Urban sprawl is just one example of the externalized costs for all those “free” roads.
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My preference honestly is more mass/public transportation. Visiting Stockholm and Japan was really inspiring on how great transit can be, and coming back to the shitshow that is US traffic is very disappointing.
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I don’t see a counter-proposal here. But yeah, car dependence sucks. I live in a car-dependent suburb. The closest food store is a mile away but between here and there are strip clubs, strip malls and car dealers. Richard Rothstein’s “The Color of Law” has a lot to say about that.
But roads have to be paid for, somehow. If you have a better idea than taxing miles driven, go for it. We can set aside the penalty for inefficient cars though I suspect where I live it would fall pretty heavily on those who can afford it. If they cared what things cost, they wouldn’t buy a V8 sequoia to do the school run.
Or through land taxes/ground rents that even the developers in Seattle would rather pay than having to finance the windfall gains of speculators…
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Yeah, that would be nice. Good luck getting it funded around here. Although Denver does have a light rail system. Part of the problem as I see it in my city is, apart from adding busses which would also need the roads (and instead they’ve been cutting busses), to put in trains would require tearing up something. And it took them over a year to rework one intersection area on Academy Blvd. Unless they got serious and competent, I don’t see it happening here.
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Same here, the city about 5-6 years ago tried expending their light rail system and there was so much bitching and complaining about the proposal. They opted to add more highway lanes and ramps instead, which ultimately does nothing to alleviate traffic and research shows that it actually makes the problem worse. But hey gotta go for those cheap easy wins with constituents.
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Well I don’t agree with that point. Obviously an electric car doesn’t spew greenhouse gasses directly from its tailpipe but even those that are charged purely with solar power or other renewable energy sources (and most aren’t) are nowhere close to zero impact on the climate when you include all the processes involved with fabrication, maintenance, and eventual disposal. Beats an equivalent new gasoline powered car for sure, but if you’ve already got a used, reasonably efficient gas car it’s much better for the environment to run that as long as you can rather than run out and buy a brand new electric car. Not to mention that the roads themselves are not zero impact on the climate. Asphalt and cement take a lot of energy in the form of fossil fuels to create and maintain.
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Perhaps, but changing the funding source isn’t going to solve that problem. The only non “free” roads I’m aware of outside of express-way types would be the private roads in private communities. Changing all communities outside an urban core to private communities would probably have other downside effects without significantly impacting the rate of urban sprawl.
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I would like to point out a couple of things people are missing.
First is that there are low cost used EVs that are available to buy and which are Low coat to operate. A used Nissan LEAF is an excellent car that I recommend. I currently own two of them.
Having EV’s pay their “fair share” of the cost of road maintenance is just a give away to the fossil fuel and trucking industries. Semi trucks do not come close to paying their fair share of the cost of road maintenance.
Third quick thing. Most American cities are designed for private automobiles and while i agree it isn’t ideal, i would not want to fight for changing this at the expense of not doing all we can to fight climate change. It will be a lot easier to get people our of gasoline cars and into EVs than it will be to get people to walk or take the bus.
This last point - making as few changes necessary as possible to get to a sustainable world - is one reason I favor nuclear energy compared to renewables. The electric grid is built for consistent input from a coal, nuclear, or hydroelectric plant and renewables will require rethinking the whole thing. While that is possible - just like its possible to redesign cities to have public transit baked in - I am opposed to adding unnecessary barriers that make it harder to get to zero emissions.
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Yeah, I was going to go into the hidden damages of EV ownership that I’m aware of, but decided to cede the point in order to move on to the main issue I had with the comment my reply was about.
It’s not like manufacturing gasoline vehicles, or drilling and refining oil, has no impact.
Until a vehicle can be plucked fully formed out of thin air, and runs on happy thoughts, there’s going to be a negative cost to the planet involved in its creation, maintenance, and use, no matter how conscientious the manufacturers are.
My thoughts on this are as follows: If they stop making them, people will stop buying them. But they won’t stop making them as long as enough people are buying them. Or until they are forced to stop. Because money.
