Doubts About a Vehicle-Miles Traveled Tax
Apparently Ray LaHood says he wants to look at replacing the gasoline tax with a vehicle-miles traveled tax. Ezra Klein observes that part of the appeal here is that VMT has much less short-term variance than the price of gasoline, so you get a more stable tax base:
This is true enough. But I think the broader logic of a VMT tax is off-base. With a gasoline tax, you generate some revenue. And you also reduce the quantity of gasoline burned, which has benefits for air quality and climate security. With a congestion charge, you generate some revenue. And you also reduce the occurrence of traffic jams and ensure that your traffic flow is allocated more efficiently. In other words, both are methods of generating revenue that would have substantial social benefits even if the accrued funds were lit on fire rather than spent on useful projects. A VMT tax just discouraging driving as such. Which sort of captures some of the social benefits of a gas tax and congestion charges, but pretty indirectly and inefficiently. So I’m not sold. When it comes to pricing driving-related activities, it makes sense to charge people from things that actually impose costs on others—burning gasoline, and taking up space on crowded roads—not the mere act of driving.
A guy who drives an SUV along a 25-mile stretch of the Beltway at peak morning rush hour is imposing a lot more negative externalities on his fellow citizens than is a guy driving a Prius 50 miles in the middle of the night on the outskirts of Albuquerque.
98 Responses to “Doubts About a Vehicle-Miles Traveled Tax”
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February 20th, 2009 at 11:00 am
The VMT also sewsm horrendously impractical–what, are we going to have regular odometer inspections?
February 20th, 2009 at 11:07 am
rea,
Why couldn’t this be taken care of with registration?
I do not favor it, but I am not seeing why it would be logisticaly difficult.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:10 am
The gasoline tax is cents per gallon, not a proportional tax on the gasoline price, so the variability of the gas price is not so relevant, except to the extent that high gas prices dampens gasoline demand, but that also dampens VMT.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:11 am
I like that they are thinking outside the box, however, I agree that a gas tax and congestion tax are probably the most efficient. Although in order to prepare for a tax like congestion or parking or gas tax, etc., one must take care of public transport. London did exactly this – beefing up the TfL buses and underground services prior to implementation of the congestion charge. The government must be careful to provide meaningful, strong and efficient alternatives to driving if and when it embarks on these taxing programs that will alter driving behaviors.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Sooner or later, a significant amount of miles driven are going to be driven on the basis of electric power or some other kind of energy source. So while I’m not necessarily keen on a miles-driven tax, it makes sense to be thinking of other sources of revenue when it comes to paying for our roads.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Totally agree. Just one more REALLY STUPID idea from another REALLY STUPID Obama appointee at a REALLY INOPPORTUNE TIME!
February 20th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Maybe LaHood can tie that together with a reduction in Social Security benefits somehow.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:29 am
You have a horrible tendency to post charts and either not label them properly (usually the y-axis) or not state what each curve represents (in this case it happens to be fairly obvious, but you should still state it explicitly). My grade school science teacher would take off points for that bush league shit.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:32 am
You can fix all of your concerns by assessing a ‘Gallons of fuel consumed’ tax. Take the # of miles travelled X the E.P.A. estimated fuel economy and you have a tax that addresses all of your concerns.
And assess the tax based on odometer readings at vehicle safety inspection stations, not GPS transponders. This stuff is NEVER happening if it involves any intrusive measurement system. Pizzerias don’t have cameras on their register that go to the IRS. Why the hell should drivers be subject to 24/7 tax surveillance?
February 20th, 2009 at 11:36 am
That this idea would even be floated from someone as high up the chain as LaHood indicates the reluctance of the administration to direcly support a gas tax. Perhaps understandable, particularly during a severe recession. Unfortunately, oil may never again be as cheap as it is now (or not much cheaper at least).
February 20th, 2009 at 11:37 am
joejoejoe, the current gas tax is levied at the pump on a cents per gallon purchased basis. Simple, easy to collect and in place — why go through all the complicated backflips you describe?
