In principle, paying for roads via usage fees is a good idea. But it should've been done at the beginning, not after people made their where-to-live decisions and invested 6-figure sums in houses. |
Posted on 11/23/2008 9:33:02 AM PST by Lorianne
An elaborate modeling of housing prices and traffic congestion in cities across the US concludes that financing roads with comprehensive congestion priced tolls rather than taxes rather would provide major benefits in reducing housing prices and sub-optimal densities - 'sprawl' - as well as reducing the familiar delays and uncertain travel times. Moving to tolls or other direct road use charges will significantly improve overall welfare, economic efficiency and standards of living, the study says. Authors are Ashley Langer University of California Berkeley and Clifford Winston, Brookings Institution. The study is reported in Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs 2008.
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The overall effect of comprehensive road pricing managed for free flow is likely to be decreased housing prices, higher density living especially in middle suburbs. Pricing encourages people to live somewhat closer to their work.
(Excerpt) Read more at tollroadsnews.com ...
NO to toll roads! Don’t we EVER learn (shaking head)?
Cost of living increase? uhhh no thanks.
BS!
I think they’re claiming housing cost would DECREASE which would mean cost of living decrease.
However, I think they are wrong about the decrease.
Yeah, let’s move everyone into the gerbil cages of high crime, poverty, restrictive city government tyranny and corruption. Save the wide open spaces for our apotheosis styled secular liberal “betters”.
/sarc
clearly, this is nothing but a retroactive tax hike. Areas developed with free roads, and now tax people without recourse to get to work/shop/etc w/o paying a toll. It’s a money maker for the gvt
And what do they mean ‘sub optimal’? If the people like living in their out lying towns, what makes their choices and utility ‘suboptimal’?
So now we’re to have a bad case of high-rise cabin fever?
In laymen’s terms; Cram everybody into big cities where they are easier to control. Then charge more for parking to force them into mass transit.
That’s the driving force behind such nonsense; drive the population into concentrated pockets and they are much easier to ‘manage’.
I think they’re smoking a whole lot of crack.
Sub-optimal density, huh? You know that back yard you have? Buh Bye!
De-populate those "red" areas on the map, and relocate everyone to the "blue" areas.
I could swear it said “urban trolls.” I wondered what they had planned!
I've seen tolls used once with much success: The Denver-Boulder turnpike was a toll road until it was paid for.
In principle, paying for roads via usage fees is a good idea. But it should've been done at the beginning, not after people made their where-to-live decisions and invested 6-figure sums in houses. |
Seems to me, that rather than forcing people into town, it would encourage decentralization even more, as businesses move to where the good people live, leaving more urban blight behind...
Pure social engineering to avoid “white flight” and increase school integration. This is done under the name of congestion tolls and raising capital for inner city infrastructure.
It is based on the assumption that people are indifferent to tolls, lines at toll booths and where they live. I avoid tolls whenever possible and want to live in safe areas and not in or next to the inner city. More government cramdown!
Why do Libs tax?
We know why Libs spend, they spend to buy votes. But why do they tax?
I believe that Libs have almost a psychological need to tax. This need is the natural expression of their primal urge which is, above all else, to control. This urge, in turn, is the natural and secular result of their understanding of God and man. Liberals do not believe in God or rather they are in ceaseless rebellion against any conception which hampers their need to play God. The Bible describes the stiffnecked Israelites in a way which could be applied in modern dress to today's liberals. It matters not whether the egg or the chicken came first, whether liberals are in rebellion against God because they would be God, or whether liberals need to play God because they are in rebellion against God. The end result is the same: Liberals are psychologically impelled to shape the world, that is, to control it utterly.
Hence the need to tax because the power to tax is one of the most potent levers of control. In fact, it has been said that the power to tax is the power to destroy. Do you want to discourage tobacco use because you believe it is harmful? Tax it. Likewise alcohol? Tax it. Are you jealous of rich people? Tax their money away from them and distributed to others more to your taste. Do you think that society is foolish and mis-spends its money on video games and golf memberships? Tax that money and spend it on fighting AIDS in the ghetto. The list is endless. We conservatives tend to assume that liberals tax in order to fund their schemes but I am asserting that imposing taxes is yet another way of imposing their will. Liberals want to control you and your children in every phase of your existence and the imposition of taxes is but one more rein running from their hands to the bit in your mouth.
