But like I explained, we are already paying market price.
Obviously not, or there wouldn't be a shortage of road space for the people who want to use it. Remember, when demand exceeds supply, it's because the price is below what people are willing to pay--the "market price."
Preventing people from travelling/taxing it beyond reason is only something you would want to do if you wanted to stifle the economy.
If setting the price of something at market equilibrium is "taxing it beyond reason," then you must think eBay's prices are unreasonably high.
Increasing traffic throughput improves the economy, but diminishing returns says that at some point, it's no longer worth the cost. Before you choose to widen a road, you should determine whether the benefits are actually worth the cost.
Adding tolls to roads does not fix congestion, it just makes it more expensive to sit in congestion.
False. Perfect price inelasticity of demand only exists in theory. If people are still sitting in congestion, then the toll is still too low for that particular time of day and day of the week. The solution is to remove the price ceiling.
if the roads are sufficient then you don't have congestion.
That's correct, and when the price of using them is set at the market equilibrium price, the roads will be sufficient in that supply and demand will be in equilibrium. Setting the price below the market equilibrium rate is never a good long-term strategy.
The optimal amount of road lane-miles is not the amount where there's never any congestion when the price is zero, but the amount where the cost of traffic congestion equals the price of the tolls or the cost of adding more road.
Variable pricing does not fix capacity, it rewards incompetence.
And that's why restaurant managers who set different lunch and dinner prices do so because they are incompetent.
No, incompetence is setting the price below the market equilibrium rate as a long-term strategy.
Air is a public good because it is "both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others." Freeways are not public goods because a vehicle taking up space on the road reduces availability of the road to others.
Widening the 405 is an expensive and only temporary band-aid to the problem of traffic congestion. The hamburger analogy explains why:
Let's give everyone free McDonald's hamburgers. Let's put 10,000 hamburgers a day on a table in front of the Capitol (or wherever).
What would happen? People would take and eat the hamburgers, and once word got out, all 10,000 hamburgers would be taken very quickly every day. We may thus infer that because people need food and they really seemed to like those burgers, McDonald's hamburgers are an important public good.
A city planner might notice a problem: those 10,000 hamburgers just aren't enough. They get taken very early in the morning, so not everybody has a chance to get a hamburger. The obvious solution--because burgers are a highly-valued public good--is to provide more free burgers. So the city planner starts to provide 20,000 hamburgers a day.
You can see where this is going. People start going out of their way to get the free hamburgers, and planning their day around that trip. The city has to keep providing more and more free burgers--eventually millions a day--to keep satisfying the demand for free hamburgers.
Free hamburgers are like unpriced freeway lanes. Eventually they will all get taken up. Any city planner (and Elon Musk) should know that a shortage happens when the price of an item is set below the going rate determined by supply and demand. It's much, much easier and cheaper to fix the problem of traffic congestion once and for all with a variable price set at the market equilibrium rate than by trying to build your way out of traffic congestion. Even Randal O'Toole agrees.
If I were a renter looking to buy, I would be looking at neighborhoods whose property values are rising, not at those whose property values are lower but not rising.
Don't. Every state already has the power to equalize internet and local sales taxes, by abolishing its local sales tax.
The sales tax is regressive and discourages commerce. Because this goes contrary to the welfare and commerce clauses of the U.S. Constitution, the federal government should be actively discouraging the use of a sales tax, not encouraging it.
Further, the sales tax encourages cities to offer incentives to big-box stores and give them a competitive advantage over small businesses. On the other hand, a property tax encourages cities to make land-use decisions that increase property values. I would rather have higher property values in my city than more Wal-Marts, wouldn't you?
We need legislation based on evidence (not dogma), budget items prioritized by Return on Investment (any increase in expected tax revenue as a result of government spending), and market failures corrected (polluter pays, etc.).
In particular, sudden braking of the car ahead is reacted to faster than humans can do it.
This doesn't make an automated car safer than someone who doesn't tailgate. It only reduces the safe following distance and increases the capacity of the road.
Compare that to trying to figure out if some guy who's not watching is going to step off the curb and into your way...
This requires a law that gives the pedestrian the right-of-way even before he/she enters the crosswalk. Either a hand signal or standing in a pedestrian refuge area would indicate that traffic must stop if it is safe to do so, and wait for the pedestrian to cross.
Google's cars actually speed. The engineers quickly found (or knew beforehand) that obeying the traffic laws as written was a good way to either cause an accident...
Only because speeding and tailgating laws are inconsistently enforced. If you got a ticket every single time you exceeded the speed limit or drove too closely to the car in front, then the roads would be much safer. This is where automated enforcement is useful.
When you stated that the construction cost was "eaten" by the Japanese government, you lumped in the cost of regular passenger rail, which as I said is frequently subsidized by high speed rail. JNR is both conventional and high speed rail. Follow your own link if you don't believe me.
Will we ever see Babylon 5 remastered in high definition (or even 4K) similar to Star Trek: The Next Generation? How much would you need to raise on KickStarter to make this possible?
Name one bullet train line anywhere in the world that's at least a few years old but still doesn't make a profit. Frequently, profit from the HSR line(s) help subsidize a country's passenger train lines as in Japan.
One of the issues with the high speed rail I've seen them try to implement is too many stops...
That's why the good Lord invented limited-stop express service, so that not every train needs to stop at every station, and electric trains that accelerate after a stop much more quickly than diesel trains.
