I personally think walkability is a natural occurrence in a city if we allow for the appropriate amount of density. As I joked previously, our current situation is the direct result of active measures by bad actors to make our cities worse and more spread out. We don't need to destroy cities and rebuild, we just need to kill all nimbys change local building codes to allow for more mixed us and moderately more dense housing.
Doing so is by policy demolishing current cities not built that way. Just via a different means. Again redoing cities to be fully walkable/bikeable/based on public transit is a decades long project. And should be done. But it is also super expensive. Requires a lot of local and national buy in. And also the EV revolution is here and takes lower amount of investment to get running and helping the environment.
I personally think walkability is a natural occurrence in a city if we allow for the appropriate amount of density. As I joked previously, our current situation is the direct result of active measures by bad actors to make our cities worse and more spread out. We don't need to destroy cities and rebuild, we just need to kill all nimbys change local building codes to allow for more mixed us and moderately more dense housing.
Doing so is by policy demolishing current cities not built that way. Just via a different means. Again redoing cities to be fully walkable/bikeable/based on public transit is a decades long project. And should be done. But it is also super expensive. Requires a lot of local and national buy in. And also the EV revolution is here and takes lower amount of investment to get running and helping the environment.
yeah, but destroying current cities via natural evolution and growth is more ship of Theseus than the actively shitty Robert Moses policies that got us here.
It's also worth pointing out that a revenue policy is only regressive/progressive depending on what the government does with the money they gain. It's why most carbon tax proposals I see are basically carbon tax + dividend for people below a certain income -- discourages behavior while not affecting the individual's bottom line.
Aye. This is also why a ton of countries fund generous welfare states with sales taxes and achieve more equitable outcomes. Because sales taxes may be regressive but it turns out regressive taxation can easily be offset and sales taxes are really good at raising money.
I'm only grabbing three segments of model years because I'm lazy, but I think it's illustrative.
Note that the Camry is considered a mid-sized car throughout.
* 1982-1986: 173.2" x 66.5" x 54.9", 2180-2490 lbs, 85-120 horsepower
* 1996-2002: 187.6" x 70.3" x 56.3", 3,000 lbs, 130-194 horsepower
* 2017-2021: 192.1" x 72.4" x 56.9", 3310-3595 lbs, 165-300 horsepower
Notice any trends? This mid-sized car gained a foot and a half in length, half a foot in width, and put on conservatively 50% more weight. To move this much larger car (and undoubtedly due to acceleration preferences) the amount of power its engine generates has gone anywhere from double to nearly triple its 1982 numbers.
The Camry has pretty good gas mileage: 28 mpg city, 39 highway.
What would those numbers be if the sizes, weights, and horsepower remained the same but we had the benefit of the last 40 years of ICE design?
Where does all the added weight come from? I'm wondering if it's at least partly structural (i.e., safety).
A fair amount is safety related. But there is also size (can be related to safety) as well as comfort (sound deadening, thicker glass, etc). If you look at cars with similar sizes over the decades, their weights are more closely aligned. e.g. 90s accord vs today's (well a few years ago's) civic.
Size -> weight
Bigger frame, more paneling, more glass bigger tires/wheels. It's like how a very skinny guy who is 6'6" is still going probably be over 200 pounds.
There have also been structural increases for safety but the car is 25% larger by volume based on those measurements and so we would expect it to be at least 25% heavier. All the luxury stuff we add adds weight and it all adds up
Square cube law says an increase in size by 25% results in a weight increase of 56.25% assuming I did my math right and all parts we're scaled up the same amount (which is obviously not the case for cars).
Square/cube law says that if an object is 2x larger on all sides it’s 4/8 x larger in area/volume.
But I already went through to get a by volume measure by multiplying out the individual dimension percentage increases. So 25% more volume is 25% more volume.
It also explains why you might not think your car is much larger as it’s “only” 10% larger on its largest dimensional increase
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
More power from modern engine platforms comes from a little turbocharger which increases fuel efficiency though. Cars have gotten larger the last two decades but since 2010 the engine displacement has largely gone down. My new CX-9 is way bigger than the Infiniti EX-35 I replaced, but the engine is smaller and far more fuel efficient thanks to a couple of little turbos.
High power V6 platforms have been going out of style for a while now. Only Tacoma and 4Runner enthusiasts seem to tolerate the god awful gas mileage they get.
