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Funding roads (taxes, user fees etc)
(03-04-2018, 08:54 AM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(03-04-2018, 02:34 AM)jeffster Wrote: My one issue, though, is that people will find a way.

Take for example water: We were told to conserve. We were given rebates on toilets, etc.  End result? People did exactly as asked, not enough money was coming in to take care of infrastructure, and now we have this infrastructure deficits for our pipes. Now our rates are triple of what they were.

Take electricity: We were told to conserve, given money to update appliances, ToU, etc. End result, we're paying jurisdictions money to take our electricity and have some of the highest rates in North America. Now are rates are triple of what they were.

The problem, both with these examples, and applying to driving too, is that they're an over simplification, that misses a very key detail.  Costs do not scale linearly.

Take water, we were told to conserve, so that we don't have to build a pipeline to the lake.  Yes, because conservation efforts have worked very well, water utility revenue has decreased and thus rates have risen, because the rate breakdown did not accurately reflect fixed costs vs. variable costs.  BUT we still saved money.  Whether or not rates have risen, costs have risen far less, because we didn't have to build a pipeline to the lake.  This would have costs a billion or so...that would have been enormously expensive, and because we conserve we didn't have to do it.  

Same with garbage, although we don't pay fees directly, the region is going to save tons of money, by not having to open a new garbage dump, because we reduced our production of garbage, even though yes, our per ton costs could rise, because we're throwing out less.

And also the same with roads.  Yes, we will always need roads.  But we don't always need, four, six, eight lane highways.  And building wider roads is more than just twice, or four times as expensive, wider roads to carry the enormous number of single occupant vehicles we have are orders of magnitude more expensive than just building a road network.  So if we get fewer people to drive (and again, nobody is talking about banning, please stop accusing us of that), yes, we must still pay to keep a road network operational, but that doesn't mean that we won't still save money, because the costs will also be lower.

I didn't accuse anyone of "banning cars", I have no idea where you saw that, as I never said that to anyone. I had pointed out that even if you 'banned' ICE and EV's, you still need the same roads.

My point is, if you want a pay-as-you-go (or tolls) type of system, it's going to have to paid by everyone that uses and benefits it. The only real change you'd see, as you mentioned, is yes, the ever expanding highways, which won't need expansion anymore. But it still has to apply to every single vehicle on the road. And obviously with EV's, gas tax isn't the answer.

Question is, if we go that route, do we trust the government to use funds properly? If drivers are seeing $2,000 in tolls every year (say 10¢ per km for 20,000KM, give or take based on vehicle weight, type, etc) do we trust that our taxes (property, income tax) will go down by approximately the same amount?

Take water for example, the promise was, conserve, no pipeline, save on your monthly bill. Reality was, conserve, no pipeline, your water bill will still be double than what it was even though you're using half. I mean, anyone with half a brain would have realized that conservation would result in increased rates. However, that wasn't the message of the government.

Garbage: There are fee's. Ask any large family, especially ones with young children in diapers, if their 5th garbage of bag (every two weeks) is free...it is not. I think tags are $2 each. That's a fee.

The same will apply to roads, especially city roads. Maintenance on roads won't change one bit as light vehicles don't damage. Only savings might be roads that were planned for widening that no longer need it. However, with less drivers, and drivers being smart (like people have been with water and electricity), the milage won't be there to collect sufficient tolls. The people it affects the most are those that are caregivers, taking dependants to doctors appointments, etc. Not to mention those that actually commute to work, that would have to stop.

