02-24-2024, 02:54 AM
(02-23-2024, 04:46 PM)Bytor Wrote:(02-23-2024, 12:16 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: Right, exactly. Transportation used to be strictly for-hire, run by the private sector. The railways were businesses, operated to make profit for their owners. Later, the street railways and interurbans ran the same way. Yet now almost no passenger railway makes money. Why? Because they are competing with beautiful paved roads available for free (or almost free, if you count the gas tax as a usage fee — but even that is questionable because the gas tax probably doesn’t even cover the climate change externality of burning the fuel). The first railways were competing with horsecarts mostly running on what would barely qualify as a laneway today.
In Ontario, gas taxes only pay for provincial highways and even then for only about 60% to 70% of the yearly spending on them. The AGO's office showed that driver and vehicle licensing fees in Ontario doesn't;t even cover what's necessary to run and administer that system.
I haven't seen figures since before the pandemic, but for Waterloo Region, federal gas tax grants totalled less than 4% of the total aggregate roads budget for the Regional and all lower tiers. The provincial gas tax transfer was less than 5%.
Most road mileage we drive on is paid for by municipal property taxes.
And they removed even the limited vehicle registration fees at that.