Have you considered that liberals tend to impose taxes on matters that are otherwise not under their control? Often they can induce conservatives to join with them in imposing taxes on matters which are perceived to cause harm such as alcohol and tobacco. They can get conservatives to join with them to impose taxes to fund matters which are perceived to be beneficial such as road taxes to build roads. In the world of the leftist, however, benefits and harms are perceived through a different prism. To a Lib, that which is not under his control is pernicious.
The liberal's visceral need to control finds expression in policy areas other than taxes. He wants your children in his school system and not at home with you to be homeschooled. He wants to create compulsory national service where he can continue the indoctrination of your children which our well-meaning liberal has commenced in your child's nursery school. He wants to deprive you of the power of armed self defense and force you to submit to the police power of the state. A homeschooled child is a child out of control. An armed citizen is an independent creature, in the liberal's perception, he is out of control.
Here in Germany the appellation "cowboy" is an insult especially when applied to an American. Cowboys make the archetypal figure of a free man. He decides for himself what is right and wrong and defends the right himself, with his own gun, without resort to the state, he mounts his horse and rides off into the fastness of the Prairie without restraint or dependence upon the state. No one knows where he came from, no one knows where he is going, no one dares ask the particulars of his biography, he is anonymous. He is beyond the control of the liberal. Taxes? He don't pay no stinking taxes!
The modern equivalent of the cowboy is a private pilot in civil aviation. He fires up his airplane and flies off and he need not file a flight plan-an omission which always distresses the media in the event of an accident - and while he is in the air, he is as free as the cowboy and his destination is limited only by the range of his aircraft. Liberals favor commercial aviation where we are all herded into these flying capsules like cattle onto a truck whose departure and destination as well as altitude are all controlled by the apparatus of the state. Similarly, liberals would prefer to see us in trains or buses rather than in our own autos. An SUV, gasp, can even drive off-road and is thus even more out of control. An all-terrain vehicles and snow machines are more capable of ranging free. A mounted rider can explore yet more of our national forests. Only a backpacker -virtually the only visitor liberals would welcome to the backcountry of our national forests- can get into more remote areas but he is limited in his numbers by the practical limitations of carrying his kit. One can predict the degree of hostility to modes of transportation by the degree of freedom they represent for the masses.
So taxes are one more tool which liberals use to bring us to heel, or, to redemption and salvation although it would never occur to them to use those words. Taxes not only move money around in ways that liberals like, tax schemes also change free men's behavior.
They obviously need a sales brochure....
“Just tell us what result is needed, and we'll create a scientific model to prove your point.”
...one of the downsides of the computer age...
And it’s the taxpayers who PAID for the construction of those roads in the first place...
“clearly, this is nothing but a retroactive tax hike. Areas developed with free roads, and now tax people without recourse to get to work/shop/etc w/o paying a toll. It’s a money maker for the gvt”
The mistake government always makes is to assume people are “without recourse”.
When the economy rebounds, don’t look for businesses to grow or reopen where tolls must be traversed by employees. Au contraire, don’t be surprised when the favor is returned by suburbs as a way to keep city-dwellers and the crime that is associated with them where they live.
“I’ve seen tolls used once with much success: The Denver-Boulder turnpike was a toll road until it was paid for.”
That is a scenario that I could support. I do NOT support charging us to drive on roads we already paid for and maintain with our tax dollars.
Dumb nitwits. The same amount of traffic will happen on any given day and all you have done with toll is push most of the traffic on surface streets. Where in the hell did we get these nitwits. And please don’t give me this rapid transit BS.
Here in maryland democrats are putting in radar speed traps to collect more tax money, but give drivers licences to illegals, but have huge fines for giving/selling alcohol to minors. We are directed along the liberal path.
we may also see a lot more telecommuting. People figure out ways to adapt
Sounds like BS to me. It will likely to cause business to move out of the cities, increasing sprawl and causing more urban decay.
Well, in that sense, I guess it would make housing ‘more affordable’ once the productive people and businesses leave.
Or they could move the place of employment out to where the employee works...
I thought telecommuting was already here, and spreading. A landline or cell wireless connection and the Internet were supposed to take care of the problem of physically moving a person to the place of employment at the beginning of the shift, and back home at the end of the shift. Gets up, still in pajamas, sits down to the console, and starts being productive right away in the morning, without stopping to pick up the rest of the carpool or going into the coffee drive-through.
Mayor Doucheberg here in NYC is now going to put tolls on all the bridges into Manhattan. Putting tolls on the Williamsburg and Brooklyn bridges, which are already crammed with traffic during the rush hours will cause traffic nightmares for commuters as toll traffic either backs up unto the BQE or backs up into lower Manhattan.
