Car owners are already hugely subsidized. Toll roads cover only a tiny fraction of road maintenance. The rest is paid by taxpayers, even those who do not drive.
The “farebox recovery ratio” of a road is usually zero. Roads are funded through taxes (with the exception of some toll highways). Why can’t transit be the same?
There's not only the gas tax to think about, but also that every road also enables the truck that inevitably delivers goods to your grocery store to get there.
The subway system is only possibly used by those who live near a station and are traveling near another station, and tourists.
Only a fraction of the US population work and thus commute. Of those that commute, that 80% do not have equal road usage. Even within that community, there is a subsidy going on. So, yes, there is a ton of subsidization going on (and this is not always bad)
> Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly.
I think this is the point, notably because those 'indirect' payments are also payed by non-drivers as well. Hence, the subsidy.
Even within drivers, some are subsidized by others (let alone non-drivers). To illustrate, first: most road wear is from weather [1]. This means any two lengths of similar roads will have about the same upkeep cost regardless of usage (not quite true, but if taking 30 people vs 300, it's about true).
Let's consider 10 miles of road to suburb A with 30 drives, and 10 miles of different but similar road to suburb B with 300 drivers. The city will pay for upkeep of 20 miles, collecting various taxes from 330 people, and those taxes are then spent evenly across those 20 miles. To do this proportionately, without any subsidies, the group of 300 could arguably have those various taxes reduced for them only by 90% and increase the taxes of the 30 people 9 fold. That would be an equitable upkeep system.
The fact the road upkeep payment per person is not equitable, means there is a subsidy (and this situation is not always a bad thing)
> Only a fraction of the US population work and thus commute.
The fraction that doesn't work is either too young to pay taxes anyway, or they had used road commutes before they retired. Everybody else are within the margin of error.
Additionally, if you are not using a car for commute, you're likely to be in the lower tax brackets and thus not paying (much) in taxes anyway. I had a paper looking at exact numbers bookmarked, but I lost it somehow.
So in practice, car owners don't get substantially subsidized by transit users. While the inverse is overwhelmingly true, transit users are massively subsidized by car users.
> This means any two lengths of similar roads will have about the same upkeep cost
This is simply incorrect. Vehicles cause stresses in the concrete, allowing fractures to accumulate, and they also directly wear down the pavement. The weather then amplifies the damage, especially in areas that experience frequent zero crossings.
Couple do things since I actually live in New York
> The fraction that doesn't work is either too young to pay taxes anyway, or they had used road commutes before they retired. Everybody else are within the margin of error.
If you buy anything anywhere in NY you’re paying taxes.
> Additionally, if you are not using a car for commute, you're likely to be in the lower tax brackets and thus not paying (much) in taxes anyway. I had a paper looking at exact numbers bookmarked, but I lost it somehow
In NY this wouldn’t suffice for the income level (6 figures bracket) we’re talking about. it’s infeasible for a majority chunk of residents living in Chelsea , Hell’s kitchen, Upper East Side , FIDI, etc, to own a car since the cost to have it , pay the insurance, and store it working make economical sense. Especially so since if you’re affording to live there you’re job is also on the island.
It a bell curve where the beginning are the low income residents living in Harlem and the outer boroughs that necessitate having a car (with the space to accommodate for it and wouldn’t be hit by congestion pricing), the middle curve of 6 figures+ making residents that would be in the best position to not have a car, and then the rich or dual income families that has the ability to pay this congestion tax anyway.
> Additionally, if you are not using a car for commute, you're likely to be in the lower tax brackets and thus not paying (much) in taxes anyway.
To the contrary, those in the highest income brackets are the ones most likely to walk to work,[1] and also the most likely to be paying more in taxes.
70% of the tax burden is carried by people making $120k/year or more. The argument that the poor pay more taxes than the rich is mental gymnastics with back injury. Similar to how some believe the rich get richer taking something the poor didn't have in the first place. It is all just class warfare used to divide and conquer.
