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https://www.forbes.com/sites/q... "Predicting the future in the middle of multiple ongoing disruptions in urban car 0wnership is difficult. But itâ(TM)s also a question with great timing as Tony Seba, a Stanford economist among other things, just released a co-authored study which made the following claims: Private car ownership will drop 80% by 2030 in the US. The number of passenger vehicles on American roads will go from 247 million in 2020 to 44 million in 2030. Using electric ride-shares will be four to ten times cheaper per mile than buying a new car by 2021 (and each family could save up to $5,600 per year, compared to purchasing and maintaining a traditional vehicle). Those are compelling numbers, but Iâ(TM)m not buying them. I think the underlying model of human behavior and transportation is too simplistic. To be clear, I think that this future or something close to it will transpire, just not in thirteen years." https://www.planetizen.com/nod... "According to an article by Gene Balk, peak car is still alive and well in Seattle. "Census data show that from 2010 to 2015, the percentage of Seattle households that own a vehicle declined â" thatâ(TM)s noteworthy because itâ(TM)s something that hasnâ(TM)t happened in decades," writes Balk. According to Balk's analysis, the reason for the decline is the generational change brought about by Millennials. "At the start of this decade, someone under the age of 35 was just as likely to own a car as anyone else in Seattle. Five years later, car ownership among the cityâ(TM)s young had declined by about 3 percentage points," explains Balk." Its an expense that a lot of people just don't want to deal with. Need to take a trip, and not wanting to fly or take a train. Rent a car, you don't have to own one. I call the original article bull shit.

Carbon taxes are crap it's just a tax and a regressive one at that.

Revenue-neutral carbon taxes where the revenue is returned equally to everyone is highly progressive. If for example the tax were $1 per gallon of gasoline and the average person buys 500 gallons of it per year, everyone would receive a $500 check every year whether they purchased any gasoline that year or not. $500 may not seem like much to you and I but to a poor person that's a lot of money!

If you are truly opposed to regressive taxes, would you support eliminating sales taxes that are used to build freeways such as Los Angeles' Measure M, and replace them with non-regressive tolls? Or are sales taxes suddenly not regressive (or they are but it's not such a bad thing anymore) whenever they benefit you personally?

If you want to stop being taxed then explain to me how you plan to fund roads...

For limited-access roads, tolls are the most appropriate funding mechanism, being less regressive than gas or sales taxes, and variable express tolls can permanently eliminate traffic congestion, saving us all a LOT of money on infrastructure.

City streets, because they directly benefit the property owner, should be funded by street frontage fees.

bridges

Tolls again.

education

Because education is the great equalizer, it should be funded by progressive income taxes.

police

Income taxes again.

firemen

Fire insurance, in the same way your health insurance pays the paramedics.

defense

Because national defense disproportionately benefits those with land and property, it should be funded by property taxes.

medical care

Today it's funded with health insurance.

So I agree with you that we cannot completely escape taxes and still maintain civilization, but I also agree that we are being overtaxed.

Do you have a citation for that claim? Genuinely curious, I've got a study that indicates otherwise and there's a number of others that conclude the same thing - including benefits. Here's a good write-up about one such study:
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/...

Here's another good article about that:
http://www.planetizen.com/node...

The key takeaway from that:

"A 2010 meta-study of dozens of research papers on speed cameras found a uniformly positive effect on street safety, with a 30 to 40 percent reduction in crashes that cause serious injury or death following the rollout of most programs," wrote Aaron Bialick for Streetsblog SF in January.

I've not actually seen anything that says the opposite of that. It's not that they're not without some problems but that they certainly *do* affect driver behavior. At least according to those studies. I... Err... I spent a long time in the traffic modeling industry - I generally try to keep abreast of developments.

Again, this is KGIII - posting as an AC 'cause I ran out of posts. That 50 post limit is kind of silly but, alas, I can go no further. I will keep this open to see if you've got some sort of study. I'm kind of interested in seeing this evidence that you've got. It might be of come in handy.

If there was something genuinely better about their concrete...

A quick search shows there really was something better about their concrete:

Ancient Roman Concrete Is About to Revolutionize Modern Architecture

Discovery of 'Lost Recipe' for Ancient Concrete Provides Foundation for Future Cities

The Riddle of Ancient Roman Concrete

Why should we give welfare to everybody when only a few people need it?

Anyway, if you're living below the poverty line, you probably bike or take mass transit, so the gas tax won't affect you directly. Yes, it will raise store prices slightly, but it will also reduce the need to make up the shortfall with transportation sales taxes such as Measure R in Los Angeles. For the poor, higher store prices in exchange for lower sales taxes is not such a bad tradeoff.

A person truly concerned for the welfare of the poor opposes minimum parking requirements, which raise housing prices, raise prices at the store, raise tax rates, and places a traffic burden on the nearby streets and freeways; and supports demand-responsive tolling which is less regressive than fuel taxes and makes the roads more efficient and therefore reduces or eliminates the need to widen them at taxpayer expense.

But how do you put the PDF into the professional clear plastic binder?

Public schools, USPS, and highways are enough...

You were giving positive examples here, right?

You really think so? Our public schools are constantly derided by all — left and right — for producing rather mediocre results. A particular example:

In international comparisons, American 12th-graders rank in the 14th percentile in math and the 29th percentile in science. The U.S. outperformed only Cyprus and South Africa in general math and science knowledge. Worse, Asian countries didn't participate in the last 12th-grade assessment tests.

Next. USPS sucks and can't pay for itself — needs billions of "bailouts" every once in a while — including right now. Had it not been for the government support, and the government-mandated monopoly (private companies aren't allowed to compete with the "First Class" mail) they would've gone bankrupt long ago.

And highways? Are you really proud of them? Despite insane amounts of money put into them (thanks to the inflated union contracts), an average American spends a week waiting in traffic. For Los Angeles (and, other big cities) the time is two weeks...

Is this — the mediocre results, the constant cost overruns, and pathetic wait times, what you think are "positive examples"? Something you want to see in health care?

I think it's just the US power grid that is old and is going to give the US a lot of problems very soon: http://www.planetizen.com/node/10879

B.

Seeing as there were only 110 homicides in the whole of Atlanta in 2006 http://www.planetizen.com/node/24869 I find it hard to believe there were 300 murders in English Avenue.

Probably like what Oregon has been talking about: tax by the mile. http://www.planetizen.com/node/20112/

They are! They are! if you count "designed to keep the Segway out" out that is.