people.

[Canard]

That's an interesting idea, but now you're essentially turning every single kilometre of road into a toll road.

I drive a fair bit in the US on road trips every year - probably 1/4 of my annual mileage. How will you make sure I'm not paying extra for that when I bring in my odometer reading?

We should get pedestrians to wear pedometers to track their usage of sidewalks too so we know how to charge them for the upkeep of that then.

(Not really, but just pointing out how quickly this can get ridiculous)

[MidTowner]

You're describing Vehicle Miles of Travel (VMT) charges, Sammy, and that is what will probably replace gas taxes one day.

Oregon is piloting a VMT tax program right now. Interestingly (for me, anyway), there are multiple technologies being used, so if you have concerns about the state having location information about you, you can submit a periodic odometer reading; but higher tech methods could allow for charges to be changed when someone is driving outside of certain areas or even certain times.

VMT charges mean all road users contribute to the upkeep of roads, not just users of roads with volumes which can justify dedicated tolls. They don't account for efficiency (but they could, easily, if that were desired), but then again, if they're about funding roads, they don't need to.

[SammyOES2]

That's an interesting idea, but now you're essentially turning every single kilometre of road into a toll road.

I drive a fair bit in the US on road trips every year - probably 1/4 of my annual mileage. How will you make sure I'm not paying extra for that when I bring in my odometer reading?

We should get pedestrians to wear pedometers to track their usage of sidewalks too so we know how to charge them for the upkeep of that then.

(Not really, but just pointing out how quickly this can get ridiculous)

Fundamentally, I think every KM of road should BE a toll road.  They cost a lot of money! : My objection to toll roads is just that its a poor proxy for usage.  I think they're unfair which is bad in and of itself, but that unfairness has a lot of bad consequences (people taking non-optimal routes and increasing traffic on roads not meant for it).

I hadn't thought about people leaving the province (I'd thought about American drivers, driving here, but figured it wasn't worth worrying about).  At a certain point computers would be smart enough to handle all of this for us.  You cross the border and your mileage is logged, you come back and its logged, and adjustments are made.

[Canard]

I drive a lot (between 50k and 80k/km/a), and I'd be perfectly okay with this so long as it's an equation that factors in fuel consumption (can be acquired from ECU), along with distance traveled (in-Province/Country), acquired by GPS, and cross-checked with wheel odometry for accuracy.

Tolls should then dissapear and the funding for road improvements can be targeted accurately based on usage data.

[SammyOES2]

You're describing Vehicle Miles of Travel (VMT) charges, Sammy, and that is what will probably replace gas taxes one day.

Oregon is piloting a VMT tax program right now. Interestingly (for me, anyway), there are multiple technologies being used, so if you have concerns about the state having location information about you, you can submit a periodic odometer reading; but higher tech methods could allow for charges to be changed when someone is driving outside of certain areas or even certain times.

VMT charges mean all road users contribute to the upkeep of roads, not just users of roads with volumes which can justify dedicated tolls. They don't account for efficiency (but they could, easily, if that were desired), but then again, if they're about funding roads, they don't need to.

Interesting!

I don't think they have to account for efficiency.  I just meant with the gas tax that it was a side effect that I didn't think was really that bad.  But I agree that in an ideal world incentives for fuel efficiency (which I think should exist) would be disentangled from usage fees for using infrastructure.

[SammyOES2]

I drive a lot (between 50k and 80k/km/a), and I'd be perfectly okay with this so long as it's an equation that factors in fuel consumption (can be acquired from ECU), along with distance traveled (in-Province/Country), acquired by GPS, and cross-checked with wheel odometry for accuracy.

Tolls should then dissapear and the funding for road improvements can be targeted accurately based on usage data.

I don't think it needs to account for fuel efficiency if its a usage fee purely dedicated to maintaining infrastructure.

But I do think fuel efficiency should be encouraged through incentives.  So you could keep the gas tax as a way to provide those incentives (or disincentives).

[Canard]

Oh goodness it absolutely should. Or else you have to factor in vehicle mass.

No way I should be paying the same rate per kilometre driving my 730 kg smart as someone driving a 3000 kg H2.

[SammyOES2]

I see what you're saying. I mean I guess you could have a rate per km that is tied to vehicle make/model. Because fuel efficiency can be pretty variable based on driving habits that don't have much influence on the impact to the infrastructure.

[Canard]

But we need to encourage people to drive more efficiently.

I've been a hypermiler for over 10 years now and pride myself in driving carefully and responsibly in a manor that also happens to consume as little fuel as possible. If more people drove that way, emissions would go down, roads would be quieter (no aggressive/loud acceleration), maintenance is reduced, safety for all is improved. It's definitely something that should be rewarded.

...I just realized none of any of this discussion matters because everyone will just buy one of those crappy Chinese E-Scooter things that don't need to be licensed or follow road laws.

[MidTowner]

You can tie VMT charges to the curb weight of a vehicle to approximate the impact on roads. Carbon prices or gas taxes reward efficiency. Can driving style influence a car's impact on roads much? Anyway, conservative driving should be encouraged- the way to do that is to give insurers the ability to obtain more information, and charge according to high-risk behaviour. That's not going to happen in a while in Ontario, since car insurance is highly politicized and seems to be almost a human right.

But the future is bright! Think of all the data we'll soon be able to use.

[Canard]

I'm not sure what you mean about insurance - it's absolutely criminal the way it's handled. My side impact airbag deployed once when I "hit" a pothole. Insurance wouldn't touch it because I said "I hit a pothole". If I'd used different verbiage when I called in, I was told, they would have.

I believe there are already insurance companies that offer an OBD dongle that monitors driving style.

[MidTowner]

I know of only one in our market- Desjardins- that has an OBD interface that collects data to gauge driving style. Their program offers discounts only, not penalties, and is very limited (the discounts are capped at a low level). It's a pilot.

But that is exactly what I mean- giving insurers more data and allowing them to charge according to the risks the data suggest would penalize the driving habits you described above. But right now, in Ontario, giving insurers those ability would be met with an outcry.

[plam]

I agree about congestion charges.

As for parking, the problem is, when malls have free parking, there's a huge push towards free parking everywhere.  And as we know, parking isn't free, everyone still do pay for it, but we pay for it in the goods we buy, so in fact, everyone who arrives on transit (or as a pedestrian/cyclist) subsidize those who drive.  That seems rather backwards.

Are you suggesting forcing private land owners to charge parking fees? I don't think that's possible. I agree with you that it's backwards that non-car-driving patrons subsidize the purchases of driving patrons, but I don't see a solution (besides patronising business who do not do that).

I find it really absurd that parking spaces maintained by the public are provided free of charge. I prefer the principle of user pay. I'd prefer that principle with roads, too, though I understand there are a lot of limitations.

I was just checking to see if there are any places where private owners have to charge for parking. Probably not. But I found these comments about people in India being a bit puzzled about how free mall parking could possibly work:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/...065833.cms

I think malls are too profitable to have to look for ancillary sources of revenue; airlines, by contrast, have been pretty good at finding all the ways to make people pay.