In the end, everyone ends up poorer, and infrastructure deteriorates even further.
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I coach club basketball and drive to practices 3 times a week and out of town to weekend tournaments all over the province. I volunteer my time and am not refunded for my expenses. I am ok with this but if a mileage tax was added to my travel I would probably stop volunteering. Multiply this times the number of coaches and managers across all sports. If fees on sports are raised to compensate coaches you shut out more and more kids from being able to afford to play.
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But you are then also 'volunteering' the gasoline. If that comes out of the equation when you switch to an EV, presumably costs will start to balance out.
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(03-04-2018, 12:47 PM)creative Wrote: I coach club basketball and drive to practices 3 times a week and out of town to weekend tournaments all over the province. I volunteer my time and am not refunded for my expenses. I am ok with this but if a mileage tax was added to my travel I would probably stop volunteering. Multiply this times the number of coaches and managers across all sports. If fees on sports are raised to compensate coaches you shut out more and more kids from being able to afford to play.

So you'll volunteer so long as you aren't forced to see what it costs you.

All of this mileage you're putting down has real actual costs to you as well.  The real cost to you for depreciation, maintenance, and fuel is going to be at least 30 cents / km.  This is a real money that you're paying every time you go drive a km.  The result is going somewhere just 100 kms away would cost you around 30 dollars.  Obviously this depends on your vehicle, driving habits, etc. but it is real money out of your pocket.

Are you telling me that now I've pointed this out too you, you're going to stop volunteering?  Or is a mileage charge on top of that just too much?  Or is it something about it being a bill from the government that causes your volunteering to dry up?
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Sorry but someone has to say this. Dan you are an idiot. Most people on this site would probably agree with me. You know nothing about me yet you attack my personal situation. You do this to everyone on this site that doesn’t get in line with your opinions.
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Let's approximate that 80% of households have a car and drive. An extremely conservative approximation, because the number is likely in the 90% range. So based on what's being suggested here, those households need to have the cost of road maintenance removed from the income and/or sales tax and they then instead pay tolls. But while we're at it, let's do the same for education, healthcare, etc. I mean if I am young and I don't have kids, I shouldn't have to pay for other people's health or the education of their kids. And if I don't use transit, my tax dollars should not be used to subsidize at least the capital costs of building transit. But not only that, lets have 18 wheelers, buses etc pay higher tolls because they effect roads disproportionately (as was suggested by other people in this thread).

I mean if I am being asked to pay-per-use for roads, it would be completely reasonable for me to ask pay-per-use for most government services. And if I am young, have no kids and have great health, I will save a lot of dollars, right?

Do we not see the problem with such a way to provide government services? I wouldn't want to live in a society with this kind of a system. It really sounds like a capitalist utopia where wealth will disproportionately effect what you can afford, even more so than it already does.
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(03-04-2018, 01:44 PM)creative Wrote: Most people on this site would probably agree with me.

I don't agree with you. Dan's pretty clearly intelligent, though on the abrasive side, but many people here are.  I consider your comment towards him abrasive as well, despite the fact that you too are clearly intelligent. I can't think of anyone on this site who is an idiot.
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(03-04-2018, 01:44 PM)creative Wrote: Sorry but someone has to say this. Dan you are an idiot. Most people on this site would probably agree with me. You know nothing about me yet you attack my personal situation. You do this to everyone on this site that doesn’t get in line with your opinions.

I'm sorry, I felt I asked a legitimate question, nothing to attack your personal situation, and you've decided to respond with ad hominem attacks.  You may find me abrasive, but you're the one making this personal.
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(03-04-2018, 02:34 AM)jeffster Wrote:
(03-04-2018, 12:54 AM)tomh009 Wrote: Indeed. Today everyone (driving an ICE vehicle) has to pay gasoline taxes -- and pay the annual licence renewal fee. I would expect that the fee/tax could be scaled to the level of wear and tear on the roads, based on mileage, weight and possibly other factors.

My one issue, though, is that people will find a way.

Take for example water: We were told to conserve. We were given rebates on toilets, etc.  End result? People did exactly as asked, not enough money was coming in to take care of infrastructure, and now we have this infrastructure deficits for our pipes. Now our rates are triple of what they were.

Part of the problem is an unwillingness to charge the needed rates. All those rebates, lawn-watering limitations, etc. are just over-complicated ways of doing what higher water rates would do. Instead, just raise the rates until total use fits within what is available. If a capacity expansion is economically warranted, the higher rates will bring in the money to pay for it.

