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ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit
(06-17-2017, 09:50 AM)SammyOES2 Wrote: ijmorlan, the problem with your phrasing "Nor do motorists pay to use local streets, or in this backward country of ours, even superhighways" is that its blatantly untrue.  The interesting discussions can't be discussed reasonably, because you're not starting from reality.

You need to acknowledge that if we shift the burden to a more usage based model - tax revenue should fall accordingly.  It's absolutely unrealistic to pretend/assume that all the money that taxpayers are currently paying for roads would be available for other things, while at the same time the vast majority of people would have to spend a lot more for roads.  It would be a massive tax increase for the majority of people.

If you want to advocate that we should have a more usage based model - that's fine.  But its much closer to a shifting of funds than creation of new funds and I don't know how we have that discussion when you won't acknowledge that the money that's currently funding roads is already mostly coming from people using (and benefiting from) the roads and isn't coming from some magical source.

I’m not primarily talking about what we should do. In fact, my main self-criticism of what I wrote above is that sometimes I veer off into my opinion of how we should run things, instead of concentrating on how things are right now, which is that roads are free to the user.

Do you claim that you have to pay a significant amount to use our non-toll roads?

OK, fine, gas tax, roads are “almost free”, not actually free.

How you can say that I don’t acknowledge that the road funding money is coming mostly from drivers is beyond me. I said several times that there is a huge overlap between road users and tax payers. What else can I say?

You do raise one good point, which is that we can’t raise magical new revenue by imposing road usage fees without making any other changes. Exactly how to do this could be a large discussion topic, but I would tend to be in favour of some sort of arrangement that imposes road usage fees and simultaneously reduces other taxes by approximately the amount that currently goes to pay for roads. The same for carbon taxes: rather than just imposing them, I would either reduce other taxes or refund the entire carbon tax amount per-capita, thereby creating a guaranteed income as well.

In general I wonder if our hesitance to have purpose-specific taxes is actually becoming a problem. Instead of tax Tx going to pay for program Px, we have various taxes to raise money and then various programs. People ask for programs, the government promises them, and then engages in a separate search for ways to get more tax money. If instead the discussion was always more like “we’re proposing to start providing this program, and will pay for it with this proposed tax” it might be more transparent. Of course this could be taken too far, but I’m confident that it would be appropriate for transportation.

I think there are a lot of interesting discussions to be had here, and we might agree or disagree, but I don’t see how we can really have any of those discussions if some people think that they have to pay to use the roads when in fact they do not. They pay their taxes whether or not they use the roads, and they can use the roads no matter how much tax they pay (even if they don’t pay the amount they’re supposed to pay!).
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I see they were working on Charles Street today. Looks like they are prepping for the last top coat of pavement. Sorry. Not exciting but at least related to this thread.
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Thanks. Looking forward to more trains arriving here soon!
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No offence guys, but this usage discussion is very off topic.
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Surely crossing arms can be put on the IHT instead of a giant mess of gates and islands? Doesn't one that one foot crossing up in Waterloo have gates?
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I'm wondering if the rework on Charles at Cameron and Stirling is to install the "check-in/check-out" redundant loops that are required for the preemptive greens for LRV's. That's what I'm thinking those white vertical junction boxes are related to. We shall see...
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(06-17-2017, 02:31 PM)JoeKW Wrote: No offence guys, but this usage discussion is very off topic.

So on topic, I am wondering how many here are going to do the Conestoga Mall to Fairview Park Mall thing. (or vice versa)

While I drive car, I think it will be fun to take the kids to chill in DTK for a bit, park at Charles/Benton garage then hop on the LRT to go to the Cineplex on Fairway. Makes for a full afternoon and evening of fun.

Being that I grew up around subways, I've introduced my kids to this as well (both in Toronto and Montreal) so they're both looking forward to using the LRT. Forward thinking for the twin cities, and hopefully, tri-cities in the not to distant future. This region is going to rock.
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(06-16-2017, 06:07 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(06-16-2017, 04:26 PM)SammyOES2 Wrote: This isn't true.  I won't get back into this debate, but couldn't quite let the comment go without pointing out its untruthfulness.

