Comment 108711

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted February 03, 2015 at 13:19:12 in reply to Comment 108703

Since we are a capitalist, market-driven society, why don't we shift the entire cost of the roads to the users?

Price roads to recover the total cost, including policing and emergency services.

EVERYONE would pay (transit, goods movement, emergency vehicles) so everyone would be charged a fair amount, regardless of whether you drive your own car or not. The prices of goods and services would reflect the cost of transport.

Prices would be according to gross vehicle weight (to account for wear and tear on the roads and space taken), road location and time of day to optimize the use of scarce road resources using price signals and market forces.

So that's an alternative to the current system for financing municipal roads funded essentially 100% out of property taxes regardless of how much different people use the roads. Maybe we could run the system at a profit and use the excess to pay for the health care costs of all those killed and injured on the roads. Even less subsidy!

There. That's fair and no one is subsidizing anyone else.

Or, we could share costs, maybe 50/50 like we do now with transit.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2015-02-03 13:27:49

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