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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Sep 17, 2014 - 12:24pm PT
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An element of infrastructure deterioration here in LA that has begun to reveal itself and is certain to get much worse is under the street pipes. Water mains are the first to go, and in most cases there is zero documentation as to where they are, making repairs "challenging." But with a water main break all you get is flooding and maybe a few people electrocuted in areas with underground electrical service.
Wait until the gas mains start going.
Or in a very possible scenario one gets cut during a water main repair. This possibility caused lengthy delays in repairing a recent North Hollywood water main break, the crews knew there were gas mains in close proximity but did not know exactly where they were.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 18, 2014 - 08:10am PT
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DMT-
I'm not making a generalization that all roads should be Toll Roads; simply those requiring almost constant repair due to extremely heavy traffic conditions.
The other problem now is increased fuel efficiency on automobiles has resulted in reduced the tax revenue created by gasoline taxes at the pump. This led to Oregon suggesting a "tracking device" be fitted to private cars to charge mileage fees, which I find highly objectionable. I don't care to allow anyone the capability to track my whereabouts constantly.
Austria has a windshield sticker required for Autobahn use in addition to toll charges, which amounts to ~$40 a year for private automobiles and correspondingly higher fees for trucks based on their tonnage. After leaving Italy on the Brenner Pass Autostrada, there's a entry station in Austria collecting a fee of Eu 8.50 (roughly equivalent to $12.00) at the entrance to the system; no other fees are subsequently collected at the "exits" since they don't have exit stations. I didn't count the number of lanes, but it was at least 8-10 to permit rapid transit through the border crossing.
Perhaps an answer to your previous objections about being delayed by toll stations would be the transponder lanes for those using the same section of toll road frequently? They don't have to stop fully, since upon entry to the lane, the transponder sends a signal to open the gate.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Sep 18, 2014 - 08:27am PT
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No delays on a modern toll road. Frequent prepay at a discount and display a sticker or rfid, others get their plate snapshot and get a bill in the mail they can pay online ir by mail.
aint no gates
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 18, 2014 - 09:02am PT
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Locker-
The F35 program is a great example of what you are talking about. A "jack of all trades" fighter that is outperformed by the Russian and Chinese built aircraft costing far less to build. And such a deal! "Only" $325 Million apiece!! The combined Air Force, Navy, and Marine aviation units are after 850 of these near-worthless POS airplanes. After doing the math, that's a miniscule sum of "only" $276 Billion.
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slabbo
Trad climber
colo south
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Sep 18, 2014 - 09:06am PT
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My infrastructure sure faild...2 hips and knee replaced yesterday
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 18, 2014 - 09:47am PT
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Build a lot less billion dollar Jets/ships/bombs and stuff...
Use that money for the roads...
Might I suggest funding a fleet of modern firefighting aircraft instead of
the ragtag mishmash of 40 year old POS's we have now? For the cost of
ONE POS F35 you could buy 8 C-130's! For the cost of one wing
of F35's we could darken the skies above a forest fire with C-130's.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 18, 2014 - 09:56am PT
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Reilly-
A fleet of used and "obsolescent" DC-10's could do it even better!
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 18, 2014 - 10:03am PT
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Broke, I respectfully disagree. The C-130 cannot be matched for short field,
low/slow, maneuverability, reliability, and operating costs. The greatest
aircraft evah IMHO, that is, since the DC-3. ;-)
ps
Plus there are many many more parts available for Hercs.
(I'm also quite biased against the DC-10 as my mum's second husband was on
AA Flight 191 at Chicago)
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Seamstress
Trad climber
Yacolt, WA
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Sep 18, 2014 - 10:14am PT
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I may lean right, but when it comes to the basic infrastructure our society needs, the income tax is the better funding mechanism. It is a progressive tax (properly structured). Tolls are a very regressive tax that puts too much of a burden on the lower wage workers. The proliferation of fees and pay to play or pay to use is just a way to disguise the total impact of taxes.
