http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011949127_apwapugetsoundtolls.html
Executive Summary:
The Puget Sound Regional Council General Assembly (a conglomeration of local governments and agencies in the area) is calling for tolling on ALL major roads in the area by 2020. They suggest taxing vehicles by miles travelled instead of a fuel tax.
Opinion:
This is what we get for buying more fuel-efficient cars. Does anyone really believe they will just substitute the fuel tax for a mileage tax, or will they keep the gas tax and add the new one? Gee, I wonder... The day that transponders are required on all automobiles to determine miles travelled for taxing purposes is the day that many people will en masse leave the state of Washingon. I hear Montana is pretty.
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How do you expect roads to be paid for when most cars get more than 50mpg or are full-electric? User fees vis-a-vis tolls seem like the obvious choice, but I detest the idea that my movements will be tracked (either via a GPS transponder or simply as I pass by toll booths).
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the bicycle riders will be up-in-arms, but I'd rather road maintenance be paid using state general funds than deal with the hassles and loss of privacy that tolls involve.
I would note first and foremost that most of us DO NOT WANT a car that gets 50 MPG (because they aren't as safe, can't transport our entire family, aren't large enough to accomodate our 6'2" frame, or all of the above). And I hate electric cars now for the hesitation you feel when their motor kicks into gear, but there's also the problem of where we are going to get all the nickel for their batteries and that you really aren't reducing pollution with electric cars, just putting it somehwere else (near your coal plant, for example).
ReplyDeleteIf we aren't "forced" into smaller cars or to use new propulsion technologies before they are really ready, we can still keep using gas taxes to fund road repair and construction. And we would have more than enough money if our government wouldn't constantly raid gas tax money for other uses (as they do in my state by charging sales tax on road construction projects) and would implement other cost-reducing measures. As a last resort, I would also rather pay completely out of the general fund, although I know that probably means we would have no road repair or construction, since our lawmakers are obviously unable to prioritize needs vs wants. I agree that anything manditory that monitors where I go is unacceptable. If placed under such a system, I will move. One of the big reasons we left our previous city was because my commute would soon require either a GPS tracker for tolling or my license plate would have been photographed every day and I would have received a bill in the mail for all my tolls. No cash payment option is being considered at this time.
ReplyDeleteI sort of see your point about bicyclists, but don't they use roads, too? I guess they don't cause as much wear and tear...but I'm curious why shouldn't they have to pay something for them?
If you don't want to buy a fuel efficient car or an electric car, then don't. :)
ReplyDeleteI haven't lived in a big city for a long time, but I remember little ol' Portland having terrible car commutes. I feel sorry for Seattle, which is probably even worse!
I hear a lot of bicycle riders complain when they are hit by road taxes. They think that because they cause no wear on the roads, they shouldn't have to pay. I fear a future in which everything is paid by user fees...
Thanks, I won't buy one unless I want to, and for now, I can make that choice. (FYI: Car #2 in our family is a non-hybrid very high MPG car, but our daughter is not allowed to travel in it---strictly for commuting and errands without the kid only.) I don't think many politicians like that freedom, though. As they keep raising the CAFE standards to higher and higher levels, car companies must make more and more high MPG cars---not because of consumer demand, but to stay out of jail. Do you agree that we should dispense with or curtail CAFE so that we preserve consumer choice in the future?
ReplyDeleteSeattle has a pretty crummy commute no matter what mode of transportation you use. That happens when you haven't seriously repaired roads or expanded capacity in 20 years, and your population density and landscape make rail transit impractical (not that we aren't building it anyway). :P
I wouldn't have a problem with user fees if that meant government limited itself to things people actually need them to do! :>
I would support the removal of CAFE standards, if the price of gasoline reflected its true cost. Or, assess a gas-guzzler tax on the sale price of a low-mpg car.
ReplyDeleteI get your point about consumer choice, but the writing is on the wall that oil prices will continue to rise in the future, so I think exercising a public policy that encourages the switch to "the next thing" is smart planning for our future.
Hmmm...I'm intrigued by your use of the term "true cost" of gas. Can you elaborate on that more (or send me a link)?
ReplyDeleteOil prices may continue to rise, but I don't think they have to, or at least they don't have to much. It will depend on how much governments interfere with and distort the market. Markets are also perfectly capable of planning for our future, usually better than any public policy analyst or bureaucrat can (see Soviet Union). Why not let them and keep our freedom? Isn't that worth something in any "cost" analysis?
Sure, check out http://ndcf.dyndns.org/ndcf/energy/NDCF_Hidden_Cost_2006_summary_paper.pdf
ReplyDeleteAnd before you conclude that we should increase our domestic oil supplies, don't forget to include damages from oil spills too. We don't know the final cost of the recent BP oil spill, but one way or another it should be reflected by increasing oil prices.