Engine technology has meant we're for the most part holding the line on efficiency, but again: strap a modern engine to a car the size of a 1993 Camry, gear it down to take 8-10 seconds to accelerate to 60 and I bet you get 60+ mpg.
I bet I get fucking killed by the asshole that won't slow down as I merge
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
I'm only grabbing three segments of model years because I'm lazy, but I think it's illustrative.
Note that the Camry is considered a mid-sized car throughout.
* 1982-1986: 173.2" x 66.5" x 54.9", 2180-2490 lbs, 85-120 horsepower
* 1996-2002: 187.6" x 70.3" x 56.3", 3,000 lbs, 130-194 horsepower
* 2017-2021: 192.1" x 72.4" x 56.9", 3310-3595 lbs, 165-300 horsepower
Notice any trends? This mid-sized car gained a foot and a half in length, half a foot in width, and put on conservatively 50% more weight. To move this much larger car (and undoubtedly due to acceleration preferences) the amount of power its engine generates has gone anywhere from double to nearly triple its 1982 numbers.
The Camry has pretty good gas mileage: 28 mpg city, 39 highway.
What would those numbers be if the sizes, weights, and horsepower remained the same but we had the benefit of the last 40 years of ICE design?
Where does all the added weight come from? I'm wondering if it's at least partly structural (i.e., safety).
A fair amount is safety related. But there is also size (can be related to safety) as well as comfort (sound deadening, thicker glass, etc). If you look at cars with similar sizes over the decades, their weights are more closely aligned. e.g. 90s accord vs today's (well a few years ago's) civic.
Size -> weight
Bigger frame, more paneling, more glass bigger tires/wheels. It's like how a very skinny guy who is 6'6" is still going probably be over 200 pounds.
There have also been structural increases for safety but the car is 25% larger by volume based on those measurements and so we would expect it to be at least 25% heavier. All the luxury stuff we add adds weight and it all adds up
Square cube law says an increase in size by 25% results in a weight increase of 56.25% assuming I did my math right and all parts we're scaled up the same amount (which is obviously not the case for cars).
Square/cube law says that if an object is 2x larger on all sides it’s 4/8 x larger in area/volume.
But I already went through to get a by volume measure by multiplying out the individual dimension percentage increases. So 25% more volume is 25% more volume.
It also explains why you might not think your car is much larger as it’s “only” 10% larger on its largest dimensional increase
I missed that you said by volume there, my pedant petard, I am hoisted by it.
It's also worth pointing out that a revenue policy is only regressive/progressive depending on what the government does with the money they gain. It's why most carbon tax proposals I see are basically carbon tax + dividend for people below a certain income -- discourages behavior while not affecting the individual's bottom line.
Aye. This is also why a ton of countries fund generous welfare states with sales taxes and achieve more equitable outcomes. Because sales taxes may be regressive but it turns out regressive taxation can easily be offset and sales taxes are really good at raising money.
Or maybe we could just roll back the Trump tax cuts and fund infrastructure with that $2 trillion?
I think that's where most of my opposition comes from. I can acknowledge that, in a vacuum, increasing gas taxes could be a way to fund infrastructure improvements with some bonus driving incentives on the side. But I just have zero. fucking. interest. in distributed regressive taxation to fund basic social services when we are still, year after year, choking our revenue streams with continued tax cuts to the rich, corporations, estates, etc. Roll us back to 1960s era progressive taxation, fund a massive green investment in infrastructure, housing, and public transportation with that, and then we can talk about gas taxes to incentivize using it. Until then, I will argue that it's immoral to fund basic social services by squeezing the last drops of cash from the working class while we are simultaneously asking less and less of the rich.
More power from modern engine platforms comes from a little turbocharger which increases fuel efficiency though. Cars have gotten larger the last two decades but since 2010 the engine displacement has largely gone down. My new CX-9 is way bigger than the Infiniti EX-35 I replaced, but the engine is smaller and far more fuel efficient thanks to a couple of little turbos.
High power V6 platforms have been going out of style for a while now. Only Tacoma and 4Runner enthusiasts seem to tolerate the god awful gas mileage they get.
Engine technology has meant we're for the most part holding the line on efficiency, but again: strap a modern engine to a car the size of a 1993 Camry, gear it down to take 8-10 seconds to accelerate to 60 and I bet you get 60+ mpg.
