Changing our Car Culture

Re: Chnaging our Car Culture

Smart people, in that discussion.
I still think the only valid solution is to eliminate subsidies; tax current cost externalities, and apply the taxes to mass transit. The market will stay warped until we do.

 

Re: Chnaging our Car Culture

^ I agree.

 

Re: Chnaging our Car Culture

This is a involved problem but most of the recommended answers are not well thought out sledgehammers reflecting a personnel bias. Higher Taxes-Obviously not someone operating a shipping business. And I should add that an owner of a shipping business would be quite open to more efficient shipping options of all sort.

Here are my random thoughts:
1) Inner City - Do what London and other cities do-Fee for driving in the city limits.
2) SUVs - Tax/Fee them where deserved: Parking garage-Bigger Fee for Bigger Vehicle. Tolls-Bigger Fee for Heavier Vehicles. But do not Tax/Fee them where not deserved: State License Fees-May be using SUV as defacto School Bus.
3) Do not use gas taxes as a "social engineering" device. Do use gas taxes to fully pay for roads, etc. that are entirely dependent on gas vehicles.
4) Do tax for pollution. Cleaner car-Less Tax. Again the driving factor should not be "social engineering" but minimum pollution.

There is a balance between government regulation and competitive "free" market optimization. Too many viewpoints rail to one extreme or the other, both of which are unbalanced.....and will ultimately fail to get where we need to be.

 

Re: Chnaging our Car Culture

Some responses to the random thoughts:
1 & 3) I agree with.
4) With testing already in place pollution, this should be simple to do. The hard part is getting consensus on where to start the taxing. Easing in with heavy polluters first should be more feasible. On a related topic, has the gas guzzler tax economy limit been moving up?
2) I don't disagree with charging higher use fees at the point of use for bigger and heavier vehicles, but implementing it will increase installation and operating costs with scales or a some type of vehicle recognition system. Enough of posters here think that an H3 weighs as much as an H2 for me not to trust the collector alone.
State registration fees are the easiest way of charging users on vehicle weight, and it should include all vehicle types, not just SUVs. SUVs in Pa are classified as a station wagon, so a Tahoe is cheaper to register than a Ranger.
Annual mileage should be factored in the not punish limited hobby and vacation use vehicles. Business use reductions would be more contentious. Probably best to give the owner a break in tax deduction. The paper work for business vehicles is already being done there.

 

Re: Chnaging our Car Culture

I certainly agree with the key point you make here. When "enforcement" is anything other than simple, then questioning the method is warranted. However, modern technology in some applications may make this simple so I don't want to make too much of a blanket statement one way or the other.

When I was thinking of pollution "taxes", I was thinking of a point of sales tax, not a periodic check.

The main point is still the same, we need progress to sustainability. However, history indicates that using both freedom and the free market....properly regulated and economically free of externalities.....is the fastest path.

 

Re: Chnaging our Car Culture

The writer of the original article merely said that consumers of gasoline should pay the real cost of gasoline: Including the environmental and social costs; and that the money should be used to create/restore public transportation so that people don't need cars. Our automobile culture is a lifestyle choice that we made, as a country. To sustain it we've had to interfere in other countries, imposing unpopular tyrants on those countries and earning the enmity of their people. That enmity has led a few of them to turn to terrorism, with the resulting tragedies for them and for us. This is a cost we cannot afford, in either money or lives. And the resulting balance of trade deficit contributes to our economic problems.

We need to change our lifestyle choices as a nation.

This means we have to stop building out homes 50 miles from our jobs. It means we need public transportation that is efficient enough and comfortable enough that people will see it as a pleasure to use, rather than something you only use if you don't have a car. And we have to make the consumers of gasoline (including people who ship/receive packages or buy products made far away) pay the real cost.

We, as a society are paying those costs. But we pay them whether we use them or not when they are merely dumped on society, or when our tax dollars subsidize the price. Right now, you pay for gas (taxes -> subsidies) even if you ride a bicycle. That is not fair. You pay for long-distance shipping of goods though your taxes and the subsidies, even if you choose to buy local. This is not fair. And if you cannot afford a car, you are stuck with abominable public transit in most places in the U.S.

All that needs to change, and eliminating subsidies, and making gas consumers pay the real cost of gas, is a good first step.

A high tax on gas is a simple and effective way to tax unnecessarily large or heavy vehicles while taking perfectly into account those which are used only rarely.

As for school busses, we need to fully fund our schools.

My only disagreement with the writer of the article is that I'd place the tax at $15 rather than $10 per gallon, and I'd phase it in over three years, rather than a decade. I think a decade is far too slow. And to encourage sustainable electricity, I'd tax coal at the same rate per carbon emission as gas, and require nuclear power plants to pay for their own insurance and pay for proper disposal of the waste. Let the free market decide what the insurance cost, and waste disposal costs are, and therefore what the real price of nuke electricity is. Eliminate the subsidies and give-aways and we'd see solar and wind generators popping up all over.

 

Education is a good place to start. People seem to have some pretty warped ideas on what constitutes a subsidy.


Aside from full-cost pricing, which means eliminating the subsidies and counting the externalities, something else that would change the status quo is to fund various transportation modes according to their respective shares of use. For instance, if 15% of trips are made by public transit, then 15% of the total transportation budget should go towards public transit. If 2% of the trips are made by pedestrians, then 2% of the budget should go towards infrastructure to facilitate walking. People would naturally and gradually change their ways from the present car-centric attitude that there's never enough spent on roads, and always too much 'wasted' on cyclists and pedestrians who 'don't even pay their own way'.