I think a much bigger dose of transparency and simplicity is in order. The current generations seem unwilling to pay for the maintenance and improvements in the infrastructure that the previous generations left for us. From the crumbling bridges that will not withstand a tiny smack (I-5 bridge over the Skagit fell into the river) or can't withstand an earthquake (I think about that 2 x a day while sitting in horrible traffic on I-5 over the Columbia)to the USFS and NPS neglect of our public lands, to the water mains breaking all over town, it is so disappointing to see knee jerk rejection of any projects. I remain adamantly opposed to building anything new or adding any public lands until we commit ourselves to maintaining what we have. No new toys until you take care of the old toys.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Sep 18, 2014 - 10:33am PT
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I may lean right, but when it comes to the basic infrastructure our society needs, the income tax is the better funding mechanism
Seamstress, I would agree with you regarding what economists call "merit goods." We define those as goods and services that we believe everyone deserves, such as education, basic necessities of life, etc. Unfortunately, financing infrastructure through income taxes creates a perverse economic incentive. Ideally, anyone using a highway, for example, should be charged the marginal cost of that use. A fully-loaded Class 8 tractor-trailer should pay significantly more per mile than a motorcylist, for example.
Although I haven't looked at the literature lately, I would hazard a guess that commercial users wear out infrastructure more than anyone else. If so, using an income tax to finance infrastructure subsidizes commerce that uses infrastructure, and would lead to its overuse. Fuel taxes measure marginal cost of infrastructure imperfectly, and tolls create substantial transactions costs, but either method comes much closer to having the users bear the true costs of their use than does an income tax.
It all comes down to the basic issue set forth earlier: we all want infrastructure, but too many want someone else to pay for it.
John
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Sep 18, 2014 - 10:41am PT
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8 C-130's! For the cost of one wing
of F35's we could darken the skies above a forest fire with C-130's.
You don't even need to buy any new ones!
The AF has decommissioned several squadrons of H models in the last couple of years, not to mention sending hundreds of E models to the bone yard.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 18, 2014 - 05:33pm PT
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DMT-
You obviously need to reevaluate my position: I never have asked for anyone else to pay for my use of ANYTHING! By the way, the roads in Wyoming, other than I-80, the truck major thoroughfare, are generally in excellent condition compared to say...Colorado. Our state ISN'T bankrupt and continues to run a budget surplus nearly every year. The existing Interstates are continually under repair, but the original routing and style of construction...as elsewhere commented upon...was done "on the cheap."
My comment was strictly a general observation of damage being done by the "big rigs" everywhere. I'd ally myself with John Elezerian's view about user-use, user-pays. Progressive Income taxes are right out of the Communist Manifesto, by the way.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Sep 18, 2014 - 05:59pm PT
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hey there say, brokendownclimber and all...
was curious was this title was about...
i don't travel much, so i can't chip in, but, as to
seamstress and JEleazarian--some good shares here that
i understand what you mean...
say, i am not sure??
will ask my friend from england, i think she said, one time,
that there is some kind of a fee??/tax or something, that motorist
pay for 'their use of the roads' ???
(does anyone know what i am trying to remember, if you are from england??)
however, from what she said, they do not repay for a new license, each year?
but perhaps?? do this, instead... however, even THEN, she said too,
that they have road repair troubles, ongoing, in some areas, at that, as well...
hard stuff to ponder, as, we use these road, etc, and never much think about how very lucky we are, to have them, and how grateful we are, when they work, having no potholes, etc... :( or bridge troubles...
i do not know what they do here, in mich, but they are constantly fixing roads, around here, all season, or, they'd be a huge mess in winter, due to the potholes from either snow? melt, or snowblowers, or whatever...
wheww, you ought to see them, after winter, :O
some areas are hard to put up with, but you can tell the difference when it is done, but, as to another 'however' --due to money, of course, and who knows what, as to 'say so': there are many roads that get over looked, at some local neighborhoods, though the 'through traffic' at least, works...
very interesting trying to learn all this, but hard to understand some of it... :( with time, all things break down, and it DOES make you wonder, as to the future generations, and all of this...
well, i just posted, as i was curious what was going on here... i know, did not have much to offer, but just shared a few thoughts that you all
triggered...
carry on... :)
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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Sep 18, 2014 - 07:00pm PT
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"New efforts include $518 million in loans for 22 electric projects from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that will build 5,600 miles of electrical lines in rural areas and improve the electric grid."
According to the USDA, the funding is part of nearly $50 billion that the agency has invested in infrastructure improvements since 2009... to Texas, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota.
The Dept of Ag has absolutely no business being involved in electrical power, which it still does thru the Rural Electrification project, which was supposed to be a Temporary subsidized project in the 40's to bring power to farmers. They all got power about 50 years ago, yet the subsidies march on each year. Now they have added bringing subsidized broadband to rural areas. Farmers can already get satellite internet; they just don't want to pay for it when they can feed on it out of the public trough. But rural people save many thousands of dollars per year on cheap housing. Are they going to subsidize my typical California housing costs? Are they going to subsidize the ripoff cost of broadband in most cities due to the cable company monopolies? Are they going to subsidize the shutdown of San Onofre?