I bet I get fucking killed by the asshole that won't slow down as I merge
Almost as if there is a collective action problem spurred by continuing cheap gas incentivizing bigger vehicles rather than more efficient ones.
More power from modern engine platforms comes from a little turbocharger which increases fuel efficiency though. Cars have gotten larger the last two decades but since 2010 the engine displacement has largely gone down. My new CX-9 is way bigger than the Infiniti EX-35 I replaced, but the engine is smaller and far more fuel efficient thanks to a couple of little turbos.
High power V6 platforms have been going out of style for a while now. Only Tacoma and 4Runner enthusiasts seem to tolerate the god awful gas mileage they get.
Engine technology has meant we're for the most part holding the line on efficiency, but again: strap a modern engine to a car the size of a 1993 Camry, gear it down to take 8-10 seconds to accelerate to 60 and I bet you get 60+ mpg.
I bet I get fucking killed by the asshole that won't slow down as I merge
Almost as if there is a collective action problem spurred by continuing cheap gas incentivizing bigger vehicles rather than more efficient ones.
More power from modern engine platforms comes from a little turbocharger which increases fuel efficiency though. Cars have gotten larger the last two decades but since 2010 the engine displacement has largely gone down. My new CX-9 is way bigger than the Infiniti EX-35 I replaced, but the engine is smaller and far more fuel efficient thanks to a couple of little turbos.
High power V6 platforms have been going out of style for a while now. Only Tacoma and 4Runner enthusiasts seem to tolerate the god awful gas mileage they get.
Engine technology has meant we're for the most part holding the line on efficiency, but again: strap a modern engine to a car the size of a 1993 Camry, gear it down to take 8-10 seconds to accelerate to 60 and I bet you get 60+ mpg.
I bet I get fucking killed by the asshole that won't slow down as I merge
Almost as if there is a collective action problem spurred by continuing cheap gas incentivizing bigger vehicles rather than more efficient ones.
Also the people bearing most of the brunt of this problem are pedestrians, who are increasingly getting killed by vehicles because they are larger or are being replaced by fucking SUVs which are even larger. Because these things have consequences even if they aren't immediately obvious.
It's also worth pointing out that a revenue policy is only regressive/progressive depending on what the government does with the money they gain. It's why most carbon tax proposals I see are basically carbon tax + dividend for people below a certain income -- discourages behavior while not affecting the individual's bottom line.
Aye. This is also why a ton of countries fund generous welfare states with sales taxes and achieve more equitable outcomes. Because sales taxes may be regressive but it turns out regressive taxation can easily be offset and sales taxes are really good at raising money.
Or maybe we could just roll back the Trump tax cuts and fund infrastructure with that $2 trillion?
I think that's where most of my opposition comes from. I can acknowledge that, in a vacuum, increasing gas taxes could be a way to fund infrastructure improvements with some bonus driving incentives on the side. But I just have zero. fucking. interest. in distributed regressive taxation to fund basic social services when we are still, year after year, choking our revenue streams with continued tax cuts to the rich, corporations, estates, etc. Roll us back to 1960s era progressive taxation, fund a massive green investment in infrastructure, housing, and public transportation with that, and then we can talk about gas taxes to incentivize using it. Until then, I will argue that it's immoral to fund basic social services by squeezing the last drops of cash from the working class while we are simultaneously asking less and less of the rich.
This is irrelevant to the point. You can raise money many ways. There's nothing wrong with regressive taxation initiatives. Especially when they can be very efficient at raising or can curtail behaviour we want to reduce or eliminate;.
More power from modern engine platforms comes from a little turbocharger which increases fuel efficiency though. Cars have gotten larger the last two decades but since 2010 the engine displacement has largely gone down. My new CX-9 is way bigger than the Infiniti EX-35 I replaced, but the engine is smaller and far more fuel efficient thanks to a couple of little turbos.
High power V6 platforms have been going out of style for a while now. Only Tacoma and 4Runner enthusiasts seem to tolerate the god awful gas mileage they get.
Engine technology has meant we're for the most part holding the line on efficiency, but again: strap a modern engine to a car the size of a 1993 Camry, gear it down to take 8-10 seconds to accelerate to 60 and I bet you get 60+ mpg.
