British Road Tax Scheme

[Charles Anthony]

If you want to take transit to your grocery store you had better chip in for the roads that the trucks used to get those groceries to your store,

Correct. Trucking companies will transfer the extra road charges to the grocery stores. The grocery stores will transfer those charges to YOU the consumer. There is nothing wrong with that.

Society needs infrastructure to function. You benefit from that infrastructure every day even though you may not use it yourself.

Maybe so but as it is now, in big cities, we are subsidizing behavior that damages the environment: idling.

You say there is a big disconnect. I'll bet neither you or government has a clue what that disconnect may be if there is one and has no interest in figuring it out.

Big deal. It is not necessary to quantify anything. All we need is a price mechanism.

[Wilber]

Canadians use on average 111 million liters of gasoline a day. Federal taxes on that amount to 16.6%. At one dollar a liter that comes to 6.7 billion per year they collect on gasoline taxes alone. The higher gas goes, the more they make because GST is charged on the total, including all other taxes. That doesn't include taxes on diesel, GST charged on vehicles themselves, AC surcharges or GST charged on every vehicle related part or service purchased during that vehicles life. Provincial, regional and municipal fuel, sales and vehicle related taxes are another story altogether. I really don't think government wants to account for all that money. Much easier to chuck it into general revenue. Then you can talk about disconnects without having to show them.

[Wilber]

Correct. Trucking companies will transfer the extra road charges to the grocery stores. The grocery stores will transfer those charges to YOU the consumer. There is nothing wrong with that.

Someone has to build the road first. They already do some of that by passing on all the taxes they pay. You of course won't mind paying your police, ambulance and fire service road tax as well. Those who can't or don't, just won't get any.

[Wilber]

Big deal. It is not necessary to quantify anything. All we need is a price mechanism.

Now theres a plan. We'll come up with a pricing mechanism when we don't even know what something costs or how much revenue it generates. No big deal.

[Charles Anthony]

Now theres a plan. We'll come up with a pricing mechanism when we don't even know what something costs or how much revenue it generates. No big deal.

Correct. It is not a big deal. A price mechanism is the quickest way to find out how to improve a business plan.

What you do not recognize is that right now, a business plan is actually in effect: prices are zero and nobody pays for damaging the environment.

Someone has to build the road first.

No. The thread is examining roads that are already built.

[Wilber]

Correct. It is not a big deal. A price mechanism is the quickest way to find out how to improve a business plan.

What you do not recognize is that right now, a business plan is actually in effect: prices are zero and nobody pays for damaging the environment.

I've just listed just a few of the taxes vehicle operators pay that non operators do not. How can you say the prices are zero?

If you don't know what something costs or how much revenue it generates, you have no business plan. We only know that our system would collapse without it. If we are serious about solving transportation problems and the polution that goes with them we need to make sure that all the revenue it generates goes back into improving the system, be it roads or transit.

No. The thread is examining roads that are already built.

We are having this debate right now in the Fraser Valley. The no more roads advocates think that even thought the regional population has tripled and Vancouver is the largest port in the country, the area can continue to be connected to the rest of the country by a four lane road and bridge that were completed in 1963 and that all we need is more transit. Of course the answer is we need both. In this case a congestion tax won't do anything because alternatives are very limited and don't apply to the transport of goods at all.

[Charles Anthony]

I've just listed just a few of the taxes vehicle operators pay that non operators do not. How can you say the prices are zero?

You are getting everything mixed up.

The price for occupying the land is zero. In other words, nobody is being charged for idling on the road.

If you don't know what something costs or how much revenue it generates, you have no business plan. We only know that our system would collapse without it.

Collapse? You do not need to be able to predict the future for a business to operate successfully.

Most businesses make guesses and adjust future behavior accordingly.

If we are serious about solving transportation problems and the polution that goes with them we need to make sure that all the revenue it generates goes back into improving the system, be it roads or transit.

This is where you are completely wrong.

All you need to do is raise the price [right now it is zero] of polluting the environment.

This is interesting:

We are having this debate right now in the Fraser Valley. The no more roads advocates think that even thought the regional population has tripled and Vancouver is the largest port in the country, the area can continue to be connected to the rest of the country by a four lane road and bridge that were completed in 1963 and that all we need is more transit. Of course the answer is we need both. In this case a congestion tax won't do anything because alternatives are very limited and don't apply to the transport of goods at all.