I’ve unfortunately been working in automotive advertising for over 20 years and even I am stunned by how many different Chevrolet models there are being made. Including commercial vehicles, I count 31. And only 1 is electric; the Bolt EV. They would not be making 30 other gasoline models if nobody was willing and able to buy them.
This is further hampered by planned obsolescence in design; how can a company get people to buy a new car every few years to keep money flowing into the company’s coffers? They can change up looks and add new features, but they can also work from the other end and design things so they don’t last as long – or don’t pursue better designs that last longer.
Nudge the consumer over from “wanting” to get a new car, because it’s flash and status, into “having” to get a new car because the engine fell out of the current one and it’s $5,000 to put in a new one, but it’s a waste of money to do that because, man, that transmission is on its last legs. May as well put the money toward a new car.
My belief remains, if a vehicle uses the roads and causes wear to the roads, the owner should be contributing to the upkeep and construction of the common roads proportional to the use and wear no matter what engine the vehicle has, or how much that person cares or doesn’t care about the planet.
ETA and that goes for commercial fleet vehicles and shipping vehicles. They should not be exempt.
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A fun fact is that damage to roads is proportional to the fourth power of the load per axle, making a mid sized truck 100 million times as damaging as a bike.
Bike commuter here too. I can’t imagine buying an EV in the current market because I just wouldn’t drive it enough to justify an expensive car.
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It’s fair on some level. But maybe we can enact it when EV owners aren’t paying (massive) gasoline subsidies.
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What is wrong with submitting an odometer reading when you do the yearly registration? Make a law regarding false reporting, have repair shops and whatnot submit those readings… eliminate ways to skirt around this - now you have a tangible number to work with. Have a few classes for different vehicles, heavy trucks pay N x 4, a moped pays N x1 , charge accordingly.
It seemed like a smart idea years ago to tax gasoline, of course things change and now there’s this scramble to catch up.
However, if a new fair metering system comes into play, the government will be held feet to the fire to spend those collected monies on roads and no more of this BS roads and/or Governor’s mansion.
Downside is government is addicted to taxes and are happy to collect from the gas stations… arm’s length, people don’t think much about it, not like when you have to read your ODO (RIP btw Rene) then come up with all the cash at registration.
So battle between a stealth as-always gas tax and an in-your-face reality check that could change people’s driving habits.
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The device tracks the actual number of miles driven on Utah’s roads.
How would it differentiate between public and private land?
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Off the top of my head, if you are someone doing a lot of traveling across state lines for whatever reason, why should Utah be able to claim all of those miles? And shouldn’t the other states you pass through be able to get their share?
I guess if it also tracked where your miles were being spent, they could be properly apportioned. But that leads to allowing the government to know where you are and where you’ve been at all times. Truth be told, if it was between that and paying one lump sum, I would go for the one lump sum. If I had an EV. Which I don’t.
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Why shouldn’t they? Just because your propulsion system changes doesn’t mitigate the impact of the vehicle on road surfaces. You have to offset those costs somehow. Roads don’t build and maintain themselves.
By adding an extra tax to car registration I would imagine.
I live in Washington and we don’t have a state income tax, but we do have really high property and sales taxes so as far as financial impact goes, it’s not much different in the end.
Great, when you have a critical mass of EVs versus ICE powered cars how are the roads going to get funded?
So semi truck operators should have to pay their fair share and EV owners should not? That seems like a bizarre and entitled argument.
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Though if you run the numbers, the most of the revenue should be paid by operators of heavy vehicles.
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You quoted my counter-proposal: tax businesses that benefit from the infrastructure for supply/distribution/employees. 
I don’t disagree with this at all. (The downside to this is the increased costs will likely just be passed onto consumers providing net zero impact to heavy truck operators.)
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Because it seems like it’s more privilege-based than healthcare, housing, or education, especially for those of us who can’t afford a car at all?
Not knocking the idea that revenue needs to be raised, but maybe some source that’s tied more to actual road use by non-low-income folks (being the primary users)?
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Which is why more of the burden should be borne by the businesses who ultimately benefit from the roads that feed them, and who are heavily subsidized by state and local governments - the same entities that maintain the infrastructure.
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