Generally speaking, oil prices will rise in the future as the Chinese and Indian economies grow and their populations become more affluent. They will need enormous amounts of oil.
Okay, I read your article, but in the first few sentences it is apparent that it is about the hidden cost of imported oil, not oil in general. I thought you were talking about the true cost of oil/gas in general. If we had more domestic supplies, most of the hidden costs specifically mentioned in that paper would disappear. The largest cost they mention seems to be the "supply disruption" cost on page 4, but I would point out that no one in the US is filling their tank solely with oil from the Persian Gulf---well over half of our oil imports come from Mexico and Canada. And, yes, I do think we should use more of our own resources, and I don't think that is too much to ask. Yes, we can include damage from major oil spills in the cost, and since those happen very infrequently, I don't think that would increase the cost by that much. The market will also already reflect those costs, since BP will spend millions if not billions cleaning this up and will adjust their prices accordingly. The jury is still very out on how much damage this spill caused, and I am very curious why we know next to nothing yet about how it happened. I would imagine that it was either a) gross negligence, b) sabotage or c) a one in a million shot. Since none of these are likely to happen often, we won't have major oil spills often.
ReplyDeleteIf oil prices rise in the future because of demand, that's fine. If we still have a largely market economy, those precious "green" technologies that some people love will become more economically feasible. Or someone will invent a new technology to replace oil that we haven't even thought of. It's why we aren't still driving around in buggies and reading by the light of kerosene lamps. :>
If oil is truly fungible, as most people believe, then anything which affects oil anywhere in the world will alter the price of oil. If the Persian Gulf stops pumping oil, the price of oil goes up everywhere, even here in the US and even if we are pumping our own domestic oil.
ReplyDeleteBack to the beginning of this discussion - I think there is a role for government to play in fostering research and development of new technologies to reduce our dependance on oil.
Sure, I generally agree with you that global events influence the commodity price of oil everywhere, but the authors are specifically speaking about "a gallon of gasoline refined from Persian Gulf Oil." I have to take them at their word and assume that they are saying that oil from there is not more expensive with respect to commodity prices, but in the "hidden costs" they wrote the article about. I was just pointing out that it is silly for the authors of that paper to say that "filling your tank with [specifically] Persian Gulf oil costs X dollars," when no one in the United States does that. Most of our imported oil does not come from the middle east---it comes from Mexico and Canada. The authors conveniently don't mention that anywhere in the paper.
ReplyDeleteI am somewhat surprised that people aren't more worried about the #3 supplier of imported oil to the US: Venezuela. Now there's a country run by a crazy man, Hugo "And it still smells of sulfur" Chavez. Then again, maybe I'm not surprised given all the criticism he heaped on Bush 43 while he was in office---he was a useful guy to some people.
ReplyDeleteIf you believe that there is a role for government to play, that's fine. You may be right with respect to state governments. However, The Constitution would not agree that the feds have any role. History would also disagree with you. Governments rarely, if ever, choose the right future technologies to support. They are almost always wrong. If you want resources to be directed at things that are more likely to succeed, you will want the government out of it. People putting their personal private capital at risk to develop a technology are far more likely to choose a wise investment than a government bureaucrat choosing investments with other people's money on the basis of a million political reasons other than whether or not the technology is likely to work.
ReplyDelete"People putting their personal private capital at risk to develop a technology are far more likely to choose a wise investment than a government bureaucrat choosing investments with other people's money on the basis of a million political reasons other than whether or not the technology is likely to work."
ReplyDeletePeople putting their personal private capital at risk are not wiser. There are lots of people putting their personal private capital at risk that fail too. However, if 9 of them fail and 1 succeeds, then that is still a "win". :)
Sorry, but I so fundamentally disagree with you. If you work 80 hours a day for 20 years to become a millionaire, you are going to be far more responsible with that money than if you won it in the lottery. This is also true if you are a bureaucrat spending money that came from millions of taxpayers, most of whom you will never be personally accountable to. The bureaucrat also has the pressures of re-election, lobbyists, etc. clouding their judgement. The private investor chooses the technology because he likes it, wants other people to be able to use it, and wants to profit from it. It is far more likely he will choose the right project to fund, not because he is smarter, but because he has difference incentives. This is part of why the Soviet Union collapsed (bureaucrats directed valuable resources to dead-end or superfluous activities) and why Japan's economy stalled after the 80s (the government incorrectly thought large mainframe computers were the wave of the future).
ReplyDeleteNot to mention that private investors don't require me to back them with my money, so they can fail left and right and it doesn't affect me much. By law, I must back the crappy investments my government makes through my taxes. What a waste!