You can look at it a few different ways.

1) A congestion tax will make them pay more for polluting. Thus, it MUST change behavior because people have limited budgets.

2) At the very least, it may discourage an increase in population density in that urban center.

[Wilber]

Charles

You don't seem to understand that our society depends on the movement of people and goods. You just can't tax that into non existence. Sure, if there were no people at all we wouldn't have to worry about their pollution at all, but then we wouldn't be here to worry.

In the case of Vancouver and the Fraser Valley you are talking about the biggest port in the country. The whole country depends on it's links with the rest of the country, even you. Not using them is not an option.

Our transportation systems are not businesses that can succeed or fail on whether or not they make money. The country cannot survive without them. Our standard of living wouldn't change all that much for most of us if we didn't have universal healthcare. It would change drastically for all of us if we didn't have an efficient and cost effective transportation infrastructure.

Of course we pay for poluting the environment. Among other things we pay in the form of all the vehicle related taxes we already pay, you just want to add another one. You're another one of those people who think anything can be cured if we just add another tax.

[fellowtraveller]

(Why should you have the right to use a city street without paying for it? Did you sleep in your London hotel room for free?)

Note that the taxpayers have already paid for the road, both capital and ongoing maintenance charges. Please don't make stupid and pointless comparisons like that of the hotel room, you're better than that.

[August1991]

(Why should you have the right to use a city street without paying for it? Did you sleep in your London hotel room for free?)

Note that the taxpayers have already paid for the road, both capital and ongoing maintenance charges. Please don't make stupid and pointless comparisons like that of the hotel room, you're better than that.

I'll assume that you were a tourist in the UK and hence you can hardly call yourself a "taxpayer". In that sense, you pretty much got to use their roads tax-free.

But let me ignore that angle. (And BTW Fellowtraveller, I'll also ignore the gratuitous insult. Greg has asked us to be especially civil with one another this spring.)

Fellowtraveller, the issue is not whether we pay for roads, it's how we pay for their use.

I have offered this example several times. The government takes several hundred dollars from you every month through taxes and then uses some of that money to build and maintain roads. That's insane. To see why, consider what would happen if the government took several hundred dollars more from you every month and then used it to buy groceries, telling you that you can drop by any local Wal-Mart and pick up what you need - without having to pay more (after all, you've already paid).

That would be crazy and yet that's what we do with our road system. We pay for it through general taxes and then anyone can use it whenever they want - without having to pay. Not surprisingly, roads are congested and governments don't know where or how to build or repair them.

Our road system is Soviet because there is a disconnect between what we pay and what we use. When that happens, a society typically falls into a world of arcane regulation.

So what are you saying, everything should be user pay? If you want to take transit to your grocery store you had better chip in for the roads that the trucks used to get those groceries to your store, otherwise you had better be prepared to walk to the farm and get them yourself. If you want police, ambulance and fire service you had better be willing to chip in for the roads they need whether you own a vehicle or not. Society needs infrastructure to function. You benefit from that infrastructure every day even though you may not use it yourself.

Should everything be user pay?

Well, as they say in mathematics, as a first approximation that's not a bad rule.

I can offer two good reasons to argue against user pay. First, some users are too poor to pay. This argument might work for some necessities like basic education or catastrophic health care. It doesn't apply to roads.

Second, we sometimes don't have a simple way to make the user pay. In the recent past, making drivers pay for road use was cumbersome (toll gates and so on). Now, technology has solved that problem.

You say there is a big disconnect. I'll bet neither you or government has a clue what that disconnect may be if there is one and has no interest in figuring it out.

Wilber, you sound like Leonid Brezhnev.

Our transportation systems are not businesses that can succeed or fail on whether or not they make money. The country cannot survive without them. Our standard of living wouldn't change all that much for most of us if we didn't have universal healthcare. It would change drastically for all of us if we didn't have an efficient and cost effective transportation infrastructure.

Oh Wilbur. You have the knack for pleading the special case.

I cannot survive without my income and yet the government taxes it. How is the transportation industry any different?

The government taxes all the effort of working people - it taxes the lifeblood of the country. According to your logic, it shouldn't. Surely the work effort of Canadians is critical to the country.