I bet I get fucking killed by the asshole that won't slow down as I merge
Almost as if there is a collective action problem spurred by continuing cheap gas incentivizing bigger vehicles rather than more efficient ones.
More power from modern engine platforms comes from a little turbocharger which increases fuel efficiency though. Cars have gotten larger the last two decades but since 2010 the engine displacement has largely gone down. My new CX-9 is way bigger than the Infiniti EX-35 I replaced, but the engine is smaller and far more fuel efficient thanks to a couple of little turbos.
High power V6 platforms have been going out of style for a while now. Only Tacoma and 4Runner enthusiasts seem to tolerate the god awful gas mileage they get.
Engine technology has meant we're for the most part holding the line on efficiency, but again: strap a modern engine to a car the size of a 1993 Camry, gear it down to take 8-10 seconds to accelerate to 60 and I bet you get 60+ mpg.
I bet I get fucking killed by the asshole that won't slow down as I merge
Almost as if there is a collective action problem spurred by continuing cheap gas incentivizing bigger vehicles rather than more efficient ones.
Also the people bearing most of the brunt of this problem are pedestrians, who are increasingly getting killed by vehicles because they are larger or are being replaced by fucking SUVs which are even larger. Because these things have consequences even if they aren't immediately obvious.
And who are also mostly working class because they can't afford a car in the first place. The stereotype of cyclists and transit riders being white urban hipsters obliterates the more accurate reality of statistically who is actually sitting on the bus or riding a bike to get to work.
It's also worth pointing out that a revenue policy is only regressive/progressive depending on what the government does with the money they gain. It's why most carbon tax proposals I see are basically carbon tax + dividend for people below a certain income -- discourages behavior while not affecting the individual's bottom line.
Aye. This is also why a ton of countries fund generous welfare states with sales taxes and achieve more equitable outcomes. Because sales taxes may be regressive but it turns out regressive taxation can easily be offset and sales taxes are really good at raising money.
Or maybe we could just roll back the Trump tax cuts and fund infrastructure with that $2 trillion?
I think that's where most of my opposition comes from. I can acknowledge that, in a vacuum, increasing gas taxes could be a way to fund infrastructure improvements with some bonus driving incentives on the side. But I just have zero. fucking. interest. in distributed regressive taxation to fund basic social services when we are still, year after year, choking our revenue streams with continued tax cuts to the rich, corporations, estates, etc. Roll us back to 1960s era progressive taxation, fund a massive green investment in infrastructure, housing, and public transportation with that, and then we can talk about gas taxes to incentivize using it. Until then, I will argue that it's immoral to fund basic social services by squeezing the last drops of cash from the working class while we are simultaneously asking less and less of the rich.
This is irrelevant to the point. You can raise money many ways. There's nothing wrong with regressive taxation initiatives. Especially when they can be very efficient at raising or can curtail behaviour we want to reduce or eliminate;.
I disagree. I think it's incredibly relevant to be discussing raising taxes on the working class within the context of cutting taxes on the rich. If you don't see a political, fiscal, or moral connection between the two, I'm not sure what to say.
It's also worth pointing out that a revenue policy is only regressive/progressive depending on what the government does with the money they gain. It's why most carbon tax proposals I see are basically carbon tax + dividend for people below a certain income -- discourages behavior while not affecting the individual's bottom line.
Aye. This is also why a ton of countries fund generous welfare states with sales taxes and achieve more equitable outcomes. Because sales taxes may be regressive but it turns out regressive taxation can easily be offset and sales taxes are really good at raising money.
Or maybe we could just roll back the Trump tax cuts and fund infrastructure with that $2 trillion?
I think that's where most of my opposition comes from. I can acknowledge that, in a vacuum, increasing gas taxes could be a way to fund infrastructure improvements with some bonus driving incentives on the side. But I just have zero. fucking. interest. in distributed regressive taxation to fund basic social services when we are still, year after year, choking our revenue streams with continued tax cuts to the rich, corporations, estates, etc. Roll us back to 1960s era progressive taxation, fund a massive green investment in infrastructure, housing, and public transportation with that, and then we can talk about gas taxes to incentivize using it. Until then, I will argue that it's immoral to fund basic social services by squeezing the last drops of cash from the working class while we are simultaneously asking less and less of the rich.