"Low-income Americans face higher payroll tax rates than rich Americans. Americans with less than five-figure incomes pay an effective payroll tax rate of 14.1 percent, while those making seven-figure incomes or more pay just 1.9 percent.Low-income Americans face higher payroll tax rates than rich Americans. Americans with less than five-figure incomes pay an effective payroll tax rate of 14.1 percent, while those making seven-figure incomes or more pay just 1.9 percent."
While the absolute numbers for the rich paying a lot more in taxes is true, when looking at effective tax rates, the rich are not actually being taxed enough for there to be equity in taxation.
"Billionaires in the US pay a smaller tax rate than most teachers and retail workers. "
"According to a 2021 White House study, the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the US paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2 percent. For comparison, the average American taxpayer in the same year paid 13 percent."
One more thing that occurred to me, most US retirees still own cars, and still pay car tabs! That is kinda the issue, payment for driving is spread across US society rather than being the burden of those that use cars.
A strict counter-example, myself, I pay a _lot_ in property taxes and put almost zero wear on the roads. When I did last own a car, I was averaging about 500 miles per year.
This is really the point. Drivers must be subsidized because the cost of driving does not go up linearly with miles driven. For example, if someone just spent 24 hours driving rather than say 4 hours, their payments for driving upkeep does not go up 6 fold (they do not pay 6 times on car tabs, 6 times on car tax, 6 times on property taxes, etc.. they only pay gas tax as extra).
Now, this is kinda a tired argument, because it then goes to, "well, even if you don't use the roads, you still benefit." I sure do. Though, the issue is that the way things are incentivized, by spreading costs across everyone, we are put in a situation where otherwise unsustainably low density areas become incentivized.
Which goes exactly to the point of charging people to drive through downtown. Seemingly it is a very rare example of a disincentives to car culture. The argument that mass transit is subsidized seems a bit obvious (and is it is true that mass transit is very subsidized), though.. given all the incentives to drive, not having to pay the full cost per mile traveled as those costs are spread out - why the hell not drive everywhere? Why at all would anyone take mass transit when the cost to drive 5000 miles compared to 500 miles are so similar.
Let's look at the math:
Driving 5000 miles (my last car got about 400 miles to the tank, at about 13 gallons), requires about 130 gallons of gas. At about $0.50 per gallon for tax, that is a payment of just $65 dollars in tax to go 10 times further. Car tabs alone are over $100 in WA state.
This hopefully illustrates really easily that users of the road are not paying proportionate to their usage of the road. This is a mixed bag, as I would very much not want farmers to have to pay the full cost of the roads connecting them to the overall transit grid. Yet, because how costs are shared, driving in a lot of ways is "too cheap" and the overwhelming incentive is to (unsustainably) drive everywhere. Further, because everything in the US is built with driving in mind, it makes it so everyone has to drive, whether they would want to or not. This is compounded in city policy with zoning laws that force there to be parking, force residential to be segregated from commercial that would otherwise for walkable neighborhoods. All that is to say, it's the second order effects of how we pay for driving that creates quite a number of sustainability issues and really diminish the quality of life we could have (quieter, less polluted, less time spent in commute, less time spent in traffic jams).
> The fraction that doesn't work is either too young to pay taxes anyway, or they had used road commutes before they retired. Everybody else are within the margin of error.
The argument that either everyone was already a tax-paying driver or will soon be one is hard to believe. Without data, I won't take that at face value.
Even that 'margin of error,' I think needs some examination. Any 'margin of error' means there is a subsidy. Notably, drivers are simply not paying the full cost of their road usage. If so, it would not matter at all whether there were retirees or not, the costs would be payed for entirely by drivers. That is not the case, ergo, drivers are subsidized. Now, let's argue about what that percentage is.
> So in practice, car owners don't get substantially subsidized by transit users.
This is moving the goal posts as far as I can tell. The statement is that car owners get subsidized by everyone else, not just transit users.
> So in practice, car owners don't get substantially subsidized by transit users. While the inverse is overwhelmingly true, transit users are massively subsidized by car users.
“Cars usually do not have that much loading impact on the road,” said John Mueller, a DOT Highway Mainten-ance Engineer. “The main source is the water that sits in the joint that freezes and thaws.”
"It is once concrete deteriorates that traffic loads pack a punch. Large trucks can accelerate the process."