Then there's also the fact that a lot of "high speed" trains in the US are in the 40-60mph range...
This is yet another reason to build high speed rail wherever it makes sense, between city pairs at least 100 miles apart where it starts to become too far to drive, and up to 500 miles apart where flying starts to become faster (curb to curb) and more cost-effective.
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Then the tolls are too high--above market equilibrium. Remember, I said the tolls should be "a variable price set at the market equilibrium rate".
Obviously not, or there wouldn't be a shortage of road space for the people who want to use it. Remember, when demand exceeds supply, it's because the price is below what people are willing to pay--the "market price."
No, because journeys were already eliminated due to congestion.
If setting the price of something at market equilibrium is "taxing it beyond reason," then you must think eBay's prices are unreasonably high.
Increasing traffic throughput improves the economy, but diminishing returns says that at some point, it's no longer worth the cost. Before you choose to widen a road, you should determine whether the benefits are actually worth the cost.
False. Perfect price inelasticity of demand only exists in theory. If people are still sitting in congestion, then the toll is still too low for that particular time of day and day of the week. The solution is to remove the price ceiling.
Of course they can. Perfect price inelasticity of demand only exists in theory.
That's correct, and when the price of using them is set at the market equilibrium price, the roads will be sufficient in that supply and demand will be in equilibrium. Setting the price below the market equilibrium rate is never a good long-term strategy.
The optimal amount of road lane-miles is not the amount where there's never any congestion when the price is zero, but the amount where the cost of traffic congestion equals the price of the tolls or the cost of adding more road.
And that's why restaurant managers who set different lunch and dinner prices do so because they are incompetent.
No, incompetence is setting the price below the market equilibrium rate as a long-term strategy.
Air is a public good because it is "both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others." Freeways are not public goods because a vehicle taking up space on the road reduces availability of the road to others.
"Nobody drives on the 405 anymore. There's too much traffic." --Yogi Berra
Widening the 405 is an expensive and only temporary band-aid to the problem of traffic congestion. The hamburger analogy explains why:
Free hamburgers are like unpriced freeway lanes. Eventually they will all get taken up. Any city planner (and Elon Musk) should know that a shortage happens when the price of an item is set below the going rate determined by supply and demand. It's much, much easier and cheaper to fix the problem of traffic congestion once and for all with a variable price set at the market equilibrium rate than by trying to build your way out of traffic congestion. Even Randal O'Toole agrees.
If I were a renter looking to buy, I would be looking at neighborhoods whose property values are rising, not at those whose property values are lower but not rising.
Will a Wal-Mart bring more prosperity per dollar of incentives than a non-Walmart retailer?
Who pays $415k for a $60k house? People pay $60k for a house they value at $60k, and $415k for a house they value at $415k.
Don't. Every state already has the power to equalize internet and local sales taxes, by abolishing its local sales tax.
The sales tax is regressive and discourages commerce. Because this goes contrary to the welfare and commerce clauses of the U.S. Constitution, the federal government should be actively discouraging the use of a sales tax, not encouraging it.
Further, the sales tax encourages cities to offer incentives to big-box stores and give them a competitive advantage over small businesses. On the other hand, a property tax encourages cities to make land-use decisions that increase property values. I would rather have higher property values in my city than more Wal-Marts, wouldn't you?
We need legislation based on evidence (not dogma), budget items prioritized by Return on Investment (any increase in expected tax revenue as a result of government spending), and market failures corrected (polluter pays, etc.).
That's a common myth, unsupported by actual laws. But it's true that drivers violate the right-of-way of pedestrians more than the other way around.
At least it can guarantee a safe crossing. That guarantee doesn't exist today.
The police just need to enforce the law against obstructing traffic.
"Safe to do so" means the same as what it means at yellow lights.
This doesn't make an automated car safer than someone who doesn't tailgate. It only reduces the safe following distance and increases the capacity of the road.
This requires a law that gives the pedestrian the right-of-way even before he/she enters the crosswalk. Either a hand signal or standing in a pedestrian refuge area would indicate that traffic must stop if it is safe to do so, and wait for the pedestrian to cross.
Only because speeding and tailgating laws are inconsistently enforced. If you got a ticket every single time you exceeded the speed limit or drove too closely to the car in front, then the roads would be much safer. This is where automated enforcement is useful.
When you stated that the construction cost was "eaten" by the Japanese government, you lumped in the cost of regular passenger rail, which as I said is frequently subsidized by high speed rail. JNR is both conventional and high speed rail. Follow your own link if you don't believe me.
You read the first sentence I wrote. Good! Now read the second.
Will we ever see Babylon 5 remastered in high definition (or even 4K) similar to Star Trek: The Next Generation? How much would you need to raise on KickStarter to make this possible?
Name one bullet train line anywhere in the world that's at least a few years old but still doesn't make a profit. Frequently, profit from the HSR line(s) help subsidize a country's passenger train lines as in Japan.
That's why the good Lord invented limited-stop express service, so that not every train needs to stop at every station, and electric trains that accelerate after a stop much more quickly than diesel trains.
Top speed or average speed? See above.
This is yet another reason to build high speed rail wherever it makes sense, between city pairs at least 100 miles apart where it starts to become too far to drive, and up to 500 miles apart where flying starts to become faster (curb to curb) and more cost-effective.