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Add to the cost of the roads the opportunity cost of parking. In other words, if a parking lot brings in $10,000 per year in property taxes to the city, and if a store on the same parcel could bring in $400,000 per year in property and sales taxes, then the opportunity cost of the parking lot is $390,000 per year. The city loses that much by requiring that the parcel be used for parking. Guess who pays the difference in higher taxes? Everyone, including people who don't drive.

So you see, the cost of infrastructure for cars is truly staggering when you add together ALL of the costs!

If cars were no longer given favorable tax and regulatory treatment--if the gas tax and other user fees were risen enough to pay for the roads 100% instead of less than half, and if you were no longer guaranteed free, abundant parking at your destination--would you still drive everywhere?

Actually, it's not a lack of planning, it's really bad planning, and far too much of it. Minimum parking requirements incentivize people to drive everywhere, filling the roads and streets with cars which require more, costly infrastructure which doesn't pay for itself by half.

The parking lots themselves also pay hardly anything in taxes compared to the businesses and residences that could be put there, and because they are non-destinations, they contribute to longer travel distances between actual destinations A and B. This makes walking and transit infeasible (not that cars are feasible, see above).

Building codes like height limits, minimum setbacks, and maximum floor area ratios also create sprawl and limit a city's productivity, jobs per acre and tax revenue per acre. So to make up the difference, cities expand out until they can't, and because they never budget for maintenance 30, 40, 50 years down the road, the more they build, the poorer they get!

So it's a huge, misplanned mess, not an unplanned one.

Home owners are responsible for their sidewalks, trees, etc

Sometimes.

road upkeep is the reason for gas tax - you drive more on roads, you pay more in gas tax.

Partially.

Schools should be funded by the state so poor school districts don't suffer.

Libraries should be funded by the state so poor cities don't suffer.

Streets should be funded by the adjacent property owners because they are the ones who benefit.

Non-street roads should be funded 100% by the drivers instead of less than half. (Remember, streets are the places at the beginning and end of your journey, roads are the connections between places.)

Driving is a public activity, for example. Governments are now starting to track license plate data with cameras. (It is bad enough to collect such information in the first place, but that is a different topic).

Every car on the road is a hazard, so from a safety perspective, it makes sense to collect license plate information from passing cars. The real issue is the data retention policy.

Not that it even matters. The roads are still filled with cars, so it seems the convenience of driving outweighs the loss of our vehicle's privacy. So maybe we should reconsider the way we force developers to build more parking than the market wants, and business owners to provide more of it than their customers want, and the way we pay people to drive everywhere by transferring wealth from people who don't drive to those who do. The loss of freedom and property rights preceded the loss of privacy by over half a century!

On the contrary, gas and road taxes don't come close to paying for roads.

The complete list of tested companies can be found in this PDF (page 22);
https://uspirg.org/sites/pirg/...

As usual the list is missing from tfa.

b) people switched to cars because they are better.

Also because of massive road subsidies and governments forcing developers and business owners to provide more parking than the market wanted (unfunded mandates).

The point is, we do not need to use the force of government to compel ourselves to change.

See above. We (ab-)used the force of government to make us all good obedient little oil consumers.

Can we get a flyer's bill of rights first? Maybe with minimum legroom, seat width, seat pitch guarantees?

the cost is carried by the drivers.

Bullshit.

Gas taxes and other user fees combined pay less than half of the cost of the roads. In California we heavily subsidize the roads with sales taxes such as Measure M in Los Angeles, TransNet in San Diego, and Prop K in San Francisco.

Taller buildings equals...bigger pipes under the streets...a dense apartment building scenario equals bigger cost and higher cost to build and repair.

Not that much higher. Have you ever had to fix an underground pipe? Most of the cost is digging the trench. Otherwise the Flint water crises would have been solved almost as soon as it started.

Zoning standards specify what is required for street width, sidewalk style and size. If you think the property owner has anything to do with that you're crazy.

That's true, most city's zoning standards are copied from another city's zoning standards, because the city thinks a formula in a book knows better than you and your neighbors about how wide your sidewalk should be. Wouldn't it be better if these things could be decided on a street by street basis?

There are really no streets that are never used as roads to use your terminology.

I never said there are non-road streets, I said there are non-street roads. For example, a freeway is a type of road that isn't a street.

Streets are the endpoints, the destinations. The places. Roads (including streets) connect these places to each other.

you have to have a fairly significant population density to make any of the alternatives to cars viable.

Cars aren't viable either, not without massive subsidies (cars pay less than half the cost of the roads) and zoning laws that force property owners to build more parking than the market thinks is optimal. Would you drive everywhere if the gas tax were $2.22 per gallon and you weren't guaranteed free parking at your destination?

The roads are more than adequately funded by the people using them.

