85 per cent of all journeys by car

[Max B. Sawicky]

I don't doubt this at all, but cross-subsidies can go
in any direction, modally speaking, depending on who's
going where.  In D.C., the poor folks need buses, and
bus service stinks.  Metro is relatively well-supported,
and of course auto travel is subsidized too.  In NYC
when I lived there, 25 years ago, it seemed like
long-haul buses for suburbanites were well appointed,
and the subways that I rode to work every day were the
third circle of Hell.  (not because of violence, which
I never witnessed, but w/respect to amenities)

There is a good case for free urban mass transit, but
the effect it would have on highway congestion is
problematic.  There is the well-known Anthony Downs
theorem that cars will always fill up the highways
to take up any slack created by policy measures.

The late and lamented Nobelist Bill Vickrey foresaw
a scheme to charge drivers with automatic scanning
devices, depending on where they drove (and when,
and how often) and send them a bill each month.  This was
thirty years ago.  We're at the point where they
are used for toll-taking.

The regressivity of the gas tax is true but irrelevant;
any such tax could be compensated for in the income tax.
How effective it would be is another matter.

mbs

Car drivers pay road tax, petrol tax and now mooted congestion charges.
They are subsidising the middle class professionals who commute by rail
from the South East to London's financial district. As has already been
pointed out, the petrol - sorry gasoline - tax is a regressive tax on
working families.
--
James Heartfield
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