February 20th, 2009 at 11:37 am
A guy who drives an SUV along a 25-mile stretch of the Beltway at peak morning rush hour is imposing a lot more negative externalities on his fellow citizens than is a guy driving a Prius 50 miles in the middle of the night on the outskirts of Albuquerque.
To make a fair comparison you have to count the extra miles traveled due to all the wrong turns made at Albuquerque.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:37 am
It would be much simpler to levy an engine displacement tax which could be collected by the states when reregistration of the vehicle comes up. I believe that some European governments collect such a tax.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Precisely, and when you add the possible transaction costs associated with monitoring and enforcing such a system it seems foolish to even consider the idea. I mean, GPS systems in cars just so the government can impose an inefficient method of limiting congestion and energy consumption? The real problem is that states are desperate for the revenue and view some form of gas tax as politically acceptable versus a rise in income or sales taxes.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Note – I don’t think congestion degrades the infrastructure any more than driving at full speed at night. The cost is to the drivers, not the infrastructure. LaHood isn’t trying to kill three birds with one stone here, just get infrastructrure a more easily understood funding stream.
My guess is he’s looking at this almost entirely from the standpoint of trucking. One over-the-road long distance truck puts WAY more strain on the roads than a thousand Priuses because of simple physics. Force = mass X acceleration. Cars have almost no mass relative to semi trucks and trailers so the force that degrades roads comes mostly from commercial trucking. That’s not trucking’s fault, moving stuff people need is good, but maintaining those roads or finding alternatives is also everybody’s job.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:47 am
They’re considering implementing a VMT here in Massachusetts via the use of transponders. I think it makes sense. And there’s no reason a gas guzzler couldn’t be charged a higher per mile rate than a greener vehicle. A VMT plus a general carbon tax (or cap/trade) strikes me as an optimal solution.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I may have a slanted view, as I come from a cold climate that is sparsely populated and have worked at places like oil rigs, but I have seen people let a diesel truck idle all day long. Go to a truck stop when diesel is cheap, you’ll see drivers let their trucks idle all night.
Taxing mileage wouldn’t do a thing to discourage things like this.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:51 am
I see that more as a feature than a bug, as paying less in gasoline excise taxes will help promote the sale of automobiles that emit less CO2 per mile driven. I’d be happy to keep raising the gas tax in the meantime also.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:51 am
That last paragraph is the best thing MY’s written.
Trading gas tax for VMT tax would be a less efficient way of doing the things we want these taxes to do. While VMT is better than nothing, it’s worse than raising the gas tax. Thus, adding a VMT tax is a stupid, crazy idea.
Tangentially, is it really better to increase vehicle turnover? That seems to be a massive inefficiency, albeit one that props up the manufacturing sector. Would that capital be more wisely spent elsewhere, like on the roads themselves? Or on mass transit?
February 20th, 2009 at 11:54 am
bdbd – Because a grandmother who drives 5000 miles in her 20 mpg Taurus causes half the congestion of a teenager in a 40 mpg Prius that drives 10000 miles. Because recent events show it takes huge swings in gas prices to effect behavior. A quarterly assessment would show people they have a choice NOT to pay more taxes by changing their behavior. That choice is much harder to explain when money is dribbling away a few dimes at a time.
You can also make the tax on fuel progressive based on total consumption, carve out exceptions for commuting distance. It’s just a much more flexible way of doing things and not at all complicated. Odometers exist on cars, most states have inspection. It’s a piece of legislation and and 5 minutes filling out a tax form with 4th grade math and nothing more.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:54 am
joejoejoe, February 20th, 2009 at 11:45 am
This suggests that there should be two taxes, one to pay for the infrastructure, the other to pay for the public operating costs of car travel as well as its many external costs.
