There is a current thread “What’s it going to take for HSR to succeed” it is now at about 73 responses and lots of lookers; and I did not want to be seen as trying to co-opt that Thread’
It is a topic(HSR) we have examined in this Forum in more than one visitation(some might say examined to death). It is a timely topic, but seems to get mired down in other issues and opinions and becomes a bother to follow.[2c]
We are going to get some kind of HSR in some areas, and in some corridors. It is politically popular, and the pols seem to play with it constantly; in one way or another. It will be difficult to realoize and to overcome all sorts of political and social obstacles as it comes about. Everything from NIMBY’s to who will run the Darn things, where and when, and so on,and on.
It is Passenger rail, and IMHO it is going to get here at some time. A key issue is going to be where the monies come from to pay for whatever system we get ,and in what form it arrives. There is also a current thread referencing the Billionaire financier Carl Ichan and his getting into the equipment building and providing aspects of this ‘new’ area of public transport; so I would guess that some necessary plans are afoot to start us down that slippery slope to HSR or more Passenger rail transport.
Here in our area (South Central Kansas) some time in the later part of 2009; there were advertisements for participants in a federally funded Uinv of Iowa study that was going to attempt to track with on-board monitors the traffic and driving patterns of this Region. The ulitmate goal was to find ways to be able to assess new road use taxes based upon usage of those roads and drivers trip needs and the States abilities to track usage (mileage) for the purpose of leveling use taxes.
It is an interesting study and the concept of a direct user fee (nice euphanism for tax) will be a sap for those who insist that they only want to pay taxes for those things that provide them a direct benefit.
The idea has been previously discussed here on the forum and my thought that conversion to another system to collect could be very expensive. In addition to the of the new black box that would have to be installed in every vehicle, the cost to install the infrastructure to collect the tax will probably bring the total to many billions.
Another wrinkle. The current fuel taxes, licensing and fees, and tolls laid directly on vehicle owner/operators only pay about 65% of the total cost to build and maintain our streets and highways. The balance is paid out of general tax revenues, property taxes and other miscellaneous revenue sources. If all the street and highway cost was paid directly by the users, there would sure be a big jump in the cost of operating a car.
Here in our area (South Central Kansas) some time in the later part of 2009; there were advertisements for participants in a federally funded Uinv of Iowa study that was going to attempt to track with on-board monitors the traffic and driving patterns of this Region. The ulitmate goal was to find ways to be able to assess new road use taxes based upon usage of those roads and drivers trip needs and the States abilities to track usage (mileage) for the purpose of leveling use taxes.
"…The University of Iowa Public Policy Center is conducting a federally funded study to see how the public responds to the new mileage-based road user charge system. We are looking for participants for this study to develop and test the best possible system for vehicle drivers. The study is very important, as this system could one day replace the gas system…
Participants in the study will have the on-board computer temporarily installed in their vehicles. This installation will not in any way damage the vehicle. The computer will store a record of charges due from road use. This record will be uploaded to a data processing center. If the system were to be put into practice, the center would then bill the vehicle owner. For the study, however, no money will be collected…"
And here is the title and link to the Univ of Iowa’s web site on the National study:
Project Overview National Evaluation of a Mileage-Based Road User Charge
If they do it like Europe, they’ll just tax the price of gasoline up to six bucks a gallon and use that for the transportation.
Of course if you live in a rural area with no public transportation and you have to drive everywhere, you will be paying for something that does nothing for you.
So, under “necessity of the trip”, if I want to make a trip to the hobby shop to get that new Lionel steam locomotive I want, do I get charged extra for that?
Very true, except the folks living in the wide open spaces probably won’t want to let go of the highway subsidy they’ve been receiving for years, courtesy of urban/suburban dwellers (see other posters). The idea of using a black box to make everyone pay is a typical libertarian ploy to eliminate government functions. By the same silly logic, someone who doesn’t see the need for a large, expensive standing military (George Washington and Eisenhower opposed this) should be excused of paying for it. In a broad, social contract way, we all benefit from many services from which we don’t receive direct services. Example: I (and many others on this forum) no longer have any children in school, yet the bulk of my property tax goes for education.