----

Should our transportation system turn a profit? Should we measure its success by dollars and cents?

I think so.

Societies don't succeed in the long run if they impose great costs on themselves yet obtain little benefit. When millions of people sit in their idling cars staring into space and not moving, burning gasoline and emitting fumes into the atmosphere, day after day, that imposes a great cost on society. And there is no benefit at all. No one moves.

[Wilber]

Should our transportation system turn a profit? Should we measure its success by dollars and cents?

I think so.

Societies don't succeed in the long run if they impose great costs on themselves yet obtain little benefit. When millions of people sit in their idling cars staring into space and not moving, burning gasoline and emitting fumes into the atmosphere, day after day, that imposes a great cost on society. And there is no benefit at all. No one moves.

If it doesn't , should we get rid of it. What then? You think we get no benefit from our transportation system? Why have one? Sure idling vehicles impose a cost on society as well as on the people who are stuck in them. The solution is not to tax vehicles because they idle, it is to use vehicles which are more fuel efficient, pollute less and don't have to idle. That will reduce costs to society, your tax will just increase them because you can bet that government will not use that revenue to solve the problem, they will find more politically productive things to spend it on. People will still be stuck in their idling cars because they have no alternative.

[cybercoma]

Should our transportation system turn a profit? Should we measure its success by dollars and cents?

I think so.

Societies don't succeed in the long run if they impose great costs on themselves yet obtain little benefit. When millions of people sit in their idling cars staring into space and not moving, burning gasoline and emitting fumes into the atmosphere, day after day, that imposes a great cost on society. And there is no benefit at all. No one moves.

If it doesn't , should we get rid of it. What then? You think we get no benefit from our transportation system? Why have one? Sure idling vehicles impose a cost on society as well as on the people who are stuck in them. The solution is not to tax vehicles because they idle, it is to use vehicles which are more fuel efficient, pollute less and don't have to idle. That will reduce costs to society, your tax will just increase them because you can bet that government will not use that revenue to solve the problem, they will find more politically productive things to spend it on. People will still be stuck in their idling cars because they have no alternative.

A more eloquent way of saying exactly what I said on page 1. Thanks.

[August1991]

If it doesn't , should we get rid of it. What then? You think we get no benefit from our transportation system? Why have one?

Get rid of the transportation system? Of course not.

We must organize it differently. And we will, as London has started to do and New York City proposes.

We must charge ourselves for our road use.

The solution is not to tax vehicles because they idle, it is to use vehicles which are more fuel efficient, pollute less and don't have to idle. That will reduce costs to society, your tax will just increase them because you can bet that government will not use that revenue to solve the problem, they will find more politically productive things to spend it on. People will still be stuck in their idling cars because they have no alternative.

You sound like Leonid Brezhnev arguing that to get more food and eliminate queues, the farm collectives must work more efficiently and produce more. "If we raise food prices, this will solve nothing. Ordinary people will simply have less money to buy the food they need."

Wilber, you're a true Soviet.

[Wilber]

Wilber, you're a true Soviet.

Really, all I hear is a great sucking sound and a giant belch as government absorbs even more of the country's wealth. If that makes me a Soviet then so be it but that is an odd comment from someone advocating even more taxation.

[August1991]

Really, all I hear is a great sucking sound and a giant belch as government absorbs even more of the country's wealth.

Is it "taxation" when BC or Alberta charge royalties for access to their natural resources? Is it "taxation" when a ship pays for use of the St. Lawrence Seaway?

Is it "taxation" when you pay for your groceries?

Wilber, I am on record on this forum for arguing against how much government buys from the Canadian economy and how much it transfers between Canadians. IMV, Canadian governments spend far too much of my money or pointlessly transfer far too much of my money. Government is too big.

But I also happen to think that governments tax us in really dumb ways. They tax people when they work hard and yet they don't tax people when they take up space on roads.

This must change and I think smart, ambitious politicians are clueing into this.

[Wilber]

I

think smart, ambitious politicians are clueing into this.

I don't

[August1991]

I

think smart, ambitious politicians are clueing into this.

I don't

When "Red Ken" Livingstone of London and and billionaire Michael Bloomberg of New York adopt the same policy, political junkies everywhere should take notice.

