Charge me by the ton mile

[Tinker71]

Oh, I get it. You are right, just ask you. Thank you for letting me out of this special hell communicating with a conservative. Be well.

Hey. BTW thanks for taking care of the Covidiots, that must have been/is hard on several levels.

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[Crissa]

@Challeco Your position here is not the progressive one. It's populist. Yeah, cheap gas and car registration is popular - but it creates more pollution, poverty, injury, death, and municipal costs. It impoverishes your town, and locks people into needing to spend to feed the hungry beast of a car and freeways they may or may not want.

And then when they can no longer drive, they become trapped. Because everything is built for cars.

-Crissa

 

[Ogre]

Personally, I think charging everyone equally for every mile of road is the wrong way to go.

Charge individuals and businesses based on their share of the roads they use.

If you live in the sticks 4 miles down a public road with 2 neighbors… you should be paying for that road maintenance. All of it, it’s not benefitting me. If you are a hotel in downtown Portland, you should be taxed to pay for a piece of all the roads your business benefits from. Restaurants likewise. Without those roads, you don’t get food or customers.

If businesses had to pay for the roads they used, they might be more likely to encourage foot traffic more.

 

[Tinker71]

Personally, I think charging everyone equally for every mile of road is the wrong way to go.

Charge individuals and businesses based on their share of the roads they use.

If you live in the sticks 4 miles down a public road with 2 neighbors… you should be paying for that road maintenance. All of it, it’s not benefitting me. If you are a hotel in downtown Portland, you should be taxed to pay for a piece of all the roads your business benefits from. Restaurants likewise. Without those roads, you don’t get food or customers.

If businesses had to pay for the roads they used, they might be more likely to encourage foot traffic more.

That is too complex. There are also secondary benefits for occasional users. At some point rural roads allow farmers to feed us and we all need to pay for them.

There are certainly crazy examples such as Alaska's bridge to nowhere which never should happen.

 

[Crissa]

There are certainly crazy examples such as Alaska's bridge to nowhere which never should happen.

...except that's easy to vilify, but it was a bridge to the airport. The airport that carried most of their travelers, all of their mail, that currently used a ferry, that couldn't operate in rough seas.

Now the bad thing about that is that these rural and suburban towns never face that their budgets of these roads are bankrupting them.

I really don't mind spending for better rural infrastructure. But I grew up out there, and the ignorance of who pays for roads is astounding. The whole 'greater Idaho' (let alone the 'five Californias' or 'state of Jefferson' plans) would create the most impoverished state in the union without any ability to pay for its roads. Or its police. Or fire. Or hospitals. Or, well, anything.

But just the roads bankrupt suburban municipalities.

-Crissa

 

[Ogre]

There are a lot of places where the city or county pays large amounts of money to subsidize a few residences. Much more than the tax burden these people pay. Often these are the homes of wealthy individuals who are just leaching off the system.

If there is a country club off in the sticks… they should damned sure be paying for the road it is on.

The other point here which is missed is that roads are **infrastructure** the benefit isn’t just to the driver, the businesses and residents benefit from them as well. Trying to come up with convoluted ways to tax people for “Use” isn’t really needed when we have apparently ways to apportion costs already.

 

[Crissa]

The other point here which is missed is that roads are **infrastructure** the benefit isn’t just to the driver, the businesses and residents benefit from them as well. Trying to come up with convoluted ways to tax people for “Use” isn’t really needed when we have apparently ways to apportion costs already.

Businesses would pay because their deliveries would pay the use fees. It's not like they'd escape paying for them, with some sort of ton*mile fee structure. Large trucks already have some of such a fee. It's just a matter of implementing it in a non-invasive way.

Annual inspections are good, but they're expensive. I don't know why they are so expensive, but they are.

Plate readers are painless... but keeping the records safe and putting in enough to catch yahoos who try to avoid them would also be expensive. Not to mention how wealthier people are more able to challenge the machines - and examples like the lady who had her car stolen and the police racked up tolls on it she couldn't challenge is a bit dystopian.

Having cars dial home would be super-easy, and now a days, pretty inexpensive compared with the other two. But it would be the most invasive method of all.

I hope something gets figured out that doesn't penalize low-mileage drivers or smaller vehicles.