Nope!

Cars have the best convenience

Would they be as convenient without laws that force developers to build more parking than the market wants?

And would they be as convenient if the roads paid for themselves 100% from gas taxes and other user fees instead of less than half?

When was the last time you bought groceries without carrying any form of government ID? This used to be common.

It's tragic how we willingly give up our freedoms and enlarge our governments just for a little convenience. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little Convenience, deserve neither Liberty nor Convenience." (Benjamin Franklin)

Stop paying people to drive everywhere. Stop telling businesses how many parking spaces they have to provide for their own customers. Stop making poor, compact neighborhood subsidize urban sprawl. And then internalize the negative externality of burning fossil fuels, perhaps with a revenue-neutral carbon tax and dividend so it isn't a burden on the poor.

I think the market can solve the problem, if we would let it.

That's funny because Republicans are nearly all infrastructure socialists. In fact they're even trying to increase the road subsidy!

Remember, the opposite of socialism is anarchy. Capitalism is somewhere between the two extremes.

"Seriously, how is this joke of a company still allowed to do business?"

Some links, if you haven't been following the story:

Equifax hired a music major as chief security officer and she has just retired.

Equifax Faces Mounting Costs and Investigations From Breach.

The Equifax Breach Was Entirely Preventable

Equifax's data breach sins live on to this year's tax season

Equifax, Fox, NFL top report of most-hated U.S. companies

You Can't Fire Equifax, but Your Employer Can. Mine Just Did.

Senators want 'massive' fines for data breaches at Equifax and other credit reporting firms

Thanks to Equifax, the risk of fraud is higher this tax season

This Will Make Equifax Think Twice About How They're Protecting Your Data
"If this policy had been in place during the Equifax breach last year, Equifax would have paid at least a $1.5 billion penalty, half of which would be returned to consumers affected by the breach."

your municipalities are shorted tax revenue so your roads crumble

Then should we make the roads pay for themselves 100% from gas taxes and other user fees instead of less than half?

If I don't give the government my money, they will send men with guns to put me in a cage.

This is why we need to switch from taxes to user fees. For example, instead of mostly paying for roads with sales and other general fund taxes, pay for them 100% from gas taxes and other user fees. So if you don't want to give the government your money, don't drive, or at least don't drive a gasoline powered vehicle. Legally avoiding the gas tax is much simpler than avoiding the sales tax!

Unfortunately, some well-intentioned citizens in California are collecting signatures to repeal the recent gas tax hike. It's so sad.

Gasoline taxes are collected to pay for the infrastructure combustion engines drive on

Yet those taxes don't come close to paying for that infrastructure. And that is only one way that gasoline cars are subsidized.

As others have said, the credit disproportionately benefits people who (1) are in higher tax brackets (wealthy people), and (2) those who can afford electric vehicles (also wealthy people).

What we should be doing instead is to charge the full societal cost of gasoline consumption (up to $1,000 per person per year) and adding that to the price of gasoline. Then people will naturally switch to electric vehicles, no subsidies or government social engineering necessary.

Of course, we also need to charge drivers the full cost of the roads, up from less than half (who says Republicans oppose welfare?); and abolish laws that show favoritism toward Big Oil such as those that force developers to build more parking than the market wants, but that's a different topic of discussion.

The VAST majority of bicyclists also drive automobiles and, in doing so, pay gas taxes.

More importantly, though, anyone who makes money in the US pays into the road system. The gas tax has been insufficient to fund the roads for the last 30 or so years and income taxes have been covering the difference.

"General taxpayers at all levels of government now subsidize highway construction and maintenance to the tune of $69 billion per year – an amount exceeding the expenditure of general tax funds to support transit, bicycling, walking and passenger rail combined." http://www.uspirg.org/reports/...

Thus, anyone who DOESN'T drive a car, but still holds a job, is paying MUCH more than their fair share of the road (that they can't/don't use).

Gas taxes pay for local / state roads /interstates

You are less than half correct.

things that consume more gas and therefore log more miles (or weigh more like OTR trucks) pay more in taxes to use the roads

so yeah, the more you use the roads, the more you pay

Unfortunately, while gas consumption is proportional to vehicle weight, road wear is a function of the 4th power of the vehicle's weight! So the more you use the roads, the less you pay per mile, not more.

Graduate school, definitely $1000+, and junior and senior year especially in comp sci and engineering, more so in niche sub-specialties in those fields. Generally, you are correct though, see http://www.uspirg.org/news/usp...

Or we could make road users pay 100% of the cost of the roads instead of less than half, and find out if people still prefer to drive.

Only if you're going to remove the benefit of the roads from those who don't directly use them, so no food/shopping that has been trucked. I'm guessing these people you're talking about don't ever get taxis or buses either or order take out or anything like that.