 

Re: Chnaging our Car Culture

The owner should pass on the transport costs to the consumer -- if s/he can. The consumer may of course decide to buy local instead.

 

I would observe that the USA has had a long standing policy of cheap energy.
None of us here likes to be wasteful, and this policy seems to have caused that.
However, gasoline have prices have taken a major tick up. So that solves that problem, for the short term. Longer term we need to shift to a more conserving life style, probably including higher energy taxes. Also I would say electricity is dirt cheap, and no one is talking about taxing that. If we add anything much further to gasoline cost right now, we would wipe out the economy.

 

This is not Prius-related, per say, but does reflect this discussion . . .

I took our Nissan Leaf to the mall last Friday, ostensibly to have lunch, but actually to top off the car mid-way on a longer trip. I didn't know where the charge stations were so I asked a security guard who pointed me in the right direction. Surprisingly, while the mall lot was quite full, the two charging station stalls were both open. I wondered, after I parked, if anyone ever used these charging stations.

Upon returning from lunch, I was delighted to see a Fisker Karma parked beside my Leaf and a Chevy Volt waiting for me to move so he could park.

Yes, I do believe the times, they are a changin' . . .

 

I don't like this idea because I think it would actually reinforce the status quo. With most trips or miles traveled by car, cars (which are the most polluting and least efficient means of transportation) would get the most funding and a big advantage over other modes.

I think energy should be billed at its true cost, because that would discourage driving, and the more efficient modes should get disproportionate funding. And public transit should be free. Those who cannot afford a car need the help most, and those who choose to be responsible, should be helped in that decision. Free public transit in a system upgraded to be quick and comfortable would do more to help pollution and congestion than a $7,500 tax credit for people who can afford $40,000 or $100,000 for a car.

We have nearly the cheapest gas in the world. I think the above statement is mistaken.

 

Republicans love to say this as a statement of fact, but I have never seen persuasive economic arguments to justify the faith.

I do however see massive energy waste on scales from personal to large scale commercial and corporate. I am unfamiliar with industry.

I'll side with EdtheFox on the social engineering aspect: don't. Just incorporate full-cost pricing for the consumer, the rest will take care of itself.

 

I was suggesting the 'modal share funding' idea in addition to pricing energy at its true cost.

The status quo is that the road network is funded at a level far above its fair share. In my community, about half of the commuters travel by car, yet the funding for all other forms of transport together does not begin to approach 50% of the annual budget. My understanding is that the modal share model would be a very big change, both immediate and long-term.

 

It might change the economy, and who the major players are, and stimulate whole new industries and ways of doing things, but wipe it out? That's wrong-headed, insular-thinking, fear-mongering bullsh!t.

 

Cow-dung, not bullshit. Bullshit is a bad word.
Needless to say perhaps, you of course are spot on.

 

Reverse is true as Germany demonstrates. German economy is doing well because high gas taxes and subsidized green energy economy so German products and technology command a market and a premium.

Also a fallacy due to the US cost for oil wars, about $5T of US deficit/debt over the last 30 years. The wars directly and the fact that 50% of base US military spending is to prepare for oil wars with no other external threat to US.

An "Oil war tax" on gasoline at the pump, totally legit, to pay off the $5T on oil war costs for the next ten years would change the car culture as high gas taxes have done in Europe.

 

Awesome idea. This cost is one of the many unrealized cost externalities of oil, but I love the notion of rubbing it in with a tax label. This is a great example of what Hyo might mean when he says Merkins need some education.

 

None of your arguments make sense. Gas prices, and along with them the cost of living, have been on the rise for the better part of a decade. Yet federal minimum wage has stayed the same. And you don't think there are no "persuasive arguments" to support the fact that as the price of gas increases, it has a negative impact on the economy? Price of diesel goes up, so does the cost of shipping goods. The owner/operator truck driver still makes the same money per mile, so how does he recup his loss in fuel expenses? Fuel surcharge which is passed on to the consumer. How does the manufacturer pay the increased shipping costs of their goods? The increase the price of said goods, which is passed on to the consumer. Meanwhile the consumer is still making the same money so how do they afford to buy the goods? They don't. So now the manufacturer has no goods to sell, so he lays off his workers. Now the owner/operator has no goods to ship so he goes out of business. You think a "war tax" on oil is going to solve anything? Who is going to pay that tax? You? I'm not. War stimulates economic growth. Read up on your WWII history and see the real reason we went to war. Green energy subsidies don't do anything. Solyndra comes to mind. And the numerous others who have gone bankrupt at the taxpayers expense. This has nothing to do with democrat or republican as sagebrush loves to point out, it has everything to do with common sense. Unforuntately you don't get that by staring into the new york times, you get that by looking out your window.

 

We don't need no education.

Look what happened recently with the 'pink slime' caper. The information that ammonia is widely used in our food supply went viral, and companies went bankrupt. Boom. Very direct cause and effect. The corporate world doesn't like that sort of thing.

Monsanto has been fighting GMO labelling on food for years. They don't want you to know, because you might make a decision that they don't like.

Full-cost pricing (no subsidies, no externalities) is the economic equivalent of having complete and accurate information to enable informed, responsible decisions. If we knew what things really cost, we'd change our ways, and change the world.