-Crissa

 

[Ogre]

You don’t need annual inspections. Just do it as part of the home/ business assessment. Whole areas can be assessed at the same time. Mostly using satellite photography. Our local municipality already does property tax assessment using satellite imagery.

I know California Prop 13 blah blah blah.

 

[S3av8r]

Where did I make a blanket statement where Rural = Poor? Where did I stereotype? You don't need to brag how rich you are. You are another subset of rural people. Rural rich, that also benefit from the current system. You could afford to pay more for your lifestyle and you drive a lot, but ride the tiny subsidy of the rural poor. So by default a freeloader, accidental or otherwise?

I quoted if for you in my previous response. You made a direct comparison between poor rural people and them being subsidized by Urban people, implying they have more money.
And never once did I refer to myself as “Rich”, which I am not. That’s your words. Maybe in your Karen rage, you overlooked that.
?

 

[S3av8r]

And, your blanket assumptions based solely on rural vs urban is stupid. You have no idea what I pay for anything, taxes or otherwise. You don’t know what I can afford or already pay. And you have absolutely no idea how much I drive. So, don’t invent narratives that fit your argument. Stick to facts you know. You also don’t know what services I receive vs an urban dweller. It’s and apples and oranges thing and you cannot just blanket statement people.

If this was already hashed out in the previous 8 pages, my apologies. I don’t have time for that.

You need to chill Tinker. You get into way too many spats on here.

 

[Crissa]

I quoted if for you in my previous response. You made a direct comparison between poor rural people and them being subsidized by Urban people, implying they have more money.

No, he did not. Nowhere in your quote does he call rural people 'poor'.

Rural people drive more than others on average. And hence, more mile-based fees would hit them harder.

Rural areas are highly subsidized by urban ones through government spending especially through things like road building and maintenance.

-Crissa

 

[Tinker71]

And, your blanket assumptions based solely on rural vs urban is stupid. You have no idea what I pay for anything, taxes or otherwise. You don’t know what I can afford or already pay. And you have absolutely no idea how much I drive. So, don’t invent narratives that fit your argument. Stick to facts you know. You also don’t know what services I receive vs an urban dweller. It’s and apples and oranges thing and you cannot just blanket statement people.

If this was already hashed out in the previous 8 pages, my apologies. I don’t have time for that.

You need to chill Tinker. You get into way too many spats on here.

I got all day. It is a fact that high density urban areas pay more taxes out than then receive while low density rural areas pay less and receive more tax spend, on average.

Anyone is allowed to make assumptions based on information provided. You volunteered that you were an airline pilot and your wife is a lawyer. Now you might fly for a budget airline, but the odd are still in my favor that you both make significantly over the average and are therefore not rural poor, and could pay more if the current subsidies were removed.

By living rural you will need to travel further for goods and services and if you commute you will rack up the miles. You might telecommute some days or travel fewer days, but I would make a small wager you both average more than the national average of urban people.

I am not picking fights, you have made a statement that I somehow discriminate against rural people by assuming they are poor. You are wrong and I am correcting you so you stop making a fool of your self now and in the future. Thank you.

The facts and the data are on my side. You are most likely a leach and should keep that on the downlow. I didn't say you are a leach.....just most likely. Please tell us are you a unappreciative leach? a unapologetic leach?, entitled?

 

[Zabhawkin]

Rural areas are highly subsidized by urban ones through government spending especially through things like road building and maintenance.

-Crissa

Do you have any sources for this, so far all I have found has been opinions.

 

[Crissa]

Do you have any sources for this, so far all I have found has been opinions.

It's not a datapoint most want to talk about. You usually see it in articles touting how to help rural economies - that why we built the high speed rail in the rural counties first. But it's a basic truth of percapita spending.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/31/infrastructure-bill-map-which-states-get-the-most-money.html

-Crissa

 

[S3av8r]

No, he did not. Nowhere in your quote does he call rural people 'poor'.

Rural people drive more than others on average. And hence, more mile-based fees would hit them harder.

Rural areas are highly subsidized by urban ones through government spending especially through things like road building and maintenance.

-Crissa

He made a direct comparison between “poor” rural people and Urban people.
He literally used the word “poor” when describing Rural people, and no modifier when describing Urban people and then followed up with how Urban people subsidize for Rural people.

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