Thus, you have it the other way round. Weather deteriorates roads, then it is traffic that amplifies that damage.
We can still make the example more extreme, let's say that group of 300 are 1 mile away, and half take light rail. At this point, it's very clear that the 30 people living 10 miles away (perhaps even 50 miles!), are being subsidized considerably.
Regarding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law, I think I understand what you are trying to get at. In my example, I was trying to keep things about equal and was assuming that both groups of people were driving similar cars. I would suspect in most realistic examples that are similar, that group that is 10 or 50 miles away are probably driving larger vehicles (and maybe farm equipment & logging trucks are more frequently on those roads).
Cutting to the chase though, we don't have to argue to what extent drivers are subsidized, there are numbers for that:
> A report published in the April of 2022 issue of Ecological Economics teased out the lifetime cost of driving a small car to be roughly $641,000, with society subsidizing about 41% of that cost. [1][2]
Then there are more subsidies at play to keep oil cheap and gasoline artifically low in price, as well as the cost of purchasing cars, and the cost of parking is amortized to property owners [3]
You certainly can subsidize large populations because taxes cover all income but are being used specifically to encourage just one more of transportation. If driving wasn’t so heavily subsidized, people would use other options because the true cost is much higher than what people see directly – it’s not just roads but also things like below market rate storage, zoning rules requiring owners to build more car storage than they necessarily want, and especially not requiring drivers to carry insurance sufficient to cover the full cost of their mistakes and decisions.
> You certainly can subsidize large populations because taxes cover all income but are being used specifically to encourage just one more of transportation.
It can be argued that rich people subsidize poor, since they pay more taxes. However, that's pretty much it.
Transit users in the US overwhelmingly do NOT subsidize car users. While the inverse is true, transit users on average don't pay even half of the true cost of transit. The rest is born by everyone.
You’ve had multiple people tell you so at this point I would highly suggest doing some homework before getting angry. Here’s a summary:
* Roads are paid for around 50% by general tax revenue. Thar keeps the upfront price of driving low compared to alternatives and decades of studies have found this creates a massive number of extra car trips. If we used more efficient transportation modes we would also not need the massive highway projects sold to taxpayers as rush hour alleviation but delivering only more traffic thanks to the principle of induced demand.
* Most cities subsidize street parking below the cost of providing it, much less market rates. This encourages driving but takes a significant amount of public space and generates a huge amount of congestion and pollution (emissions and noise) as people circle looking for subsidized spots rather than paying for garage parking.
* Most cities require minimum amounts of parking to be provided for solo drivers even if the owner of a property doesn’t want it (we require bars to encourage drunk driving!). Everyone pays more for that even if they don’t drive because they’re paying for more construction and maintenance and many businesses have less revenue generating space because, for example, instead of a restaurant having tables for 40 more patrons they have parking for 8 vehicles. Since housing is required to have at least 1-2 spaces per home, a given piece of land will house fewer people and many large projects require expensive garages, which you’re paying for whether or not you want it and traffic is also a common argument against the density which would lower costs. Making housing more expensive causes more people to need longer commutes and the consequent lower quality of life.
* Car owners are not charged for the negative health impacts of driving - a leading cause of asthma and all kinds of cardiovascular conditions – or to compensate city residents for the quality of life reductions their commuting causes.
* Drivers are not charged for the expensive city infrastructure created to protect pedestrians and bicyclists from unsafe driving. All of that concrete, flexposts and barriers, various pedestrian light systems, etc. are car infrastructure.
* Drivers are not required to have sufficient insurance to cover the full cost to anyone they hit. This intersects really badly with our horrific healthcare system and is a common cause of people falling out of the workforce or into substance abuse over chronic pain following collisions.
* Last but not least, driving is the most expensive way to commute in common use when it comes to greenhouse gases. EVs promise a 50% reduction but that’s still far higher than any mainstream alternative. There are many other factors in climate change but driving is something like 30% so it’s going to have to go down a lot to reduce the trillions in economic damage we’re facing.
If your whole argument against transit requires us to ignore the three biggest transit systems is order for your argument to work…. You don’t have a good argument champ.