But adding a VMT tax into the mix makes it an angels dancing on the head of a pin discussion … the GPS tracking of vehicles miles traveled upon which the recent specific proposals have been built has such a Big Brother look and feel that it is one issue where the Republican Obstructionists will be able to peel away enough Dirty Fucking Hippy ACLU types to block the proposal.
Still, in terms of political non-starters, it does make a lot of policy sense to diversity the Transport Tax base from pure reliance on gas taxes to some portion of road user fees, either VMT or congestion fees or both, and some portion of oil dependency tax, whether retail gas tax, wholesale crude oil tax, or imported petroleum products tariff.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Here is an analysis suggesting a new Prius starts the equivalent of about 1000 gallons of gasoline in the hole:
Here is an analysis suggesting that even if cars become no more fuel efficient in the future than they are now it would take 172 years for the Portland North Interstate light rail line to produce enough savings in gasoline to offset the energy used for its construction.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9325
February 20th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Taxing mileage is nuts. I mean, a guy driving a hummer 100 miles pays the same tax as a guy driving a Honda Civic? WTF? Also, gas taxes that are a fixed amount per gallon don’t vary with crude oil prices, so what’s the problem anyway? Mega dumb idea that’s going to be hated by everyone.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
joejoejoe, the current gas tax (cents per gallon) effectively does charge a higher rate per mile traveled to the driver of the gas guzzler, and to the driver who is contributing to congestion and running idle a lot.
I think people can figure out that a more efficient vehicle costs less to operate by comparing MPG — the contribution of the tax to that total cost, however administered, surely contributes little.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Ezra Klein observes that part of the appeal here is that VMT has much less short-term variance than the price of gasoline, so you get a more stable tax base:
This is stupid. Gas taxes are levied as a fixed number of cents per gallon, not as a percentage of the price. Gas price variation is only relevant to the extent that it affects consumption, which would also affect VMT.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
A fairly rubbish idea as it is, but an excellent Trojan horse for congestion charging if they can get GPS chips put in every vehicle.
I’m not sure if the US has taxation of Car insurance; but one could achieve the same goal by either mandating that all car insurance be sold on a per-mile basis and then taxing it, or by taxing per-mile car insurance much more gently (but still moderately heavily) to encourage people to ‘voluntarily’ switch. This way you circumvent the problem of the government ending up in everyones beeswax.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Don’t states already collect weight based taxes from 16 wheelers etc? That’s what weigh stations are for
February 20th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
I’m not sure why you think that is on topic
It illustrates the importance of infrastruture costs for other forms of transportation, not just cars.
how much energy would it take to construct additional highways with the same capacity as the Portland North Interstate light rail line?
I don’t know. Why do you think the question is relevant?
February 20th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Ezra Klein observes that part of the appeal here is that VMT has much less short-term variance than the price of gasoline, so you get a more stable tax base:
This really requires a correction by MY (and also by Ezra, but he pulled some weasel BS in the comments to try to explain that this isn’t what he really meant).
A major pillar of Ezra’s argument falls away once you realize that the gas tax is per gallon, not a %age of the price of gas. And that pretty graph you’re both featuring so prominently becomes meaningless at best, and misleading at worst.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
“With a gasoline tax, you generate some revenue. And you also reduce the quantity of gasoline burned”
I don’t think that the gasoline tax has any effect on how much gasoline individuals decide to consume.
In any case, the VMT tax, as I understand it, is intended to pay for the Highway Trust Fund, so that usage is truly tied to cost. The fuel-efficiency of a car has nothing to do with how much the car owner uses roads.
If the objective is to reduce auto emissions, then a carbon tax is the way to go. If the objective is to reduce traffic congestion (and auto emissions), then congestion pricing is the way to go.
Frankly, I think that there should be a form of each type of tax: VMT, carbon, and congestion.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
You can fix all of your concerns by assessing a ‘Gallons of fuel consumed’ tax.