The vast majority of people don't want to use public transportation.

That's true. They prefer to sit in traffic, as evidenced by the large number of people who sit in traffic every day.

And since public transportation and road construction are both expensive, taxpayers could save a LOT of money by giving people what they "want": less public transportation and more traffic congestion. Right?

Or we could make road users pay 100% of the cost of the roads instead of less than half, and find out if people still prefer to drive.

Oh, I'm sorry, the private roads don't exist.

And the reason, of course, is because a private road has a requirement that a public road doesn't: to pay for itself 100% (vs. less than half) through user fees.

and yet, studies prove you wrong. In fact, logic would also prove you wrong. The last time we raised fuel tax was 1992. IOW, almost 25 years ago.

Perhaps one of the roughly ninety sources listed on pages 34-38 of their report (pdf) will meet your standards for impartiality?

Drivers pay less than half the cost of the roads.

Is there a less biased source for this claim? Not saying that it is true or untrue, but, looking at other stuff on the site, this org has definite bias.

HSR is a non-starter for most locations, IMHO. The cost is way too high for it to be functional.

If airports were cost-effective, airlines would build them. Airlines don't build airports; therefore, airports are not cost-effective.

If roads were cost-effective, drivers would pay the full cost of them. Drivers pay less than half the cost of the roads. Therefore, roads are not cost-effective.

So what's left? What mode of transportation pays for itself?

Just because something is not profitable does not mean it shouldn't be built. Trains are one you've already mentioned, roads another...

Why shouldn't roads, especially limited access roads, pay for themselves 100% from gas taxes and other user fees instead of less than half? And why should truckers continue to be heavily subsidized for the massive damage they cause to our roads?

And with all those road and trucking subsidies, is it really too hard to understand why it's so difficult for trains to turn a profit?

Meanwhile, is it possible that we've committed ourselves to maintaining more than the economically optimal amount of infrastructure, that people intuitively realize this and that's why we aren't willing to raise taxes to keep our roads and bridges from crumbling? Or to look at it another way, what would "too many roads and bridges" look like? The answer to this question is important in determining whether we're already past that point.

Perhaps if truckers were required to pay their fair share, they might reduce their axle loading a little in order to avoid damaging the pavement, saving taxpayers money. And if the roads were required to pay for themselves, grocery stores might again locate themselves near railroad spurs, as they did before the Interstate Highway System came along, saving themselves and their customers money. More freight would be transported by rail which is three times as fuel-efficient as trucks, reducing our carbon emissions. But none of this magic will happen as long as we cling to the belief that roads need not pay for themselves.

most jobs are far from the stations

Is that true where employers aren't forced by cities to overbuild their parking lots? Or where freeways pay for themselves 100% from gas taxes and other user fees instead of less than half?

Or is the fact that "most jobs are far from the stations" a result of the kind of Big Government authoritarianism favored by the right?

o It's point to point; I start where I am and I end up where I'm going

It's nice to have valet parking wherever you go, but I usually have to park and walk somewhere and then walk to the entrance.

o It's considerably more secure; windows up, doors locked, only trusted riders are on-board, and I control the vehicle

If only that were enough to make cars safer than buses and trains.

o I have my music (and my ham radio gear), in short, the environment is customized for me

With all those distractions, you're asking for trouble!

o There's no waiting, no calling, and no communications problems

There's also no reading or texting and you can't use your laptop while you commute. It's all dead time.

I think the most common case by far is that people use it because they have to use it.

People must not like driving very much either or cities wouldn't need to force property owners to have parking (why do we manage parking the same way the Soviet Union managed toilet paper and other basic provisions?), and the roads would pay for themselves 100% through gas taxes and user fees instead of less than 50%.

There is plenty of money from gas taxes to maintain the roads.

Absolutely false! Drivers currently pay less than half the total cost of roads.

The answer is pretty easy. Eliminate the ability of cities, counties or states to create monopolies. In jurisdictions where there is no monopoly and multiple offerings exist; prices are lower, service is better and customers are more satisfied.
http://www.pcworld.com/article...
http://cbpp.georgetown.edu/wp-...
http://www.uspirg.org/reports/...

Yea, OK, so if you and your cyclists buddies want to get together and raise the money to pay for dedicated bike paths, I'll support using public land to build them.

However, if you're like many of the d-bags around these parts who want their private bike streets paid for with my road and fuel taxes... You can go piss up a rope.

