It turns out that where the greatest amount of leverage is on the pollution problem is not the poor sap behind the wheel, forced there by poor leadership and planning, but rather in the interaction between the largest polluters and the government that regulates their behavior. The upside to wealth and production concentration is that there is an easy target. Regulations forcing auto manufacturers to produce exhaust systems that produce little more than water vapor at idle, smokestack scrubbers that remove carbon before it hits the atmosphere, and other similar measures are the reason the air is cleaner. It's got a long way to go, but it's not going to get there by having individuals trade pollution credits in order to make their morning commute.
Your user taxes serve only to convince yourself that you're attacking the real problem. Unfortunately, user taxes also undo a great idea: progressive taxation. For every fathead in a '98 Land Rover yacking on his cellphone that gets whacked with a $2 toll across a bridge, an underemployed single mother of four trying to scrape by in a '78 Pontiac that hasn't been tuned up in years gets hit as well.
We all know why the fathead is there, but why is the other? Because there is no alternative. Because the spineless leaders who should be providing transit alternatives for everyone are unable to find special interest groups to fund their campaigns in return for support of that issue.
Of course user taxes are politically expedient: they pit user against non user. They are perhaps even moral. But they are a distraction, and Trond has been recruited in the effort of distraction.
Wojtek Sokolowski says:
> The technology they proposed were scanners installed on bridges
> that are bottle necks of the local [SF Bay Area] transportation
> systems.
But of course the bridges are *not* the bottlenecks; the toll booths are the bottlenecks. Yes that's right, the toll collection process *causes congestion and pollution* and does so for $0.50 on the dollar collected. Recently the Bay Bridge was free for three days, and during rush hour there was no 30 minute backup leading to the bridge; traffic flowed smoothly. Amazing!
What kind of an impact do you think that has on 'standard of living' or even GDP were that to be true every day; of course we'd be left with the question of how to pay for the maintenance of the bridge, but I propose that paying for it with revenues generated by progressive taxes via the general fund would be far less costly and more in line with the overall goals of taxation. As a side effect, the question of how even an "anonymous" (ask the FBI about how much easier 'anonymous' phone cards makes their investigations) system might impact unregulated travel would be moot.
-----
Stop blaming individuals for what they are forced to do by lazy corrupt officials and their greedy industrialist partners.
/jordan