Quote:Take electricity: We were told to conserve, given money to update appliances, ToU, etc. End result, we're paying jurisdictions money to take our electricity and have some of the highest rates in North America. Now are rates are triple of what they were.

Same deal here, except even worse. First, for political reasons, we charge rates that don’t even cover the costs of running the system. Then, we run advertising campaigns, rebate programs, etc. to encourage conservation. Then for political reasons we pay enormous prices to people to run small solar installations. You can tell our solar program isn’t really worthwhile by the way you have individual solar panels dotted here and there. If it was really worthwhile, the owner would put up another next to the first one, and another and another until a whole field was full of them, over whatever area is actually a good location for a solar installation. Perhaps I should say “where it is worthwhile” instead of “If it was really worthwhile” because large fields full of solar panels are seen in other places.

The right way to do this is the same as for water: just charge more. If it’s actually economically worthwhile to update appliances, etc., then people will do it in order to reduce their electricity bill. Similarly if a solar installation is worthwhile then people will build it for business reasons, the same as they build grocery stores. Notice that there is no “grocery store grant program” to ensure that enough grocery stores get built.

Quote:I see the same issues with pay to drive. More car pooling, more walking, more e-bikes, more transit riders (these are good things), families visiting each other less, small towns losing tourism, stores further away from main street losing business. Same costs to keep roads in order, but funding no longer there.

There are always consequences. Some good, some bad. For me personally, a pay as your drive model, I am not going to the beach and driving through small town anymore. I am not going to St. Jacobs anymore. I'll give more business to businesses closer to my house. I'll keep my costs static. I used to drive 60-70K per year. Last year was 14K. I am sure I can get 'er done to 10K.

People talk with their wallet. You try to take it from them, they'll find a way to keep it.

I think you’re prematurely saying what you would do. You don’t know how much it would cost to drive to St. Jacobs, to take one of your examples. I would say that if it’s no longer worth it to you to drive to St. Jacobs once road prices are introduced, then you yourself are judging that the trip is not really high enough value to be worth doing. If on the other hand you decide to take the trip, then you are deciding for yourself that it’s money well spent, just like you decide the same about paying for a movie ticket or an amusement park ride. And there are lots of businesses selling some pretty expensive things that are clearly not necessities of life, so I think it’s pretty short-sighted to assume that road pricing would just cause everybody to stop doing stuff.

In other words, right now we as a society have decided that driving is so worthwhile that we’ll pay for it for everybody (at least the road component of it), rather than let people decide for themselves when and where it is worth the cost.

What you do have right though is that the charging mechanism has to be aligned to economic realities. It should not just be a knee-jerk political reaction (“must soak drivers”). The costs of having the road system fall into at least the following categories:

  1. Capital expenditure: cost of construction; depends on how much road is built and to what standard. Does not depend on how much traffic uses the road once built. Of course a road built for high traffic will cost more because it will be wider and/or to a higher standard, but any road built to a particular standard will cost the same, whether it ends up choked with traffic or totally unused.
  2. Fixed maintenance costs: things like snow clearing, which are the same no matter how much traffic uses the road.
  3. Marginal maintenance costs: costs related to actual use of the road. In particular, maintenance to repair damage caused by vehicles using the road. This is especially important for trucking because heavy vehicles cause an unbelievable amount of damage.

Different mechanisms may be appropriate for funding each of these categories of expense. In addition, there is the concept of a congestion charge, which is a fee charged specifically to keep the usage down to a manageable level.

It may surprise some to find out that I actually favour no-cost use of local roads and even 2-lane rural roads for small vehicles (i.e., the current system, ignoring the small contribution from the gas tax). The theory is that in any reasonably foreseeable future, we needs roads reaching pretty well every destination. So the costs in the first two categories above are unavoidable and are an appropriate use of general funds. We need them just like we need schools and hospitals. For small vehicles, the third category is relatively small also. In addition to these considerations, I also just don’t like the idea of tracking everybody all the time for the purpose of billing them for trivial trips. And I don’t really like the odometer idea either for a number of reasons.