"Please tax me more. I want the country in which I live to be well run and maintained. So please spend more on education, roads, and the health and well-being of my countrymen. Please spend vastly less on running our war machine. I would rather have smart kids than smart weapons."
Don't expect your taxes to get spent on something useful. That's not how we do things in California. When we raise taxes, most of it often goes to public employee "unions". These do not even meet the standard definition of what constitutes a union. Unions as we generally know them were formed because capitalist owners/employers had quite different objectives and motives than their employees. Basically the employees were exploited. None of that is true with typical public employee "unions". There is no capitalist opposition. Their managers are part of the same pay and elaborate benefits & pension plan. The employees own the state, county, & city governments. The words "public employee union" should never be put together in that phrase. Instead of "unions" they should be call public employee rackets. They are already exempt from paying Soc Sec tax. Yet they still can't pay much of their own excessive pensions. Every time we turn around we pay more money for cops, firemen, school administrators, etc. The state is about to pass a new law legalizing 99 new ways to spike public pensions. They temporarily had pretended to crack down on that for a couple years during the recession, but now are figuring times are looking good again for corruption.
"Another factor is the absolute absence of "junkers" on the road the way we see old rusted-out POS cars on the American highways."
One reason for USA junkers is that is we charge new cars much more yearly registration fee than old cars, so we are subsidizing the POS cars.
A toll or gas tax system that took the place of most registration/license fees would eliminate that subsidy. The Japanese have the opposite incentives, so people are more likely to to stop driving old cars.
"According to the NTSB, the driver causing the greatest number of accidents is usually driving ~ 5 mph slower than the traffic flow. Car won't go fast enough? Cataracts and can't see? Just "the way they drive?" Who knows?"
Clearly speeding itself on the highway should not normally be an offense, because some of the most blatant speeders are the CHP, just because they felt like it.
"Then there's the effect of corporate welfare built into any funding scheme. As an obvious example, we want to encourage "clean air" vehicles, so we charge fees based on fuel purchased, rather than miles driven. While some may justify these incentives as worth the economic distortion, they nonetheless involve government policy that shifts costs from some industries to others. Not all of these costs shift are benign, but each is terribly difficult to undo."
It would be very easy to undo the free ride given to clean cars in carpool lanes, if we wanted to. Why does a 2006 Prius get to drive in a carpool lane with one person, and not a new Prius? That might have been a worthwhile incentive at one time, but that is no reason that the benefit should continue forever. At any time we could just say your special privilege no longer exist, and you need 2 people to use the carpool lane.
The free ride given to electric and phev cars (don't pay gax tax) is a problem.
" When the smoke cleared, the only methods of finance that were both practical and bore at least some relationship to economic reality were fuel taxes and ton-mile charges. So much for a sophisticated study!"
One thing that has changed since then: smart meters that could make tolls much easier and more fair. All drivers could be required to have an electronic time + mileage meter, just like many toll roads and bridges already use.
"The other problem now is increased fuel efficiency on automobiles has resulted in reduced the tax revenue created by gasoline taxes at the pump. This led to Oregon suggesting a "tracking device" be fitted to private cars to charge mileage fees, which I find highly objectionable. I don't care to allow anyone the capability to track my whereabouts constantly. "
We might need a constitutional amendment that says the tracking device can only track mileage, not position. As I picture it, it might have to know your last and your latest position for a brief period. It would then quickly calculate your distance, time of day pricing rate, and charge you for that short segment. Once it has charged you for that segment it would permanently delete all time and position information. However, that will make it impossible to solve any payment disputes, since all the data would be gone. It could just track total mileage, which could be doublechecked yearly, with spot checks of some sort to prevent fraud (hacking). Another scheme might say that every segment of every road is assigned a price category (say A to Z) based on location, expense, traffic load (charge extra for rush hour). Then each meter wouldn't have to store where you were, just that you drove 8 miles at rate A, + 6 miles of rate E, etc.
Ss: "I may lean right, but when it comes to the basic infrastructure our society needs, the income tax is the better funding mechanism. It is a progressive tax (properly structured). Tolls are a very regressive tax that puts too much of a burden on the lower wage workers. The proliferation of fees and pay to play or pay to use is just a way to disguise the total impact of taxes. "
JE: " Seamstress, I would agree with you regarding what economists call "merit goods." We define those as goods and services that we believe everyone deserves, such as education, basic necessities of life, etc. Unfortunately, financing infrastructure through income taxes creates a perverse economic incentive. Ideally, anyone using a highway, for example, should be charged the marginal cost of that use. A fully-loaded Class 8 tractor-trailer should pay significantly more per mile than a motorcylist, for example.