Er, that’s exactly what a gas tax is.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
I helped fuel the housing bubble by building a 5000 sq foot house in the desert 50 miles from my job. For nights when I work late I also bought a condo in the city, forcing people in need of more affordable housing to move further away. However, my car gets 40mpg so I’m obviously not part of the problem.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
I have two cars. One gets 12 MPG and the other gets 40 MPG. I drive one and the other sits in my driveway.
Should there be any incentive for me to drive the small car over the fun car?
Or I drive 40 miles to work and my wife drives 3 miles to work. Should there be an incentive for me to take the small car?
The VMT would allow me to drive my fun car and let my wife drive the small car.
Am I missing something???
February 20th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Hey, I have an idea for Ray. If traveling miles on roads is BAD and a good potential source of tax revenue, why not just tax folks every time they leave their fucking house — except to go to the yard or the garage? They step off their property and a high-flying drone slaps a tax on their ass. Call it the Ray “Don’t leave the Hood” Tax.
Thinking “outside the box”? No, Ray, the fucking box is on fire. Give him the “Clueless Timmy” award for the third week of February.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
theCoach, I think a VMT tax would encourage people who drive a lot to disconnect their speedometer/odometer cables. I drove without mine for awhile after a squirrel gnawed through it before I got it replaced. I didn’t really find it too difficult to gauge my speed.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Maybe others have pointed this out already, but it seems like the optimal solution is to just tax gasoline by the gallon instead of as a percentage of the (volatile) cost per gallon. This gets rid of high variability in tax revenues AND keeps the incentive to get an efficient car AND is easy to implement (no need to measure the MPG of every car or download there odometer reading or whatever, just tax the gas at the gas station).
A vehicle-miles traveled tax sounds like a really bad idea by itself, mostly because it is way too hard to measure vehicle-miles traveled. Also, it taxes a compact car and a SUV at the same rate, which is dumb for environmental reasons and dumb for minimizing wear and tear of of roads.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
beber – The current gas tax is a flat tax. A gallons of fuel consumed tax can be a progressive tax. Pumps don’t know if you use 20 gallons of gas a year or 2000 but people who make laws care a lot about that that information and how it effects a range of policies.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Given the extreme inelasticity of gasoline demand, a gas tax would have to raise the price of gasoline by nearly double the current price to have any effect on an individual’s level of consumption.
If we want to fund roads (what the gas tax currently does), it makes the most sense to charge those who use it the most. This can be done concurrently with another type of tax that will alter an individual’s gasoline consumption, preferably a carbon tax.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
… but a carbon fee will alter individual gas consumption less than a gas tax will, since whether the rest is set by guessing at the required level or by auction, it will have the most impact on the most elastic demands, and gasoline consumption is a ways down the list in terms of elasticity of demand.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
some background on DOT interest in new funding alternatives, plus price and income elasticity in action
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pressroom/fhwa0826.htm
February 20th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
UNBELIEVABLY BAD IDEA
A few years ago in a previous career I worked on regulations to install GPS transponders on all commercial fishing trawlers in Alaska to monitor their compliance with closed fishing zones and that sort of thing. Just off the top of my head, here are the problems:
COST: There will be enormous equipment and maintenance costs with this idea. Equipment costs include the costs of the GPS transponders and the costs of retrofitting gas pumps at gas stations to take the data and charge the tax. Labor costs include the costs of installing every unit on every car and gas pump. And there will be enormous ongoing maintenance costs keeping all this equipment functioning properly.
TAX EVASION: There are 2 ways to do transponders. The easiest is to attach a stand-alone transponder to the car, probably wired to the ignition and powered by the car’s electrical system. The more complicated way would be to integrated it with the car’s odometer, which probably isn’t practical given that most cars aren’t designed for that. Either way, tax evasion would be trivially easy. GPS transponders receive radio signals from GPS satellites to fix location. Embedded with the GPS position signal is a time stamp so that a GPS transponder can record the time and location of the vehicle every second or so. From this we can get both speed and location (and elevation). But since GPS signals are just radio signals they are easily blocked. I’d be willing to be that 1 day after such a law goes into effect there will be dozens of ebay sites pop up selling GPS jamming devices that you can plug into your cigarette lighter and jam the receipt of your transponder. Turn on your jamming device when you leave the house in the morning and turn it back off when you park in the evening. The GPS doesn’t know your car moved. Integrating the GPS with the odometer would help solve this but I’m not sure that’s possible on most cars. Or, people will use the low-tech solution of just hitting it with a hammer. Then what? They pay no tax until it is fixed?