You know that most cyclists have cars, and drive, too, so they're paying fuel taxes right alongside you, right? But when they're riding their bikes, they're using up a lot less space on the roads, reducing congestion and leaving more room for you to get around. Compared with cars, bikes contribute virtually no wear on roads, and areas paved for bike traffic cost a fraction of what regular rated roads cost, because of the dramatically reduced load requirements. When cyclists get where they're going, they will lock up to a bike rack that fits 20 vehicles in the area of a parking space, leaving more parking for you to put your car in. They're also reducing gasoline demand, which might slightly lower the price you pay at the pump. As a driver, you stand to gain in numerous ways from others' cycling.

And fuel taxes don't cover the cost of the roads, anyway, mainly because they've been essentially stagnant while the cost of fuel increased fivefold. Drivers' use of the roads is heavily subsidized now by general taxation, so you don't get to point at cyclists and say they're the freeloaders.

http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/01/23/drivers-cover-just-51-percent-of-u-s-road-spending/
http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/do-roads-pay-themselves

Big talk AC!

The roads are paid for by gas taxes. Oh wait! They're stealing that money for other things!

Gas and Vehicle taxes and tolls cover a little more than half the cost of roads: http://www.uspirg.org/home/reports/report-archives/transportation/transportation2/do-roads-pay-for-themselves-setting-the-record-straight-on-transportation-funding

the rest comes from various non road and vehicle related taxes and fees.

not really, Though some gas tax money is often diverted for other uses, they don't bring in enough to build and maintain the roads even if they were dedicated to that use.

We're already doing this with roads in America so why not sidewalks? The Magic of the Free Market also worked well in bringing about prosperity in Iraq (imagine how badly it would have gone if we'd relied on public entities rather than contractors). I don't see how this sidewalk plan could go wrong - just make sure you stock up on quarters before you go for a walk. :)

Last, but by no means least, if I am the site operator, I can passively sniff SSL without needing to do any MITM, because I have the cert and private key. This is how IDS can sniff SSL traffic.

There's a reason why, in parts of the world like Israel, that are paranoid about security, a client-side cert and DH PFS are required for on-line banking.

Let's face it, at least in the US, most banks aren't remotely serious about web data security. Their "efforts" are just window dressing. The ease of identity theft shows the big lie that they "care". They don't even seem to care that the credit reporting agencies databases are wildly inaccurate.

Yeah right. You'd have better luck arguing about Iraq being to enrich Bush's contractor buddies. We could have done Iraq very much differently and gotten the oil cheaper, safer, and more reliably if it had truly been about the oil.

As you say, Iraq isn't all about oil. It's also about making defense contractors like Blackwater and all the mercenaries they employee rich too. At the same tyme they avoid any prosecution for human right violations and other crimes. The US has been doing this for years, in Columbia contractors are used to spray herbicides on coca fields, but a lot of it is sprayed on villagers food crops. It would of been cheaper to just let Saddam run Iraq like he did in the 1980s while the Reagan and Bush Sr admins supported him. Back then he was spraying Kurds and March Arabs with chemical weapons, he gassed Iran, and did a bunch of other nasty stuff but the US's support only ended when he invaded Kuwait, a Sheikdom not a democracy.

This is also a false attack in the part that oil is a trivial source of electricity in the USA - Coal is #1, followed by Natural Gas, Nuclear, and hydroelectric. Petrochemical production is 1.6% - Mostly from standby generators.

But what effects one energy sector effects others as well. I don't understand it but someone else shared a link explaining, now I can't find it.

Name an electricity provider that gets 'billions' in subsidies other than solar/wind.

1. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - FEDERAL
   "USA, FEDERAL, Annual. (Multiple fuels). Green Scissors: Cutting Wasteful & Environmentally Harmful Spending. 2004 report. 2003 report. 2002 report. Summaries of wasteful government programs, including many in the energy area." "Subsidies evaluated worth $37 - $64 billion per year to U. S. energy sector."
2. Energy Subsidies How do energy subsidies distort the energy market?
3. Energy Policy Act of 2005
4. Ten most distortionary energy subsidies
5. No Need for Energy Subsidies
6. "Reforming Energy Subsidies"[pdf]
   In the United States, for example, renewables and energy conservation together receive only 5per cent of total federal energy subsidies, according to studies carried out by the Government in 1999."
7. Running On Empty: How Environmentally Harmful Energy Subsidies Siphon Billions From Taxpayers
   January 31, 2002
8. Federal Energy Subsidies
9. "Energy Subsidies: Lessons Learned in Assessing Their Impact and Designing ..."
10. "Energy Subsidies: A Call for Better Data"

I hope that's enough for you.

I'm sure it's got absolutely nothing to do with industrial pollution. Only a paranoid hippy would think that.

Trusted Platform Module.

That's a specific specification. From the articles, I got the impression that he was referring to the generic term for technology protection measures. Otherwise he wouldn't have been using the plural form.

the real meat of the bill? Oh wait, there is none.
See http://www.energybulletin.net/7473.html, http://uspirg.org/ and others.