[Wilber]

I visited London quite a few times before and after the charge was put in place. I didn't notice much difference. Red Ken, that should tell you something. Besides, unlike Canadian cities they both have real transit systems.

[Charles Anthony]

The solution is not to tax vehicles because they idle, it is to use vehicles which are more fuel efficient, pollute less and don't have to idle.

There would still be idling.

That will reduce costs to society, your tax will just increase them because you can bet that government will not use that revenue to solve the problem, they will find more politically productive things to spend it on.

It does not matter where that revenue goes. What is important is that there is a direct price placed on idling (more specifically the road) because that will lead to drivers using less of the road.

In fact, I will go out on a limb by suggesting that we could protect the environment even if we burn [figuratively, that is, because actual burning would contribute to green-house gases; hardy har har...] the money collected from a road tax and it would conceivably be justified.

At the risk of thread drift, I want to address this from a radical perspective:

That's ridiculous. The tranportation industry has been carrying the country on its back for years. Something it is no longer prepared to do, and without it you would have nothing.

Some people identify over-population as the major source of environmental problems. They may or may not be correct. However, from your own words, those people should oppose the care-free use and subsidization of transportation.

We need a Gorbachev.

I think I finally understand what you mean. Canadians need a politician who will think outside of the box and take a chance.

[Wilber]

There would still be idling.

Not necessarily, hybrids do not sit and idle, Vancouver just implemented a bylaw against excessive idling.

It does not matter where that revenue goes. What is important is that there is a direct price placed on idling (more specifically the road) because that will lead to drivers using less of the road.

In fact, I will go out on a limb by suggesting that we could protect the environment even if we burn [figuratively, that is, because actual burning would contribute to green-house gases; hardy har har...] the money collected from a road tax and it would conceivably be justified.

They won't be able to use the road less until they have alternatives. While you're at it I want all public transit to be user pay with no subsidies. I can't use it so I shouldn't have to pay for it.

It doesn't matter where the revenue goes? Geez, what a concept. Why waste it on solving the problem? We'll just send it to government and they can burn it for us. No thanks, they do enough of that already.

[Charles Anthony]

It doesn't matter where the revenue goes? Geez, what a concept.

Correct. The point is that people will have a direct incentive to reduce their consumption if there is a price compared to when it is free.

That is what we want: reduced emissions.

[Wilber]

It doesn't matter where the revenue goes? Geez, what a concept.

Correct. The point is that people will have a direct incentive to reduce their consumption if there is a price compared to when it is free.

That is what we want: reduced emissions.

It won't get you reduced emissions if people have no other alternative than to sit in traffic idling.

I'll give you an example. In the late eighties they built the Coquihalla highway between Hope and Kamloops with a connector to the Okanagan. It cuts two hours off the driving time and the toll is $10.00. Two hours on the alternative route at an average of 90 KPH would be 180 KM or 112 miles. Say you have a reasonably efficient car that can get 35 MPG in mountain driving. That two extra hours would use 3.2 gallons or 14.5 liters. At $1.05 a liter that would be $15.22 - $10.00 = $5.22. There you go, not only do I save 2 hours but I save $5.22 on gas and that is 14.5 liters of fuel that didn't get burned. Now that's a charge I can get behind, it saves me time, money and reduces emissions drastically.

Don't say it doesn't matter where the money goes. You reduce emissions by making the system more efficient, not charging people more for something they can't change.

[August1991]

There you go, not only do I save 2 hours but I save $5.22 on gas and that is 14.5 liters of fuel that didn't get burned. Now that's a charge I can get behind, it saves me time, money and reduces emissions drastically.

Don't say it doesn't matter where the money goes. You reduce emissions by making the system more efficient, not charging people more for something they can't change.

Your example is my argument in one narrow instance.

You see it as paying for use of a specific road (built to be a toll road). I wonder why the same practice is not extended to all roads.

----

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...

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Link

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[geoffrey]

Not necessarily, hybrids do not sit and idle...

Pardon my ignorance, hybrids don't idle?

[Wilber]

Not necessarily, hybrids do not sit and idle...

Pardon my ignorance, hybrids don't idle?

Not as a rule. The engine charges the batteries and augments the electric motor under certain conditions, although there may be a need for if for heat and AC if stopped for a long period. Some hybrids like the Prius get better mileage in the city than on the highway.