Making cars owners pay their fair share

It almost seems as if you're suggesting that the city no longer treat car drivers and their personal automobiles as fiduciary sacred cows, to be the cultural centerpiece of our entire existence.

This is what the NYS budget says about the funding source for the DMV. The Highway and Bridge Trust Fund is the fund that pays for bridge and road repairs in the state.

The Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund, supported primarily by revenues from motor vehicle fees and highway use and motor fuel taxes, will fund $217.8 million,

or 61 percent of DMV’s budget. The balance is financed by Federal funds and special revenue funds supported by various fees and fines.

So its clear that car owners are paying for the services they receive. They are paying for the costs of the cars as well as the upkeep on the roads and the bulk of the costs for the entities necessary for the administration of vehicle ownership. According to the Executive Budget the DMV takes in $1.7 billion in revenues each year. All of that money goes back into the State's general fund and then back out to the trust fund and transportation related costs.

Same thing with tolls which support local mass transit (MTA bridges and tunnels) as well as interstate mass transit (Port Authority bridges and tunnels). My question to all of the "Cars should be banned" folks is when the number of cars in NYC has been reduced where will the replacement revenues necessary for these services come from? We'll still have streets being used by people on public transportation, we'll still have subways that run, buses that cross bridges and tunnels, and airports that operate. Folks are already complaining that the costs for those services are too high. Are bikers prepared to take on the responsibility for generating $1.7 billion in revenues each year?

OK, it is so rare that I agree with Whynot, but it does happen. This seems like a relatively concise if slightly dated article on the subject.

http://www.plannersnetwork.org/publications/2002_154_fall/schreibman.htm

Cars and trucks use lots of resources for which they don't pay. And yes we all benefit at different levels from their nonpayment - whether that benefit comes from cheaper shipment of goods or free on-street parking. A liberal economist (Chicago School style) would say the problem is improper pricing of externalities and public goods.

Unequal/inadequate enforcement of laws brings up a whole different set of problems. And given the stats of 40,000+ people killed by cars each year in the U.S. (usually their own or at least the one they are in at the time of their death) this is not a small problem.

To Whynot's proposal of more enforcement: there is a book out called Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt and midway through it the author posits that if there was a way for everyone to report the behavior of all drivers --the way e-bay allows buyers and sellers to provide feedback-- and that information was used in conjunction with issuance of drivers licenses/cost of insurance, we might get fewer people trying to game the system when the cops aren't able to be everywhere at all times.

Heck, while I'm on a roll, how about charging pedestrians a stiff fee for every block they walk? Imagine all of the air they're breathing and carbon dioxide they're emitting as they thoughtlessly pound the pavements, interfering with vehicular traffic at every single corner and wearing out the precious concrete sidewalks.

Better yet... Ban pedestrians entirely! Make 'em all ride bikes...

WhyNot, your anti-automobile screed (all right, I exaggerate... sue me!) is unsupported by fact.

Without cars and trucks, no one... that's right, no one, would ever receive their mail or their FedEx or UPS packages. Further, no one would ever be able to purchase anything at all in their local stores (much less via the internet), simply because no goods would ever be delivered to any stores.

So when Congress allocates money to roads, bridges and tunnels, it is not solely for the benefit of car owners, or even car renters; it is for everyone. Given that those allocations are insufficient to pay all of the necessary costs, all pedestrians and mass-transit riders should be required to pony up, preferably in the form of higher mass-transit fees and local taxes (from which car owners should of course be exempted, since they are already paying unwarranted highway, bridge and tunnel tolls).

give it time that jack wagon in the white house wants to keep printing it and spending it like its going out of style

10. Because the cost of public transportation exceeds x + xx, a large portion of yy is allocated to it. Booklaw and many other drivers in the NYC area feel this is unfair.

It's not that it is unfair, the point is that mass transit NEEDS those subsidys to survive. Its a symbiotic relationship. If you do away with cars, replacing them with additional mass transit riders still doesn't make up for the loss in subsidies. And, as booklaw pointed out above, everyone still needs to have roads and bridges paid for, even if no one is driving on them.

I just want someone to tell me where the replacement subsidies are coming from. The logical response is bikers and yes, possibly walkers. Is that really where we as a society want to head? I'd argue that its not and so what we should be doing is not discouraging the use of personal vehicles, but encouraging the development of alternative fuels which would allow for personal vehicles to continue to be a transportation alternative, without the reliance on fossil fuels.

I'd argue that its not and so what we should be doing is not discouraging the use of personal vehicles, but encouraging the development of alternative fuels which would allow for personal vehicles to continue to be a transportation alternative, without the reliance on fossil fuels.

I agree with this sentiment, but pollution is only one of a handful of concerns with our car-centric city design.

I'm weary of people looking to punish groups they are not a part of to solve a collective problem

Many people need cars as a means of livelihood (i.e., I used to live in BK and work in a part of the Bronx nearly inaccessible by train). NYC driving is stressful enough. I think for egregious or life threatening violations there should be a no tolerance policy... but generally, I think deterrents like red light cameras and speed bumps can do a lot without hurting people's pockets or creating a sense of profiling...