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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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while it is easy to talk about how increased fees on big trucks would simply be passed on to consumers (and it would), it also has another effect:
Transportation options exist in competition. It means that by comparison, railroads become more cost effective. There is no doubt that RR's are far, far more energy efficient and less damaging to the environment. There is also no doubt that if the number of trucks on the road went down, the congestion would be less, and there'd be less need for building more roads.
I take the point that this suggestion is about shifting the mechanism for funding of road maintenance, probably to something more transparent and less prone to abuse....and I definitely favor THAT.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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I'm all for gas taxes, and for increasing taxes on trucks. Yes, consumer goods would go up a bit. And the gas tax is a little regressive, but I'd be fine with it if infrastructure is what it got used for.
I'd vastly prefer that to toll roads. Any time I travel for work I hate dealing with those. They slow traffic down and cost money to build, maintain and staff the stations.
As others have indicated, the problem goes beyond roads and bridges.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2014 - 10:04am PT
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The toll roads are on the major hauls between major cities, and don't seriously affect day-to-day movement. The deal on the Austrian Autobahn is simply a windshield sticker to indicate you've paid the annual Autobahn Fee. For ordinary automobiles it is around $25.00, and considerably more for trucks (weight dependent). The major excuse in the USA for presence of the Highway Patrol is "traffic safety," but it's really a scam for generation of "non-tax revenue," that isn't accountable in budgets. Pork for politicians to play with, so to speak.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2014 - 11:04am PT
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I have yet to see a cop on the Autobahns. They are usually found on the secondary roads.
And DMT, do a little investigating as to where all those traffic fine dollars go before you comment further.
As Reilly stated earlier, it costs a lot to get a drivers license in Europe, so there are very few incompetents on the roads.
Further comment on toll roads; it was mentioned by an earlier poster that tolls might cause a shift from using the highways for moving goods to the railways; in the USA, our rail system is also archaic and in need of massive restoration and rebuild.
What I've been suggesting is a real paradigm shift, and not a retreading of the present transportation system. A thorough modernization of the whole transportation network is in order.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2014 - 11:42am PT
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^^^^
The problem as I've stated is funding, funding, and don't forget about...funding. I've mentioned how the toll roads are self-supporting, and they also provide jobs for the toll takers and maintenance crews. The funds collected are in excess of needs which are then used for new construction of additional subsidiary roads, bridges and tunnels. This is how to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. Railroads are another major priority; European gauge is wider than U.S. Standard Gauge, and the load carrying capacity thus greater. The railroads I've seen in Italy are entirely electrified, and aren't using diesel fuel. A net decrease in fossil fuel consumption (oil, gasoline, and diesel) would be a side benefit from a paradigm shift of freight hauling from highways and 18 wheelers to railroads.
Instead of more and more regulators, let economics do the job; in the long run much more effective.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2014 - 11:49am PT
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^^^^ We need to sit around a roaring fire and discuss in JTree! Your weed and my booze.
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Cragar
climber
MSLA - MT
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No need to try to complicate the simple and glaringly obvious crux.
We get what we pay for. Nobody wants to pay.
that's it TE..
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Two facts have the most to do with road maintenance: one for each end of the political spectrum.
1. Our fuel taxes have declined because fuel mileage has improved. In constant dollars, we don't collect as much per mile of road as we did, say, 40 or 50 years ago.
2. Much of our fuel taxes have been diverted for cost-ineffective public transportation.
Sad to say, overcoming either problem requires violating the religious beliefs of at least one end of the political spectrum. Solving problem (1) violates the Tea Partiers, who believe that the only good tax is a non-existent one, and requiring users of government-provided goods and services to pay for them constitutes a "tax," not a "fee."
Solving problem (2) violates the collectivist creed that private automobile transportation is bad, and all other forms are good. How else to explain California's expenditures on a high-speed rail system with no demand, no net reduction of air pollution or fuel use, but massive spending,, or taking out lanes of traffic on arterial streets and replacing them with bike lanes? This end of the political spectrum, like their counterpart on the right, believes that users of government-provided goods and services should not be required to pay for them, because that would be "regressive."
Then there's the idea that the purpose of infrastructure spending is to enrich the friends of the politicians (before Republicans get all huffy about Democrats' spending, remember that the Bridge to Nowhere was an entirely Republican almost-construct). There's also the Davis-Bacon Act, etc. etc.
My bottom line: the reason we have infracstructure problems stares at us in the mirror: we insist that someone else pay for it.
John
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WBraun
climber
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Brokedownclimber
Your name is so ironic for the topic
lol .....