Not this again. I feel like I’m in bizarro world where something can be called “user pay” even though there is no tolling mechanism.

Until somebody points out to me the fee that motorists qua motorists pay to use roads, what I said is obviously true.

Income tax doesn’t count — that is paid by people who receive money.

Sales tax doesn’t count — that is paid by people who buy stuff.

Property tax doesn’t count — that is paid by people who own stuff.

Gas tax doesn’t count — that is paid by people who use gasoline. I will admit that there is a correlation between gasoline use and road use, but it’s not a direct connection, especially with increased diversity in vehicle propulsion technology, and in any case I’m not aware that the gas tax collects more than a small fraction of all the money required to build and maintain the road network.

Even car registration fees and the like don’t count — that is paid by people who maintain a car in a state to be used on the roads, regardless of how much they actually use it. It has to do with driveable vehicle count, rather than road use.

Of course, there is a significant correlation between the extent to which one pays under those categories and the extent to which one uses the roads, but in no case is the charge actually based on using the roads.

So, my statement stands. Basically, please try to understand what I am saying before dismissing it as untrue.

Unless I’m forgetting a fee or charge that is paid by motorists. Am I forgetting the fee that road users pay that funds the roads?

Off topic of this LRT discussion, to some extent;

Roads and "super highways" are paid for by taxes, be it from property taxes (regardless if you own a home or rent, you're paying property taxes - as well as businesses) that maintain local roads.  Generally people who 'earn' money to pay income tax, (and so do corporations and small businesses) are using the roads, same applies to sales tax, though that can be avoidable.

As for taxes on gas, those taxes were created to maintain roads. It's not a small sum of money. At roughly 40 cents per litre in tax (or more) you're looking at least at $16,000,000,000.00 in taxes paid by motorists just in gas taxes.  Not to mention sales tax on cars, sales tax on maintenance, etc.

Here is an interesting article, claiming that Ontarian's motorists pay 90% of road costs:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-dr...e14901607/

The article doesn't add to the price paid by trucking firms and others that aren't included in that scope.

Of course, one could argue that if you're not using, give a rebate: Does this work if we don't use transit? Like the LRT? Hospitals if we maintain our health by eating healthy and exercising? Paying for schools if we don't have/want or can't have children? Paying for community centres and pools?  All of these are heavily subsidized by tax payers (be it federal, provincial or local taxes) and users would have a hard time paying if they had to pay 'their share'.  This is especially true of transit.

Bottom line, we live in a country that values helping each other out. We acknowledge that we benefit from services that we don't use. Be it police services, school, fire departments, hospitals or transit or whatever.  I'll probably use the LRT a handful of times, simply because there is no bus route close to my home, and the LRT is a 45 minute walk. But I'm paying for it by property taxes. But I am ok with that. I see the benefit in it.

And everyone benefits from the roads, whether they use roads or not.  Think how one benefits just by going to the grocery store.  Even if a perfect world where everyone uses transit and no one drives a personal vehicle, you'd still need roads for police, ambulance, fire trucks, transit, transportation of goods, etc. So the road costs are still going to be there.

Of course, we could tell drivers that they have to pay some sort of toll or fee to drive their car that goes directly to maintaining and building roads. But if that was the case, then there can't be any taxes associated with driving a car. In the end, it would work out to the same amount. Bottom line, drivers pay more taxes and fee's than none drivers. They shouldn't be expected to pay more.

Anyway, just my two cents worth...
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(06-17-2017, 10:48 PM)jeffster Wrote: Off topic of this LRT discussion, to some extent;

Roads and "super highways" are paid for by taxes, be it from property taxes (regardless if you own a home or rent, you're paying property taxes - as well as businesses) that maintain local roads.  Generally people who 'earn' money to pay income tax, (and so do corporations and small businesses) are using the roads, same applies to sales tax, though that can be avoidable.

As for taxes on gas, those taxes were created to maintain roads. It's not a small sum of money. At roughly 40 cents per litre in tax (or more) you're looking at least at $16,000,000,000.00 in taxes paid by motorists just in gas taxes.  Not to mention sales tax on cars, sales tax on maintenance, etc.