OUT OF AREA VEHICLES: Unless this is a universal national plan, there will always be large numbers of vehicles passing through each jurisdiction that aren’t local. If metro DC (or even the state of Virginia) institutes such a plan, they’ll miss every vehicle passing through with plates from some other state. Do they get to drive tax free? With the gas tax they pay every time they fill up no matter where that is.
PRIVACY CONCERNS: Sure, they say they aren’t going to collect the data. But what prevents police from subpoening your transponder to determine if you were at a particular crime scene, or even were just speeding. In theory, the police could set up a roadblock and just check every transponder and the GPS data would identify every vehicle that was speeding over the past 50 miles or whatever. It is a slippery slope. Once every car has a GPS transponder there will be immense pressure from law enforcement to have access to this data. And ordinary bureaucracies will also want access, such as traffic planning agencies.
And why are we abandoning the gas tax for this Rube Goldberg scheme? Because the gas tax is politically unpopular? For God’s sake. Wait until Big Brother starts installing tracking devices in all vehicles.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Were we talking about that?
You started talking about it. Matthew didn’t mention the energy costs of manufacturing cars or other transportation infrastructure at all.
Personally, I don’t [think the question is relevant]
Then why did you ask it?
presumably Portland has to choose between different infrastructure projects that could serve present and expected future transportation needs (of course that is an iterative process, since transportation infrastructure can induce transportation demand). It is in fact relevant to that discussion … how much energy it would take to construct a light rail line to serve those needs.
Yes.
But it would also be relevant to that discussion (which we weren’t having) how much energy it would take to construct an alternative, which I am assuming would likely be additional highway capacity of some sort.
But that’s not what you asked. You asked: “how much energy would it take to construct additional highways with the same capacity as the Portland North Interstate light rail line?” Transportation “capacity” is not the same thing as transportation “need.” So why is your question relevant?
February 20th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
The administration of this would also be a real pain.
February 20th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
thank you, kent
February 20th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Ezra Klein observes that part of the appeal here is that VMT has much less short-term variance than the price of gasoline, so you get a more stable tax base:
That’s misleading. And so is the chart. The tax base for the gasoline tax is the volume of fuel consumed, not the cost of that fuel.
For obvious reasons, the volume of fuel consumed over a given period is going to be a pretty close correlate to the number of miles driven over that period. That’s why the gas tax works so well.
February 20th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Writing from Taos, NM here…
You’re absolutely right. A miles-traveled tax is idiotic, because it discriminates against people who live in rural areas. It also does nothing to reduce consumption and penalizes people driving economical cars. What’s more, how the bloody hell could you ever enforce it?
An astoundingly stupid formulation, all the way around. Whoever mentioned this in the first place needs to be taken out, beaten with wet noodles, and sent on his way forever.
February 20th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I highly recommend Robert Rapiers’ comments on the issue, which are here: http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2009/02/this-is-good-idea.html
February 20th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
DTM,
First, cars and transportation infrastructure are two different things.
So what? Cars are part of our transportation infrastructure. You started talking about the energy costs of making cars. Matt didn’t even mention it.
So Matt did in fact introduce the concept of switching which cars we are using.
No he didn’t. He said nothing about “switching.” And nothing about the energy costs of producing cars. He simply compared the negative externalities of two different types of vehicle.
Portland wouldn’t be building transportation need–
I don’t know what “building transportation need” is supposed to mean.
But in order for a given amount of transportation infrastructure to serve a given amount of transportation needs, it has to have sufficient capacity. Hence my question.