Where I think road pricing should apply is to the large and fantastically expensive roads required to carry large volumes of traffic, and to heavy vehicles that cause almost all of the road damage. For certain I believe superhighways should be funded entirely out of user fees. They are a luxury good, and if you actually need them, you can afford to pay your share for your portion of the use. Having said that, the fee schedule should be based on sound economic principles. In particular, for a small vehicle to use a highway during quiet times, the marginal cost to the highway is only the third category above and by definition there is no need for a congestion charge. So tolls would be quite small. On the other hand somebody commuting would have to pay a congestion charge, and a truck at rush hour would have to pay for the damage it causes and also for the congestion charge. Economic principles should be used to allocate the fixed maintenance charges.

In between I’m less sure, but I think it’s reasonable to consider that a road expansion from 2 to 4 lanes should generally have the additional lanes as congestion-charged lanes. They’re only needed because of large volumes of people wanting to travel the road at the same time, so it’s reasonable to give people a reason to consider when and where they travel. I’m glossing over the practical difficulties of implementing such a scheme because I’m just writing an Internet post, not an economic policy paper.

To use a food analogy, free bread for all, but if you want steak, you’re paying for it yourself.

And finally, a comment about the poor and less well-off: it is broadly agreed that those people need help. If that is so, the simplest way of doing so is to send a certain amount of money to everybody. This will give them the economic resources to pay the normal market rates for the different things they need. This is a much more efficient way of helping these people, avoids making them complete all sorts of bureaucratic paperwork the more well-off don’t need to bother with, and gives them the dignity of making their own decisions. Instead of deciding that everybody needs a certain amount of electricity and home heating oil and water and road access and just giving it to them or trying to rebate it, or charging everybody a sub-market price, give them money and let them decide how to spend it. Some people might work hard to economize on their electricity bill and spend money driving to their job. Others might avoid car ownership altogether but take as many baths as they want. And still others will make different decisions. Some of those decisions won’t be to my taste, but that’s OK because we’re all different people with different preferences.
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(03-04-2018, 01:44 PM)creative Wrote: Sorry but someone has to say this. Dan you are an idiot. Most people on this site would probably agree with me. You know nothing about me yet you attack my personal situation. You do this to everyone on this site that doesn’t get in line with your opinions.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the member needs to apologize for this inappropriate comment.
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(03-04-2018, 02:15 PM)p2ee Wrote: Let's approximate that 80% of households have a car and drive.  An extremely conservative approximation, because the number is likely in the 90% range.  So based on what's being suggested here, those households need to have the cost of road maintenance removed from the income and/or sales tax and they then instead pay tolls.  But while we're at it, let's do the same for education, healthcare, etc.  I mean if I am young and I don't have kids, I shouldn't have to pay for other people's health or the education of their kids.  And if I don't use transit, my tax dollars should not be used to subsidize at least the capital costs of building transit.  But not only that, lets have 18 wheelers, buses etc pay higher tolls because they effect roads disproportionately (as was suggested by other people in this thread).  

I mean if I am being asked to pay-per-use for roads, it would be completely reasonable for me to ask pay-per-use for most government services.  And if I am young, have no kids and have great health, I will save a lot of dollars, right?

Do we not see the problem with such a way to provide government services? I wouldn't want to live in a society with this kind of a system.  It really sounds like a capitalist utopia  where wealth will disproportionately effect what you can afford, even more so than it already does.

Education is needed by everybody. It most definitely is in the interest of the childless to have the children in society educated.

Healthcare is like the fire department. It’s best handled as, in effect, a mandatory insurance scheme.

You can’t make choices that exempt you from needing the schools or the hospitals. But you can make choices that mean you don’t need the roads as much.

