I mean toll roads make sense, I’m not sure why we’re expected to pay to use public transport but not roads, when roads are far more expensive to maintain and us driving literally causes them to be damaged.
If roads and parking are free then public transit should be free. Otherwise toll roads are fine by me, although they’re technically a regressive charge in the US and Canada since you’re kind of forced to use a car in most areas… I mean car dependence itself is a giant regressive charge so that’s just one part of it.
But assuming we had actual functional transportation infrastructure, toll roads would actually be preferrable near more densely populated areas since it makes you think twice about using your car instead of taking a train or biking.
The way toll roads work in a lot of places is that they are built with public funds, then a private operator gets a lease for a set amount of time and gets the lion’s share of the revenue.
It’ll encourage the use of public transport over private vehicles (provided there is a good public transit network present). Public transport has got better efficiencies, and if it can supplant individual transit to a good degree, that’s not a bad thing.
As far as ‘overuse’ goes: how many people do you know who just travel on public transport for the fun of it? Even in places where people can travel for a flat monthly fee, very few people spend any more time on public transport than they need to. I doubt that free public transport would substantially change that.
Why shouldn’t you pay for using car infrastructure? You’re damaging the environment and damaging the roads, it’s a lot more sensical for the cost to be put on you, the driver, instead of burdening everyone else with higher income/sales taxes.
Funding for the development and maintenance of roads in the U.S. come from a variety of taxes such as vehicle registration fees, wheel taxes and taxes on gasoline and motor fuel. So , we do pay for using car infrastructure
Yes, but not nearly enough. Those kinds of taxes are extremely low (especially compared to e.g. the EU) and form only a fraction of the costs of car infrastructure.
All those hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars in infrastructure bills, all the regular car infrastructure maintanence costs, a large chunk is paid for by taxes that everyone gets regardless of how much they use a car. And all the extra non-tax costs (in both time and money) that non-drivers have to pay because car-dependent infrastructure fucks up transportation for everyone else, that is a massive charge.
It’s just a matter of how much they want to invest in what.
In many cases toll roads mean that the government didn’t want to/wasn’t able to invest in building a road, so they let a private for-profit company do it for “free” (meaning without tax money) and that company then recoups their investment using toll.
Some times toll roads are used to steer traffic. Some cities for example have a city toll that’s meant to discourage commuters from using their car to get into the city and instead get them to use public transport.
The first case means the country doesn’t raise enough tax, wastes too much tax money or has other priorities than road infrastructure.
The second case is totally valid since it uses tax to discourage unwanted behaviour.
I mean toll roads make sense, I’m not sure why we’re expected to pay to use public transport but not roads, when roads are far more expensive to maintain and us driving literally causes them to be damaged.
If roads and parking are free then public transit should be free. Otherwise toll roads are fine by me, although they’re technically a regressive charge in the US and Canada since you’re kind of forced to use a car in most areas… I mean car dependence itself is a giant regressive charge so that’s just one part of it.
But assuming we had actual functional transportation infrastructure, toll roads would actually be preferrable near more densely populated areas since it makes you think twice about using your car instead of taking a train or biking.
The way toll roads work in a lot of places is that they are built with public funds, then a private operator gets a lease for a set amount of time and gets the lion’s share of the revenue.
And yes, public transport should be free.
Won’t that encourage overuse of transport, which will actually make it harder to reach emissions targets and similar?
It’ll encourage the use of public transport over private vehicles (provided there is a good public transit network present). Public transport has got better efficiencies, and if it can supplant individual transit to a good degree, that’s not a bad thing.
As far as ‘overuse’ goes: how many people do you know who just travel on public transport for the fun of it? Even in places where people can travel for a flat monthly fee, very few people spend any more time on public transport than they need to. I doubt that free public transport would substantially change that.
Invalid feelings + wrong opinion
Why shouldn’t you pay for using car infrastructure? You’re damaging the environment and damaging the roads, it’s a lot more sensical for the cost to be put on you, the driver, instead of burdening everyone else with higher income/sales taxes.
Funding for the development and maintenance of roads in the U.S. come from a variety of taxes such as vehicle registration fees, wheel taxes and taxes on gasoline and motor fuel. So , we do pay for using car infrastructure
Yes, but not nearly enough. Those kinds of taxes are extremely low (especially compared to e.g. the EU) and form only a fraction of the costs of car infrastructure.
All those hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars in infrastructure bills, all the regular car infrastructure maintanence costs, a large chunk is paid for by taxes that everyone gets regardless of how much they use a car. And all the extra non-tax costs (in both time and money) that non-drivers have to pay because car-dependent infrastructure fucks up transportation for everyone else, that is a massive charge.
Even in the EU, car related taxes can’t pay for all the car related infrastructure. Building and maintaining roads is crazy expensive.
People who don’t drive don’t pay any of those taxes that were used as examples. I’d love to see the numbers that you’re basing your argument on.
Let me google that for you: https://frontiergroup.org/resources/who-pays-roads/
There are literally tens of thousands of articles like this one.
TLDR:
No, drivers pull their own weight in regards to car related taxes.
Canada doesn’t have tolls. And, at least in BC, good transportation.
It’s just a matter of how much they want to invest in what.
In many cases toll roads mean that the government didn’t want to/wasn’t able to invest in building a road, so they let a private for-profit company do it for “free” (meaning without tax money) and that company then recoups their investment using toll.
Some times toll roads are used to steer traffic. Some cities for example have a city toll that’s meant to discourage commuters from using their car to get into the city and instead get them to use public transport.
The first case means the country doesn’t raise enough tax, wastes too much tax money or has other priorities than road infrastructure.
The second case is totally valid since it uses tax to discourage unwanted behaviour.