But you haven’t shown that Portland “needs” all the capacity provided by the light rail line. Since demand is in fact much lower than capacity, it seems highly unlikely that the capacity is “needed.” So your question about the energy costs of building a highway with the same capacity is utterly irrelevant.
February 20th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Ray Ray is a dumb-dumb.
A VMT is a bad idea.
Public transit, unfortunately, is not a viable option for a large swath of Americans (though there are some who refuse to consider it, even if it is a good option).
So, for many Americans, switching to a more fuel efficient vehicle is the best route to reducing a big chunk of their carbon footprint.
Reduced fuel consumption from a hybrid, or even a normal engine in a higher-mpg vehicle, is an effective tax cut, you don’t pay the gas taxes on the marginal reduction in your fuel usage. Plus, fuel efficient vehicles tend to be lighter, and easier on infrastructure.
A VMT eliminates that benefit. You pay the same amount of taxes whether you’re drive 10,000 miles a year in a Prius or if you drive it in an H2.
A flat-out increase in the gas tax, combined with an additional tax credit for buying higher MPG vehicles would be a much better idea. Such a credit doesn’t even have to be for hybrids exclusively. You could hand out a credit for any vehicle rated over 35 mpg.
Heck, you could even go so far as to build in an effective penalty for buying a low mileage vehicle. Raise gas taxes, then give 20+ mpg vehicles a $1250 credit. 30+ mpg get $2500. 40+ get $4000.
Since most cars get 20-30 miles per gallon (I think), then people who buy a big SUV or other gas guzzler get a further additional penalty above and beyond the extra gas price. People hwo buy more fuel efficient vehicles – over 30 – get a small benefit, and high efficiency vehicles get a big benefit.
A similar credit should apply to businesses as well, perhaps by adjusting MACRS depreciation rules to the vehicle type by mpg rating – regular MACRS rules for under 20, Acclerate at 1.5 times for 20-30, Accelerated at double for 30+, and full depreciation in the year of purchase (with full carryforward allowances) on 40+.
February 20th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Public transit, unfortunately, is not a viable option for a large swath of Americans (though there are some who refuse to consider it, even if it is a good option).
I’d say transit is very rarely a “good” option and that even where it’s a “viable” one it is still much less attractive than driving, which is why so few people use it.
February 20th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
In order to even think about instituting a VMT, there would have to be a good way to collect the money in a timely manner.
That means inspections are essentially out, because that would levy a year’s worth of taxes at once. What happens when someone doesn’t have the money? (Of course, that depends on the amount charged. A quarter-cent per mile doesn’t add up to much, even when driving 40,000 miles per year.)
The other alternative would involve what was mentioned in the HuffPo, which would be to have a mandatory GPS transponder installed. There are all sorts of logistical problems with this idea, even outside of the obvious aversion to having a government monitored GPS in every car in America.
February 20th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
A distinct argument for shifting rapidly to primarily electric forms of transport is that the oil is fortunately running out. (Fortunately: probably before it kills us, though there’s a faint chance it may already be too late). The scarce remaining supply will have to go, whether by rationing or pricing, to uses where it is for now irreplaceable like aviation – and perhaps tunneling for rail lines.
O’Toole of Cato seems at a quick glance to ignore the impact of rail on settlement patterns and hence on average commuting times and distances. He also think it’s self-evident that a 192-year horizon is absurd. The London and Paris metros use tunnels opened in 1863 and 1900 respectively.
February 20th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
O’Toole of Cato seems at a quick glance to ignore the impact of rail on settlement patterns and hence on average commuting times and distances.
Commutes by transit take on average about twice as long as commutes by car. Commuter rail connecting suburbs to central cities may increase average commute times and distances by making it easier for central city workers to live in the suburbs.