I would suspect (as we fast forward to a future time and date) that personal trips, now taken a whim to go anywhere, to do anything, will require an unaccustomed (in our current date and time) level of planning and coordination.
Bucyrus mentions personal transportation devices (PTD’s) for which we pay Driving Priviledge Deposits (DPD). I would further suspect that the cost of personal transportation will be almost prohibitedly expensive, to the point of sereral groups (Families, etc) sharing the same vehicle.
With each vehicle equipped with some sort of a GPS tracking device (plus maybe a government monitored meter system). A Federal (or State) Revenue Tracking Agency would be monitoring and whoever was registered in that particular PTD for that specific destination would receive a Revenue Billing covering that trip. ( envision something like a Phone BIll or Cable TV bill). With a Basic Charge and a whole host of ancillary charges.
The Sociological, and psychological implications of life in that Future stagger the imagination with all its possibilities of intrusion into every facet of our personal lives. Particularly, if one chooses to use any form of privately (?) managed transport to get about. Envision a world of Public Transportation utilizing anything from a Government owned PTD to Busses, and any form of tracked public transport imaginable; limited by the political imagination of Government Bureaucrats of the time- not to mention a vast set of user fees for those needing to get somewhere (costs/fees will be comensurate with the speed of travel desired).
Science Fiction??? Look at what has happened to personal transportation in just the last 100 years! You have to wonder if George Orwell was on to something,I cert
Another passenger rail-transportation-subsidy question-no government intervention, only private enterprise thread-my politics are better than your politics on R:NR (Rhetoric: No Resolve). Not a thread but another Merry Go Round! Henschel closed shop North Tonawanda years ago!!
The printed “Trains” magazine would also become quite expensive under this scenario as it would be deemed “unrequired” and thus be subject to a user fee for transportation, thus moving content to electronic delivery.
The movement is happening now…my three daily newspapers are barely the equivelent to one paper five years ago.
Gee, we havent even discussed health care yet, nor should we as that will certainly lead to lockage.
After reading the ‘big brother takes over’ scenario, I’m ROFLMAO!!!
Anyone who thinks that the rebellious, anti-government, computer-savvy population will simply stand there and let the government put them in a transportation straitjacket is hallucinating. Just as soon as it becomes clear that such a movement is beginning, the rebels will come up with any number of ways to trash the electronics - anything from disconnecting one unit and wiring around it to loading up the account of their favorite politician or activist with bogus fines and fees to electronically gutting the entire system.
If individual hackers can create havoc through the internet, just think of the fun they could have with a transportation control system they have reason to hate!
Te ability to tax transportation for its use seems to be real issue on the horizon, As the linked pieces indicate.
Many studies are mostly academic exercises, and go nowhere. Basicly, the linked studies show some efforts to identify hardware that can be used to create a data base that could be used as a resource for use taxation by Government entities. I thought that the thread by Bucycrus showed a lot of thought on the subject.
I started the thread hoping to read some feedback from some of the members here. There is a large body of knowledge represented here in this Forum; not only professional associations, but practical associations, and many members who read and keep up in their various areas of interest.
Hopefully, we do not fall into the trap of character assination or political points of view, maybe we can be fortunate to discuss this topic without the pitfalls,although they are on the edge of the conversation.
We are not going to resolve this issue here, but maybe we can gain some thoughtful input as to this looming possibility of changing the way we all get about this country, and how we pay for that priviledge. You seem to have some pretty strong ideas as to what is going to happen to passenger rail. I wish you’d share those ideas, Thanks.
Back in my palmier days I hung around certain groups of social activists who, believe it or not, did actually think along the lines of a means of transportation control Bucyrus is mentioning here. These guys had joined several causes such as environmentalist groups as well as some other groups allied against the BIG OIL “conspiracy” and spent a lot of time coming up with things like this precisely for “social control”. You should have seen some of the rants that were printed out in our mimeographs! OY!!