I agree with JE on that. Why should anyone who doesn't drive subsidize anyone else, rich or poor, who chooses to drive a lot? The fairest system is to charge ALL users full price. Otherwise you are giving people an incentive to drive, by not charging them the full cost. In return, adjust the earned+unearned income tax / Earned Income Tax Credit / Soc. Sec tax to compensate for the road/gas fee price and keep the overall tax system progressive.
One problem with the US having few toll roads and low gas taxes is that it has subsidized and encouraged lots of driving, much of it to outlying sprawl housing development where people drive a lot to get anywhere. This has been a wacky subsidy for 70 years now, and one of the main causes of sprawl. More cheap driving causes even more lack of upkeep to infrastructure. Reasonable gas taxes + tolls should be on the typical level used in Europe.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2014 - 08:09am PT
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^^^^^^ Good post.
That post involved some thought, but not all of it is internally consistent and has numerous "positive outcome assumptions" built in. i.e. Progressive and scaled taxes via income tax to deal with older cars.
The very last thing we need is an increasingly complex tax code! I also disagree with previous posters who claim that toll roads are a regressive tax, and that low income earners are taxed unfairly. In the case I previously mentioned of the Italian Autostradas, there is a perfectly good and well-maintained highway system paralleling the newer thoroughfares that are without any tolls. The Big Rigs all use the Autostrada for reduction in travel time, and anyone travelling long distances from country to country also takes advantage of the high speed network of roads.
One other issue not mentioned earlier, and that's the relative cost of obtaining a drivers license in Europe. To become a licensed driver in Germany or Italy costs ~ $2,000. Insurance rates are also extremely high, so those individuals driving aren't the "working poor," or the "welfare class." On the other hand, Americans regard automobiles as "throwaway" items, and change ownership more frequently than they change their sox. To that end, American vehicles are designed and manufactured with built-in obsolescence, and with limited life spans. Yes, there are indeed older cars on the European highways, but each and every one is well maintained.
The licensing standards are also a lot tighter; the physical requirements are significantly higher; that's compared to the "see lightning and hear thunder" standards I've seen applied to the elderly in this country.
My bottom line is that I enjoy driving on good roads, and not having to play the games of speed limits arbitrarily imposed by the states. For that privilege I'm willing to spend my precious $$$ to do so.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 19, 2014 - 09:14am PT
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One other issue not mentioned earlier
Mio amico! I would say 50% of Americans would not qualify either physically,
mentally, or economically to drive in Europe. How great would that be?
Granted, it ain't easy driving in Italia...
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Sep 19, 2014 - 09:40am PT
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"Please tax me more. I want the country in which I live to be well run and maintained."
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Because there's no way to spend current revenue more wisely.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2014 - 10:00am PT
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Reilly-
I had a good laugh at that sign; I was lost frequently while driving, other than on the Autostrada. Getting lost in the "old town" districts isn't fun or easy to exit. I got lost in Bolzano 2 or 3 times...saw a lot of otherwise "interesting stuff," but was also frustrating.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2014 - 10:15am PT
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Reilly-
I think tighter physical standards are definitely "in order" since there are many individuals currently driving who pose a significant risk to everyone else on the roads. Part of the European cost of getting licensed is the requirement for a professionally taught driving school, followed by stringent testing.
I realize too, that my driving days are numbered, as they are for everyone. My personal standard for continuing driving is my annual FAA medical exam (Class 2). When I no longer qualify for a Class 2, I'll consider my driving as the next step to geezerdom.
My father was a case for denial of driving privileges after a certain point is reached. I bought the old man a car back in 1996; it was a Dodge Neon, something small that he could still park without tearing a hunk off his car or the nearest other vehicle. His vision wasn't too bad but decreasing mental awareness began to tell, and by the time he died in 1998, the car was totally trashed: it looked like one of those carnival deals for a car-smash. He'd run it out of oil and transmission fluid...never maintained it, and had allowed his insurance to lapse. I took it away from him when I heard from the bank that his insurance lapsed. The value was GONE, and it was strictly a salvage operation.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 19, 2014 - 10:40am PT
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I hear ya on that, me mum is 88 but still driving better than one might expect.
I'm glad she sold the Jag as it isn't as painful to see the dings accumulate
on the Pontiac. To paraphrase Mr T:
"I pity the fool shopping carts!"
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