February 20th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
100 miles in my 40mpg Smart (chosen to save energy/money) should not cost the same as 100 miles in an 8mpg Hummer. This approach does NOTHING to encourage greater efficiency.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
What it DOES do is penalize folks who live in exurbia, where housing prices have already plummeted. Now long term, that is actually not a bad thing (cf James Kunstler). But if one of your economic goals is reversing the housing meltdown….
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Devote all of the creative energy being wasted trying to avoid an explicit carbon tax into SELLING THE CARBON TAX.
And the irrational aversion to fuel price variation? Fix after-tax gas prices, and absorb the variation with the tax if the variability scares you so much.
February 20th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Orange County Progressive, we’ve spent some time looking at the failed toll road experiment in The OC.
There are tremendous transactional costs involved in the hardware and software for tracking, billing, monitoring, and enforcing per mile cost, compared to a very direct, simple, and completely existing system for collecting gasoline tax.
A successful system for tolling requires transponders, credit card processing with fees, customer service reps, service, provision for travelers, cameras and computers for enforcement, collection, transponder maintenance, accounting and auditing systems, management, consultants, software and software upgrades, the list goes on and on.
And if the charges are not billed on a continual basis, there are no price signals, and the price elasticity is much weaker, so the idea that you charge this with auto registration is absurd.
This is a stupid idea, and will prove far more unpopular than increasing taxes.
Nevertheless, there is an entire industry of suppliers and consultants who can profit from implementing systems like this, so the idea will never die, but rather continue to be resurrected in various forms.
An even better idea would be to include the price of no-fault insurance in the price of gas to make coverage universal and eliminate the transaction costs of the auto insurance industry. This has the benefit of pushing the true cost of car ownership into the variable pricing.
February 20th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
This is a stupid idea, and will prove far more unpopular than increasing taxes.
No, it’s a fundamentally good idea. Tolls are a more economically efficient method of pricing road usage than a gas tax or a VMT tax. As the cost of implementing toll roads falls, their use will almost certainly increase. Ultimately, almost road usage may be priced in this way.
February 20th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
I guess I’ll have to go back to driving a green machine.
February 20th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
DTM,
That is a funny notion of transportation infrastructure.
I don’t know why you think so. You do know what “infrastructure” means, right?
I’m crediting Matt with the intelligence to understand that not everyone has a Prius lying around.
I’m sure Matt understands that perfectly well. It doesn’t alter the fact that it was you, not Matt, who started talking about “switching” and the energy costs of manufacturing vehicles.
I don’t know either–that is why I couldn’t understand why you thought it was necessary to point out need and capacity are different things.
Since the phrase is yours, not mine, I don’t understand why you would use it if you don’t know what you mean by it.
I pointed out that need and capacity are different things because you asked “how much energy would it take to construct additional highways with the same CAPACITY as the Portland North Interstate light rail line?” and I didn’t understand why you think that question is relevant. You still haven’t explained why it’s relevant.
Why do you think the capacity provided by that … Portland light rail line exceeds expected demand?
Because Portland’s transportation policy is irrational.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
DTM,
Public transit isn’t the only way to reduce VMT. You can share more rides, change your shopping and entertainment patterns, and so on.
Many people “can” do those things, but the statement you’re responding to was about the “best” option not simply possible ones.
And again, the problem with switching vehicles ahead of schedule is that it comes with a carbon penalty of its own.
No it doesn’t. Manufacturing new vehicles emits carbon, but merely “switching” vehicles does not. And what is “ahead of schedule” supposed to mean? What “schedule?”
February 20th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
The National Transit Database does not break down light rail vehicle miles and passenger miles by line, but in 2007, the most recent year for which data is reported, Portland’s light rail vehicles, which have an average capacity of 177 passengers, carried just 28. That is, demand was just 16% of capacity. The other 84% was wasted.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
…what everybody else said. A per gallon tax on motor fuel is a good proxy for miles traveled. If they want to collect a mileage tax that could be done without GPS. Why does a vehicle miles traveled tax need GPS? Why do they care where we’ve been?