Here is an interesting article, claiming that Ontarian's motorists pay 90% of road costs:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-dr...e14901607/

The article doesn't add to the price paid by trucking firms and others that aren't included in that scope.

Of course, one could argue that if you're not using, give a rebate: Does this work if we don't use transit? Like the LRT? Hospitals if we maintain our health by eating healthy and exercising? Paying for schools if we don't have/want or can't have children? Paying for community centres and pools?  All of these are heavily subsidized by tax payers (be it federal, provincial or local taxes) and users would have a hard time paying if they had to pay 'their share'.  This is especially true of transit.

Bottom line, we live in a country that values helping each other out. We acknowledge that we benefit from services that we don't use. Be it police services, school, fire departments, hospitals or transit or whatever.  I'll probably use the LRT a handful of times, simply because there is no bus route close to my home, and the LRT is a 45 minute walk. But I'm paying for it by property taxes. But I am ok with that. I see the benefit in it.

And everyone benefits from the roads, whether they use roads or not.  Think how one benefits just by going to the grocery store.  Even if a perfect world where everyone uses transit and no one drives a personal vehicle, you'd still need roads for police, ambulance, fire trucks, transit, transportation of goods, etc. So the road costs are still going to be there.

Of course, we could tell drivers that they have to pay some sort of toll or fee to drive their car that goes directly to maintaining and building roads. But if that was the case, then there can't be any taxes associated with driving a car. In the end, it would work out to the same amount. Bottom line, drivers pay more taxes and fee's than none drivers. They shouldn't be expected to pay more.

Anyway, just my two cents worth...

This is very off topic.   Why is this conversation even happening.  This should be a simple question of math, somehow it isn't.  The 90% figure you quote is from the CAA (auto association) and is an attempt to find every possible reason to say drivers pay for roads, and even they came up short.  In fact, our fuel taxes are nowhere near 40c/L, in Ontario it is 24.7 c/L the rest is sales tax which you pay regardless of whether you're fueling your car or buying cliffe bars to fuel your bike.

You are conflating the economic benefits we derive from having cars, with the vicious circle of traffic congestion and traffic inducing policies we have implemented in order to make driving free instead of pricing it appropriately.

We laughed at the Soviet Union for their bread lines, but we can't even acknowledge we've created the exact same scenario here.
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(06-18-2017, 12:06 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: We laughed at the Soviet Union for their bread lines, but we can't even acknowledge we've created the exact same scenario here.

Incredibly on point. My favourite bit is how so-called “libertarians” tend to be against public transit and in favour of road transportation. In other words, they are de facto socialists, which is almost the opposite of what the minimal-government libertarianism is supposed to be about.

To be fair, many libertarians have put some thought into how private ownership of roads would work. But at present, our road network is definitely socialized, and almost the exact opposite of a capitalist free-enterprise system.
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(06-18-2017, 09:01 AM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(06-18-2017, 12:06 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: We laughed at the Soviet Union for their bread lines, but we can't even acknowledge we've created the exact same scenario here.

Incredibly on point. My favourite bit is how so-called “libertarians” tend to be against public transit and in favour of road transportation. In other words, they are de facto socialists, which is almost the opposite of what the minimal-government libertarianism is supposed to be about.

To be fair, many libertarians have put some thought into how private ownership of roads would work. But at present, our road network is definitely socialized, and almost the exact opposite of a capitalist free-enterprise system.


The idea of private ownership of roads is hilarious.  There can be no more perfect definition of a natural monopoly than roads.
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Canard- please go for a ride and take some pictures then post them so we get back on line with this thread????   Please 
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The discussion is good but really should be in a separate thread. Maybe one of the mods could move it?
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I'm on it right now guys!! Big Grin mega update coming in a few hours.
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(06-18-2017, 09:52 AM)Rainrider22 Wrote:
Canard- please go for a ride and take some pictures then post them so we get back on line with this thread????   Please 

Most definitely this.
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