Even worse will be the effect on the 59th St Bridge (Queensbourough Bridge) which is already is totally Fu*ked up beyond control during rush hour.
You'd no longer be paying to maintain them with your tax dollars, since the tolls would cover that.
I don't see the problem with tolls (except for the delays they can cause), since it seems better to make the people who actually use the roads pay for them than to dump the cost on taxpayers. As it is taxpayers are effectively subsidizing drivers.
“You’d no longer be paying to maintain them with your tax dollars, since the tolls would cover that.
You’d be paying a LOT more.....particularly if you work in the city. I have several relatives who have to live with toll roads. Compare how much you’d actually pay with taxes in a year vs. what you’d pay for the tolls....even if you pay for your electronic sensor for the entire year (to benefit from the discount).
Wouldn't the whole point be to discourage traffic into Manhattan to reduce the congestion on the streets there? I don't know much about traffic in the rest of the city, but daytime traffic in Midtown is unbelievably bad, and I think they need to do something about it.
Obviously those who commute in do pay more since they’re now paying for the entire cost of the roads, but those who live in the city or those who live and work in the suburbs would pay less since their taxes would no longer go toward roads they rarely use.
Here’s the deal in Illinois: ALL of us pay taxes for highways, but 99% (ok I’m exaggerating, but not by much) of it goes to the money sinkhole called CHICAGO. Think about it - millions of people jammed into one small area, vs. the rest of the state that is very rural and spread out.
As far as I’m concerned, they can ring-fence the collar counties and charge whatever they want to get in. Toll roads, urban commuter charges, charge whatever they want to! Hell, go ahead and form their own spin-off state! At least that way what is laughingly referred to as “downstate” might get a fair share of what we pay for instead of driving on crumbling potholed roads just so Blago and his pals can build another 10 lane highway for people who don’t want to take the train.
“And if we want a bridge there, we’ll build it ourselves”.
Drivers already pay for roads through state and Federal taxes on gas and diesel fuel, cars and trucks, and tires (as the National Interstate Act of 1956 intended).
I as a taxpayer pay for other people’s stuff that I never use: Amtrak, urban buses and subways, schools, you name it.
Toll roads on top of the existing taxes is not fair.
It would allow local pols to set up tolls for their benefit, not for road improvement. Driven the Mass Pike lately?
Obviously....(and it depends on where the suburbs are).
Former mayor of Milwaukee (John Nordquist) is one of those central planning guys. He currently works at some think tank in Chicago that's focused on the issue.
During his tenure as mayor, his anti-freeway ideas were practiced. Many businesses moved to the burbs & rush hour is no longer into the city in the morning, out to the burbs in the evening.
A lot of money has been funneled into the city center & a lot of yuppies, AKA DINKs have moved in, but it is much like a little island surrounded by growing blight in much of the rest of the city.
Meanwhile, they've been pushing for trains & are trying their best to create an unelected regional board for transportation, hoping to drag all of the burbs in to pay for mass transit in the city.
Good points (you beat me to the notion that I pay for many things I don’t use)!
I really like your tag line. ;-)
You believe gas taxes would be repealed? LOL Wisconsin's governor wouldn't have the highway fund to raid to prop up general budget shortfalls...
Thanks!
(Tagline courtesy of another Freeper.)
I as a taxpayer pay for other people’s stuff that I never use: Amtrak, urban buses and subways, schools, you name it.
Bingo!
Desertion of corporate residency seen for ‘urban’ areas, negating the impact of ‘tolls’ for its workers who will ever-increasingly migrate away from ‘urban’ areas.
Take a trip through Chicago - it’s one big toll road, and it isn’t cheap. That ought to cure anybody of the desire for a toll road of any kind.
In case they haven’t noticed there is a huge problem with real estate prices being TOO LOW right now. And they want to drive them down more? You don’t suppose the people who did this “study” had an agenda, do you?
That’s what I thought too. Furthermore, the article doesn’t make a good case for what they claim.
Higher tolls will simply discourage people from taking jobs in the city core, thus accelerating population flight from the urban wastelands.
These ‘Urban Planners’ (read: Socialists) never get anything right. Nothing but pie in the sky idealism.
Notice the increased use reliance of ‘computer models’ also in their debates...Seems their computer models are about as reliable as Vegas Slot machines.
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The housing market is in the tank. So here come some liberal Democrats with a plan to decrease housing prices (except in the areas where they live, i.e. urban condos and townhouses, the prices of which will increase.)