The population density throughout the US is not really set up for a bullet train system because even if you did connect major cities, you would need cars and buses to get people to their spread out homes.
If that is true then airports also must not be viable.
Similarly, municipalities also send mixed messages about drunk driving by having minimum parking requirements at bars. "Please drink responsibly. We offer free parking!"
Of course every car already has a mileage based tracker build in. Its called the gas tank. You simply raise the gas tax, and you're done. In the process you also reward people with fuel efficient cars...
Actually, you're screwing people who own lighter cars. Because road damage is a function of the cube of the axle loading, a Hummer causes a dozen times more road wear than a Yaris, but uses only two or three times as much gasoline and therefore pays only two or three times as much in gas taxes. So the Yaris owner pays more than his or her fair share in gas taxes to fix the roads.
Note that this is not being discussed as a replacement for gas taxes, but as a supplement to them. In other words, you'll get both taxes.
And that's exactly how it should be. Tax per mile, based on the axle loading of the vehicle, to account for road wear, and tax per gallon of gasoline to account for air pollution.
Trying to get by with just one tax doesn't adequately pay for all the costs of driving.
Besides, the gasoline tax is already a mileage tax. It has the added bonus of being a bigger burden on those who drive low efficiency vehicles.
But not a big enough burden. As a mileage tax, it's oversimplified. Because road damage is a function of the cube of the axle loading, a Hummer causes a dozen times more road wear than a Yaris, but uses only two or three times as much gasoline and therefore pays only two or three times as much in gas taxes. So the Yaris owner pays more than his or her fair share in gas taxes to fix the roads.
So they want to charge based on weight*miles. Guess what? A vehicle's gasoline usage is closely related to this; big heavy vehicle, more gasoline used per mile. So they could just increase the gasoline tax.
It isn't that simple. Because road damage is a function of the cube of the axle loading, a Hummer causes a dozen times more road wear than a Yaris, but uses only two or three times as much gasoline and therefore pays only two or three times as much in gas taxes. So the Yaris owner pays more than his or her fair share in gas taxes to fix the roads.
Posters in science and math departments of Danica McKellar and other attractive geek women may help make these subjects less intimidating for female students.
Not by a long shot. The old meters didn't charge different rates depending on the time of day, and so they severely mismanaged valuable parking spaces. When a parking lot is completely full during some hours but nearly empty at others, there's a problem.
Ideally, a parking lot should be about 85% full, 24 hours a day. When it's too full to find parking, the price is too low, and the landowner loses money. When it's nearly empty, the price is too high, and again the landowner loses money. Surely the landowner, whether a private company or taxpayers, deserves a decent return on their investment.
If you are going to open up the last mile infrastructure to multiple ISP's, who will be responsible for maintaining the equipment, responding to outages, performing preventative maintenance?
The same way they do it now in neighborhoods where residents have a choice of cable operators. Where I live now, I have a choice of Cox or Time Warner. In my old house, I was able to choose Cox or Cable America.
Now if you'd like to educate yourself about the matter, and engage in a thoughtful discussion of how to improve infrastructure, please do.
The pipes being the last mile cable line to your house. This is why they can get away with much of what they do.
The FCC would do well to force the cable companies to give up ownership of last mile infrastructure to allow cities and neighborhoods to open those lines up for multiple, competing ISPs.
Many cities around the world deploy parking meters in places where there is no lack of parking places as a form of revenue for the local authorities.
Perhaps cities should stop using taxpayer money on parking in the first place. "Free" parking isn't really free, you know. One study found that a parking space at UCLA costs $124 per space per month (in 1994 dollars) in maintenance and amortization. That's $179 in 2009 dollars.
Parking revenue is maximized when parking is priced to maintain 85% occupancy at all times. If there are a lot of available spaces, the price is too high, and the city loses money. If the parking lot is full, the price is too low, and the city loses money.
2. Higher prices on (nearly) everything. You might not notice it on the margins, but it the costs will just be passed on to the end consumer.
Not really. The weight-mile tax will encourage shipping companies to find cheaper ways to ship their products. Additionally, the tax will mean the rest of us won't have to pay as much in taxes to fix the roads.
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If that is true then airports also must not be viable.