By contrast, most road users don’t even like using the roads. All those people stuck in traffic on the 401 aren’t (most of them) having a good time. The problem is that the only solution many people see is for the government to build them another free highway. Then we all wonder why our taxes are so high. If people paid for their own roads, then I actually agree it would be reasonable for GO to charge higher fares, certainly high enough to cover operations and probably even capital. Then people could make a fair economic decision between different modes of travel.

Transportation can never be a pure “free market” because of the planning required to provide roads and transit and make them fit together well, but right now we don’t even try to give people the opportunity to make an economically long-term rational decision.
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(03-04-2018, 01:03 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: All of this mileage you're putting down has real actual costs to you as well.  The real cost to you for depreciation, maintenance, and fuel is going to be at least 30 cents / km.  This is a real money that you're paying every time you go drive a km.  The result is going somewhere just 100 kms away would cost you around 30 dollars.  Obviously this depends on your vehicle, driving habits, etc. but it is real money out of your pocket.

Are you telling me that now I've pointed this out too you, you're going to stop volunteering?  Or is a mileage charge on top of that just too much?  Or is it something about it being a bill from the government that causes your volunteering to dry up?

Unsure where you get "at least 30¢/km". It varies greatly between cars/trucks/suv's, etc. A new SUV, for example, is probably going to be more than 30¢/km. Someone buying a used Honda Civic it might be close to 10¢/km.

That said, for those that do a lot of volunteer work (and I am one of them), it will change the way we do things. I don't know if anyone can actually cost out the 'real' charges that any particular vehicle should be charged, but say if it's 20¢/km and someone does 100km driving for their volunteering, that's about $87/month in additional fee's. And it's unlikely they'll save $87 in property/income tax to offset.

Again, though, I'm ok with this. Just make sure EVERY SINGLE VEHICLE pays their share. Doesn't matter if it's fire services or garbage services or school busses. No subsidy for anyone. Same goes for transit, no subsidy. Hopefully ridership goes up enough to make it worthwhile. Though as it stands, I can take my kids to a Toronto Blue Jays game for about $40 in transportation costs, $20 for gas, $20 for parking. That compares to about $85 for GRT to GO station, and GO Train to Union Station and back (Group pass because it 2/3 the cost).

No easy solutions. I was actually surprised that with the highway between Kitchener and Guelph wasn't tolled...and I am surprised they don't extend it out to Milton. That seemed simple to me. You want the old cruddy highway 7, go for it. Or pay for the beautiful 407 ETR to Guelph and Milton and beyond...yep..and I would use it. Maybe 3 or 4 times a year. Time is money, money is time, but hopefully you'll have more time before the money ends, to spend with the loved ones. Missed opportunity.

Tolling the rest of the roads..just a poor idea...at least for now.
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(03-04-2018, 04:25 PM)jeffster Wrote:
(03-04-2018, 01:03 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: All of this mileage you're putting down has real actual costs to you as well.  The real cost to you for depreciation, maintenance, and fuel is going to be at least 30 cents / km.  This is a real money that you're paying every time you go drive a km.  The result is going somewhere just 100 kms away would cost you around 30 dollars.  Obviously this depends on your vehicle, driving habits, etc. but it is real money out of your pocket.

Are you telling me that now I've pointed this out too you, you're going to stop volunteering?  Or is a mileage charge on top of that just too much?  Or is it something about it being a bill from the government that causes your volunteering to dry up?

Unsure where you get "at least 30¢/km".  It varies greatly between cars/trucks/suv's, etc. A new SUV, for example, is probably going to be more than 30¢/km. Someone buying a used Honda Civic it might be close to 10¢/km.

That said, for those that do a lot of volunteer work (and I am one of them), it will change the way we do things. I don't know if anyone can actually cost out the 'real' charges that any particular vehicle should be charged, but say if it's 20¢/km and someone does 100km driving for their volunteering, that's about $87/month in additional fee's. And it's unlikely they'll save $87 in property/income tax to offset.

