Hahahaha, ambulance trains! I would predict that ambulances would cost a bit more due to higher fuel and registration costs, but I’d come out ahead because an ambulance ride is rare, compared to the income and property taxes that I pay every year. Especially since the overwhelmingly-likely way that I might break my leg is getting hit by a car. (They’d also have better response times with fewer cars on the streets.)
So we’ve agreed that private cars are a net loss to society, i.e. they cost more to operate than drivers receive in benefits. (This conclusion must follow from the idea that a user-pays system is untenable, rather than either a wash or a benefit to drivers.) We can bear that as a society, even if it’s grossly unfair, as long as the economic good times last. But the good times aren’t lasting; lots of communities are structurally bankrupt due to infrastructure obligations, primarily due to accommodating motor vehicles.
Walking and biking require no subsidies, by the way. One might argue that bike lanes are a subsidy, but they aren’t needed on streets with fewer, slower cars. Bike lanes are motor vehicle infrastructure.
I would predict that ambulances would cost a bit more due to higher fuel and registration costs, but I’d come out ahead because an ambulance ride is rare, compared to the income and property taxes that I pay every year.
So you think you’d come out ahead in this scenario where private cars don’t exist but roads still need to for emergency services?
So in your scenario where you as a taxpayer still have to pay for the roads to exist for things like emergency services (Invalidating your own entire original point, because you don’t seem too keen on my ambulance-train idea for some reason), but now there are no taxes being paid by the users of the road? No, you would just pay more comparatively as a non driver than the ex-drivers. The only way to come out ahead would be for emergency services, mail, and other logistics systems you rely on every day would to operate via means that don’t need to be subsidized, the only one of which are freight train tracks. (Passenger rail is out of the question in this scenario obviously).
Especially since the overwhelmingly-likely way that I might break my leg is getting hit by a car
Actually the overwhelmingly-likely way you might break your leg is by falling. Either from a height, at speed (like from your bike) or just plain old tripping).
Walking and biking require no subsidies, by the way.
Sure they do. Many sidewalks are maintained by your local government. The ones that aren’t, usually because they charge the homeowner with this responsibility, are often eligible for subsidies and financial assistance programs. If nobody is driving, taking busses, or passenger rail because they can’t be supported by a user-paying system, lots of people will need bike at a minimum, so just sidewalks won’t work. You’d need to maintain some sort of “road” to accommodate all the bikes. Theres really no way you come out of this on top. You either need to get really wacky and increasingly unrealistic to even make this idea work at all, or else it just doesn’t.
So you’d prefer to have less mobility, pay more in taxes, displace millions of low income rural people across the country, uprooting them from their homes and thrusting them into poverty? That would also effectively destroy the countries agriculture industry as an obvious knock-on effect which would make groceries even less affordable than they are today, overpopulate cities, make it much easier for the government to surveil and control your movement and ability to gather and demonstrate, etc etc.
Thats a no from me. You can keep your dystopia to yourself lmao
Hahahaha, ambulance trains! I would predict that ambulances would cost a bit more due to higher fuel and registration costs, but I’d come out ahead because an ambulance ride is rare, compared to the income and property taxes that I pay every year. Especially since the overwhelmingly-likely way that I might break my leg is getting hit by a car. (They’d also have better response times with fewer cars on the streets.)
So we’ve agreed that private cars are a net loss to society, i.e. they cost more to operate than drivers receive in benefits. (This conclusion must follow from the idea that a user-pays system is untenable, rather than either a wash or a benefit to drivers.) We can bear that as a society, even if it’s grossly unfair, as long as the economic good times last. But the good times aren’t lasting; lots of communities are structurally bankrupt due to infrastructure obligations, primarily due to accommodating motor vehicles.
Walking and biking require no subsidies, by the way. One might argue that bike lanes are a subsidy, but they aren’t needed on streets with fewer, slower cars. Bike lanes are motor vehicle infrastructure.
So you think you’d come out ahead in this scenario where private cars don’t exist but roads still need to for emergency services?
So in your scenario where you as a taxpayer still have to pay for the roads to exist for things like emergency services (Invalidating your own entire original point, because you don’t seem too keen on my ambulance-train idea for some reason), but now there are no taxes being paid by the users of the road? No, you would just pay more comparatively as a non driver than the ex-drivers. The only way to come out ahead would be for emergency services, mail, and other logistics systems you rely on every day would to operate via means that don’t need to be subsidized, the only one of which are freight train tracks. (Passenger rail is out of the question in this scenario obviously).
Actually the overwhelmingly-likely way you might break your leg is by falling. Either from a height, at speed (like from your bike) or just plain old tripping).
Sure they do. Many sidewalks are maintained by your local government. The ones that aren’t, usually because they charge the homeowner with this responsibility, are often eligible for subsidies and financial assistance programs. If nobody is driving, taking busses, or passenger rail because they can’t be supported by a user-paying system, lots of people will need bike at a minimum, so just sidewalks won’t work. You’d need to maintain some sort of “road” to accommodate all the bikes. Theres really no way you come out of this on top. You either need to get really wacky and increasingly unrealistic to even make this idea work at all, or else it just doesn’t.
I agree. Just ban private cars
So you’d prefer to have less mobility, pay more in taxes, displace millions of low income rural people across the country, uprooting them from their homes and thrusting them into poverty? That would also effectively destroy the countries agriculture industry as an obvious knock-on effect which would make groceries even less affordable than they are today, overpopulate cities, make it much easier for the government to surveil and control your movement and ability to gather and demonstrate, etc etc.
Thats a no from me. You can keep your dystopia to yourself lmao