I can see where all-electric vehicles would avoid paying motor fuels tax but that problem could solved in much less invasive ways.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Why does a vehicle miles traveled tax need GPS? Why do they care where we’ve been?
Because road usage costs depend not only on the total amount of driving, but the particular roads the driver uses and the times of travel.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
DTM,
In the contexts of which I am aware, the definition of transportation infrastructure does not include mobile equipment with the exception of trains.
Then your awareness of contexts is very limited.
I honestly have no idea why you don’t see the connection.
I didn’t say I don’t see a connection. There’s obviously a connection. That doesn’t alter the fact that it was you, not Matt, who started talking about “switching” and the energy costs of manufacturing vehicles.
I’m sorry you didn’t understand my explanation, but unfortunately I don’t know how to make it any more clear.
You haven’t provided an explanation. All you said was “in order for a given amount of transportation infrastructure to serve a given amount of transportation needs, it has to have sufficient capacity.” That statement is obviously true, but it doesn’t explain why your question about the cost of building “additional highways with the same capacity as the Portland North Interstate light rail line” is relevant. You still seem to be confusing “need” (by which I assume you mean demand) with capacity.
I was looking for something directly supporting your claimed fact,
You’ll have to provide direct support for your claims of fact before you’re in a position to look for that.
I think I will let that other commentator speak for himself.
He already did. He said “best” option, not possible option.
Before adopting any particular public policy proposal, there will be a baseline schedule at which existing vehicles are going to be junked and replaced by new vehicles. Some possible public policies will have the likely effect of accelerating this schedule.
A policy change may affect the average operational lifetime of motor vehicles, but that’s not a “schedule.” And the mere act of “switching” to another vehicle doesn’t consume energy.
The problem is that even if the new vehicles are greener than the vehicles being junked, that acceleration of the replacement schedule will not necessarily have a net environmental benefit.
And the problem for policies that promote mass transit is that even if transit is greener than driving in operation, due to the energy costs of construction it will not necessarily have a net environmental benefit.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
beber, thanks for the info about Portland’s light rail system. What a monumental waste of money.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
I will terminate my participation in our conversation here.
Great.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
So true. Transit is only more attractive than driving in certain cities, and only then if you can take transit a relatively short distance to somewhere with very little parking, so that the faster transit time of driving is outweighed by the time and inconvenience required to find a parking spot.
In my experience, driving without parking (aka taking a taxi) is always faster than taking transit. I live in the downtown area of a city with an excellent public transit system and I have never found a route where taking transit would take less than double the time of taking a taxi. Buses and trains have to keep stopping, and must stop for longer than cars have to, and cannot reroute themselves if there is congestion along their normal route. (Godforbid you end up on the Metro when they have to single-track.)
February 21st, 2009 at 12:16 am
We’ll soon be able to utilize parking much more efficiently through electronic monitoring and reservation. There are already some pilot programs in operation. While they’re still on the road, or even before they leave home, drivers will be able locate and reserve the closest available parking spot to their destination using their cellphones. That not increases effective parking capacity, but drivers will be spared the stress of worrying about whether they’ll be able to find a place to park, and there’ll be less congestion caused by cars driving around looking for parking.
February 21st, 2009 at 1:34 pm
The bolded part of this statement is crucial, in that it helps explain why taxis are both readily available and transit is not particularly rapid locally.
Huh? The availability of transit is likely to be highest in downtown areas. Road congestion has no effect on subways, and at worst the same effect on buses/light rail and taxis. In fact, congestion is likely to slow taxis more than buses and light rail because the latter generally have preferential rights of way.
The paradigmatic example of where transit could be as fast or faster than driving or taxis is going from a point outside the central business district to a point within the central business district, or vice-versa
The bolded part of this statement is crucial. “Could be” does not mean “is.” I’m sure there are some trips for which transit is, under certain conditions, faster than driving or taxis, but they are rare.
February 21st, 2009 at 3:07 pm
DTM,
No. Have you?
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