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2014 - 12:29pm PT
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One thing that pisses me off in Europe is the "pay to pee" system even in the gasoline stations. Usually only 50 cents (half a Euro) to take a leak. We have a lot of good free things here in the USA, only because the gangsters haven't figured out how to charge for the simplest necessities.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2014 - 12:35pm PT
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John-
You are slightly confusing Libertarianism in extreme form with Tea Party ideas that less government and government spending is "good." The Libertarians (of which I am a "fringie") feel that there is no such thing as a good tax on anything.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Brokedown,
I agree that my characterization of Tea Partiers holding to the libertarians' motto of "taxation is theft" may be misapplied in general, but I don't think so, at least around my little town, when applying to essential government services.
It's really about the rhetoric about lower taxes and spending, but the griping when the services they want either aren't to their liking, or come with a price they themselves need to pay.
My favorite example concerns local rates for Fresno City-supplied water. The City contracts with various sources of surface water, which it stores both in above-ground reservoirs and in basins where it is allowed to percolate into the ground, and is then pumped into the system for City water consumers. Water in these parts is most certainly not free, but until very recently, the Fresno City Charter prohibited charging based on metered use. When the City moved to amend the Charter to allow charging based on metered use, the local Tea Party objected, saying that the water fees would "raise taxes."
To me, that argument confused the nature of a tax. An unmetered fee is a tax, because you pay regardless of how much you use. A metered fee cannot be a tax, because the amount you pay depends solely on how much you use.
Again, my main point is that we want good infrastucture, and will fight long and hard for the "right" to make someone else pay for it.
John
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2014 - 12:54pm PT
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I guess my comments earlier about the toll roads and the fees for usage weren't that transparent. I was suggesting a means of renovating the crumbling infrastructure by charging the parties most responsible for the present and ongoing decline in a fair and equitable manner. Then the fees being charged for use would allow additional infrastructure to be built and those in existence to be maintained in perpetuity.
I keep having an old military acronym popping into my head: TANSTAAFL; which is: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
Our infrastructure needs to be renovated/rebuilt/expanded. How are we going to get this done with the political gridlock? That's why I started this, not as a rant ground for both Left Wing or Right Wing zealots.
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bergbryce
climber
East Bay, CA
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Getting into SF from the far east bay has never been easier with the 4th bore of the Caldecott and East Bay Bridge complete.
I've lived in a number of places and for the sheer volume of people that live in the Bay Area, I'd say the highways here are pretty damn' choice. If you've got 5 cents worth of brain in your head, it's not difficult to avoid the worst of the traffic.
Worst traffic ever, consistently was in Germany trying to get around Stuttgart on a Friday. Look up the word Stau.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2014 - 01:05pm PT
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Going over the Brenner Pass on a Holiday weekend in High Season is where you really find Stau; 30 km in around 4-5 hours.
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bergbryce
climber
East Bay, CA
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That sounds about right. The worst Stau involve everyone getting out of their cars and just shooting the schiese because no one is going anywhere for awhile. The Autobahn is a nice system but it has problems too.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2014 - 01:14pm PT
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Been there, done that...
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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I don't think anyone has mentioned the diversion of highway fund revenues to other purposes both at the federal and various state levels.
Just Google
highway funds diversion
and you'll come up with 45 pages.
Seems like it's an easy piggybank to rob.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Rodger, here. I loved this little Mosto Gusto tour of the torres of N. Italy.
It's nice to see an old dog in a fight,
Just remember to drive on the right,
Don't spend & tax them,
Try to relax them,
Taking tolls from the trolls...outasite.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1954729&tn=4809
Regardless of what else has been said, there is no way these smaller roads were ever meant to carry large eighteeners, but then who knows what some of these older engineers planned, really.
Seems ludicrous, too, to think of a semi on some of these tight corners.
Americans love their RVs, too, and take them where they should not go, but in a NP this would be taken care of by LEOs toute de suite. More revenue, if it were administered properly.
Tolls were permits granted by counties, just as ferries were licensed by them in California. They were worth a small fortune, sometimes.
This is privatization, DMT. It's happened in the past, but it's not the way now, because we have such cool ficking brudges.
Cheers, all!
Two cents and I'm gone.
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Lollie
Social climber
I'm Lolli.
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If you think you can swing it on the big roads without police, good luck to you Sir.
Why? We rarely have any police out on the biggest roads. They usually show up at big travelling days with holiday drivers, to keep the speed down. That they do by simply drive along for a stretch, back and forth. If you're stupid enough to speed by that policecar, you pay. A lot.
They do come if somebody calls them for some reason, like seeing a suspected drunk driver or something like that. But otherwise? Nah. The traffic police hunts more for drunk drivers (zero tolerance limit).
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