Similarly, municipalities also send mixed messages about drunk driving by having minimum parking requirements at bars. "Please drink responsibly. We offer free parking!"
There needs to be a test for distracted driving, but the person taking the test can't know he's taking it or he'll be on his best behavior.
Call centers have a solution: keep people on their toes at all times. "This drive may be recorded for quality purposes."
Why not give each customer an equal portion of the available bandwidth and let them do their own QoS?
Actually, you're screwing people who own lighter cars. Because road damage is a function of the cube of the axle loading, a Hummer causes a dozen times more road wear than a Yaris, but uses only two or three times as much gasoline and therefore pays only two or three times as much in gas taxes. So the Yaris owner pays more than his or her fair share in gas taxes to fix the roads.
And that's exactly how it should be. Tax per mile, based on the axle loading of the vehicle, to account for road wear, and tax per gallon of gasoline to account for air pollution.
Trying to get by with just one tax doesn't adequately pay for all the costs of driving.
But not a big enough burden. As a mileage tax, it's oversimplified. Because road damage is a function of the cube of the axle loading, a Hummer causes a dozen times more road wear than a Yaris, but uses only two or three times as much gasoline and therefore pays only two or three times as much in gas taxes. So the Yaris owner pays more than his or her fair share in gas taxes to fix the roads.
It isn't that simple. Because road damage is a function of the cube of the axle loading, a Hummer causes a dozen times more road wear than a Yaris, but uses only two or three times as much gasoline and therefore pays only two or three times as much in gas taxes. So the Yaris owner pays more than his or her fair share in gas taxes to fix the roads.
Posters in science and math departments of Danica McKellar and other attractive geek women may help make these subjects less intimidating for female students.
That's true. In fact, both are weapons, and both are safety devices. An airbag is a weapon because it:
And a Taser is a safety device in the same manner that pepper spray is a personal safety device.
The same can be said for airbags and seatbelts. Therefore, these things must all be banned, right?
Not by a long shot. The old meters didn't charge different rates depending on the time of day, and so they severely mismanaged valuable parking spaces. When a parking lot is completely full during some hours but nearly empty at others, there's a problem.
Ideally, a parking lot should be about 85% full, 24 hours a day. When it's too full to find parking, the price is too low, and the landowner loses money. When it's nearly empty, the price is too high, and again the landowner loses money. Surely the landowner, whether a private company or taxpayers, deserves a decent return on their investment.
Electric companies charge by the kilowatt-hour, yet electricity isn't prohibitively expensive.
Electric companies also have a solution for the problem of peak usage: time of day metering.
The same way they do it now in neighborhoods where residents have a choice of cable operators. Where I live now, I have a choice of Cox or Time Warner. In my old house, I was able to choose Cox or Cable America.
I believe that's my line.
The pipes being the last mile cable line to your house. This is why they can get away with much of what they do.
The FCC would do well to force the cable companies to give up ownership of last mile infrastructure to allow cities and neighborhoods to open those lines up for multiple, competing ISPs.
And it will continue to be that way as long as it isn't required of prisoners. Want to be free? Just wait out your term.
Excellent! Keyboards from now on will need only 1 key!
Why would the AP charge for words it doesn't own? Is it malice or incompetence on their part?
So if you're trying to compensate for something, a Segway is not the vehicle for you!
You only say that because you don't want to share the road with slower moving traffic.
Yes, I've just accused you of being part of the problem. Now start being part of the solution.
[citation needed]
Bicyclists ride in the street all the time.
Perhaps cities should stop using taxpayer money on parking in the first place. "Free" parking isn't really free, you know. One study found that a parking space at UCLA costs $124 per space per month (in 1994 dollars) in maintenance and amortization. That's $179 in 2009 dollars.
Parking revenue is maximized when parking is priced to maintain 85% occupancy at all times. If there are a lot of available spaces, the price is too high, and the city loses money. If the parking lot is full, the price is too low, and the city loses money.
Not really. The weight-mile tax will encourage shipping companies to find cheaper ways to ship their products. Additionally, the tax will mean the rest of us won't have to pay as much in taxes to fix the roads.
The solution is a weight-mile tax, so that truckers pay the full cost of the damage they do to the roads. But good luck getting it enacted, because the national trucking industry hates the weight-mile tax system.
Dollars? Euros?