Again, though, I'm ok with this. Just make sure EVERY SINGLE VEHICLE pays their share. Doesn't matter if it's fire services or garbage services or school busses. No subsidy for anyone. Same goes for transit, no subsidy. Hopefully ridership goes up enough to make it worthwhile. Though as it stands, I can take my kids to a Toronto Blue Jays game for about $40 in transportation costs, $20 for gas, $20 for parking. That compares to about $85 for GRT to GO station, and GO Train to Union Station and back (Group pass because it 2/3 the cost).

No easy solutions. I was actually surprised that with the highway between Kitchener and Guelph wasn't tolled...and I am surprised they don't extend it out to Milton.  That seemed simple to me. You want the old cruddy highway 7, go for it. Or pay for the beautiful 407 ETR to Guelph and Milton and beyond...yep..and I would use it. Maybe 3 or 4 times a year. Time is money, money is time, but hopefully you'll have more time before the money ends, to spend with the loved ones. Missed opportunity.

Tolling the rest of the roads..just a poor idea...at least for now.

Why should there be no subsidy for transit?

Look, this comes back to p2ee's point.  Why do we subsidize things in society at all?  Why aren't all government services a pay per use.  

The reason is public good.  We subsidize healthcare because we all benefit from having better healthcare.  We subsidize education because we all benefit from the economic strength of having a highly educated workforce.

And we also subsidize transportation (not transit, not roads, but transportation) because we all benefit from the economic activity generated by having easy and cheap transportation.

But then we have a policy question, what schools should be subsidized, and how much, and how do we create a fair society.  The hope is that government subsidizes the most effective cheapest way to get the benefits we want for society.  

This is why subsidizing public health policies and other preventative care is a good policy because it's far cheaper and more beneficial to society than just subsidizing acute care.

The same can be seen for transportation.  Transit, active transportation infra, are all policies which give us the benefits we wish to see from cheap easy access to transportation (that being, economic activity) at a far lower cost, both in terms of dollars--it costs less to transport people by bus or train than individually in cars--and in social, health, and environmental costs --traffic has huge impacts on society.  Now yes, we cannot completely replace all road use with transit, but the question of what degree we should subsidize things has an effect on how much they're used.

This is why I argue we should subsidize single occupant vehicle driving less than other forms of transportation.

Edit:

And just FYI, I got my numbers from CAA, I picked numbers on the low side, of a new car. Like I said, everyone's particular situation will be different, but everyone will have a number, and you can probably figure that number out with some work, but my point was, is it the fact that a) you see the number more directly when you're tolled, b) that it's just too much now when it wasn't before or c) the fact that it's a direct government fee, which was so distasteful to creative and perhaps others, that they would stop volunteering. Because the idea that driving is free (or nearly free) otherwise simply isn't true, the only real differences are a), b), and c).

And yes, transit to Toronto will be more expensive when you're travelling with a family, and frankly, if you take a loaded sedan down to Toronto, you *aren't* part of their traffic problem. Like I pointed out earlier, single occupant vehicles are the least efficient, most socially, and financially expensive vehicles on our roads--they are the real problem.
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(03-04-2018, 03:16 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(03-04-2018, 01:44 PM)creative Wrote: Sorry but someone has to say this. Dan you are an idiot. Most people on this site would probably agree with me. You know nothing about me yet you attack my personal situation. You do this to everyone on this site that doesn’t get in line with your opinions.

I'm sorry, I felt I asked a legitimate question, nothing to attack your personal situation, and you've decided to respond with ad hominem attacks.  You may find me abrasive, but you're the one making this personal.

How can he not take it personally ? You directed your point to him.
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(03-08-2018, 12:17 PM)Rainrider22 Wrote:
(03-04-2018, 03:16 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I'm sorry, I felt I asked a legitimate question, nothing to attack your personal situation, and you've decided to respond with ad hominem attacks.  You may find me abrasive, but you're the one making this personal.

How can he not take it personally ? You directed your point to him.

I asked him a question, I didn't say, call him an "idiot" for example.  I didn't question his integrity, or his character, I asked him about his motivations.
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