Now—some have jumped on this as a kind of strawman arguement but here we see that some groups did take it seriously enough to start writing about this in the open
The question I would ask about the “65%” figure is whether this is a average of the cost recovery across all highway users, as I suspect it is. I can’t readily lay my hands on them, but I’ve seen studies showing that autos do pay their full costs, and then some. But the heavier vehicles don’t even come close. If this is the case, what’s happening is that auto users are cross subsidizing the larger vehicles, but the total amount collected in taxes is less than the total amount required. It does make sense, as the infrastructure required for light vehicles such as autos wouldn’t be as expensive as an infrastructure designed for heavy vehicles, and it wouldn’t wear out nearly as quickly as roads that are beaten up by heavy truck traffic. I’ve seen AAHSTO studies (I probably got the acronym wrong) showing that road degredation increases exponentially with vehicle weight (I vaguely recall&
AASHTO - American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials.
Not a “study” that compares road damage of cars vs. trucks. That might imply there’s some question about the matter. There is no question. The matter is proven by a major body of accepted research backed by several decades of real-world testing and overwhelming emprical data that captures the disproportionate wear on highways of trucks.
The unit of measurement for road damage is the ESAL - Equivalent Single Axle Load:
An 18,000 lb. truck axle = 1.0 ESAL
A typical car axle = 0.002 ESAL
A 24,000 lb. truck axle - 3.0 ESAL
As you can see, it is not linear with weight: it is exponential: highway wear is related to the load on the axle by a power of four. Thus, if a car creates $1 worth of damage in X highway miles, an 18,000 lb.
AASHTO - American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials.
Not a “study” that compares road damage of cars vs. trucks. That might imply there’s some question about the matter. There is no question. The matter is proven by a major body of accepted research backed by several decades of real-world testing and overwhelming emprical data that captures the disproportionate wear on highways of trucks.
The unit of measurement for road damage is the ESAL - Equivalent Single Axle Load:
An 18,000 lb. truck axle = 1.0 ESAL
A typical car axle = 0.002 ESAL
A 24,000 lb. truck axle - 3.0 ESAL
As you can see, it is not linear with weight: it is exponential: highway wear is related to the load on the axle by a power of four. Thus, if a car creates $
What I was saying is that the total revenue collection from taxes directly applied to all users is only 65% of the total expenditures on streets and highways. You might be correct that an increase on fees applied to vehicles other than automobiles, essentially trucks, might be needed for a closer tie between usage and cost. Of course, the downside to that is that taxes charged directly to the carrier of goods is ultimately passed on to the consumer of those goods. In some ways that might be considered a hidden tax on all purchaser of goods, even those folks who never venture outside of the doors to their home. Not to say that thats bad. I can’t figure any other way for motor carriers to recover their costs, unless one expects truck owners and drivers to cover their costs from their income from their gold mines, oil wells and lottery winnings.
I would still have to wonder if a “fair share” increase on trucker taxes would be sufficient to cover the rest of the full highway cost and leave no need for an increase on the direct taxes on automobile owners and drivers. (Edit) After reading RWM’s post above perhaps a “fair share” tax on truckers would make up the difference between direct taxes and total costs.
By the way, I always find the grumbling about gas taxes a somewhat humorous form of denial. In Wisconsin, the gas tax is 51.3 cents per gallon and since I get about 20 miles per gallon, that makes my tax cost something under 3 cents per mile. Now compare that to the Internal Revenue Services’ figure of 55 cents per mile as the average cost of owning and operating an automobile. Bet if you told the average American that we’ll get rid the gasoline tax and drop the auto registration fee to the cost of mailing you the plates or annual sticker and replace it all with a highway user fee of just 3.5 cents per mile- “Where do I sign up? I’ll take two.”
There is no reason that it can’t. But. If you have a bureaucrat who is something of a control freak he might have an excu—er—reason that’s it! whew![:-^] to do both regardless of what we may think.
The transponders can be loaded up with all manner of things as well as cash. That is where we have to be careful. An activist style government may have an agenda that we may end up paying for right across the board.
Indeed, that is part of the vision that I outlined on page 1 where I refer to it as a Driving Privilege Deposit (DPD). There is no way they are going to put all of this control into motor vehicles and then assume the cost of billing drivers and hope they pay. But this will become about so much more than just taxation for roads.
This will be micromanaging your driving to the extent that you might as well be riding a train or bus. Much of the traffic law enforcement will be taken over by this automatic system as well. If you run a red light, the system will know it and instantly deduct the fine from your pre-paid account. When your account gets to zero, the system disables your engine. This will transform the driving experienc