This is irrelevant to the point. You can raise money many ways. There's nothing wrong with regressive taxation initiatives. Especially when they can be very efficient at raising or can curtail behaviour we want to reduce or eliminate;.
I disagree. I think it's incredibly relevant to be discussing raising taxes on the working class within the context of cutting taxes on the rich. If you don't see a political, fiscal, or moral connection between the two, I'm not sure what to say.
No one here has ever argued that we should raise taxes on the working class while also cutting taxes on the rich.
It's also worth pointing out that a revenue policy is only regressive/progressive depending on what the government does with the money they gain. It's why most carbon tax proposals I see are basically carbon tax + dividend for people below a certain income -- discourages behavior while not affecting the individual's bottom line.
Aye. This is also why a ton of countries fund generous welfare states with sales taxes and achieve more equitable outcomes. Because sales taxes may be regressive but it turns out regressive taxation can easily be offset and sales taxes are really good at raising money.
Or maybe we could just roll back the Trump tax cuts and fund infrastructure with that $2 trillion?
I think that's where most of my opposition comes from. I can acknowledge that, in a vacuum, increasing gas taxes could be a way to fund infrastructure improvements with some bonus driving incentives on the side. But I just have zero. fucking. interest. in distributed regressive taxation to fund basic social services when we are still, year after year, choking our revenue streams with continued tax cuts to the rich, corporations, estates, etc. Roll us back to 1960s era progressive taxation, fund a massive green investment in infrastructure, housing, and public transportation with that, and then we can talk about gas taxes to incentivize using it. Until then, I will argue that it's immoral to fund basic social services by squeezing the last drops of cash from the working class while we are simultaneously asking less and less of the rich.
This is irrelevant to the point. You can raise money many ways. There's nothing wrong with regressive taxation initiatives. Especially when they can be very efficient at raising or can curtail behaviour we want to reduce or eliminate;.
I disagree. I think it's incredibly relevant to be discussing raising taxes on the working class within the context of cutting taxes on the rich. If you don't see a political, fiscal, or moral connection between the two, I'm not sure what to say.
No, it's utterly irrelevant. "We could also raise this tax" or "We could raise this tax instead" does not in any way change that regressive taxation is not a actually problem in and of itself. Because you have to factor in where that money gets spent too. It's the overall picture that's important. On top of which using taxes to shape behaviour is a good lever the government can use to fix problems. Taxing gas consumption hits both of these. It shapes behaviour in ways we want and the fact that it may be regressive (arguable) doesn't really matter that much anyway. How much really rich people are paying in income taxes doesn't effect either of those points. "The rich should pay more in taxes" can be both true and also not relevant to the point.
It's also worth pointing out that a revenue policy is only regressive/progressive depending on what the government does with the money they gain. It's why most carbon tax proposals I see are basically carbon tax + dividend for people below a certain income -- discourages behavior while not affecting the individual's bottom line.
Aye. This is also why a ton of countries fund generous welfare states with sales taxes and achieve more equitable outcomes. Because sales taxes may be regressive but it turns out regressive taxation can easily be offset and sales taxes are really good at raising money.
Or maybe we could just roll back the Trump tax cuts and fund infrastructure with that $2 trillion?
I think that's where most of my opposition comes from. I can acknowledge that, in a vacuum, increasing gas taxes could be a way to fund infrastructure improvements with some bonus driving incentives on the side. But I just have zero. fucking. interest. in distributed regressive taxation to fund basic social services when we are still, year after year, choking our revenue streams with continued tax cuts to the rich, corporations, estates, etc. Roll us back to 1960s era progressive taxation, fund a massive green investment in infrastructure, housing, and public transportation with that, and then we can talk about gas taxes to incentivize using it. Until then, I will argue that it's immoral to fund basic social services by squeezing the last drops of cash from the working class while we are simultaneously asking less and less of the rich.
This is irrelevant to the point. You can raise money many ways. There's nothing wrong with regressive taxation initiatives. Especially when they can be very efficient at raising or can curtail behaviour we want to reduce or eliminate;.
I disagree. I think it's incredibly relevant to be discussing raising taxes on the working class within the context of cutting taxes on the rich. If you don't see a political, fiscal, or moral connection between the two, I'm not sure what to say.
Also relevant: impact on land use, development patterns, fuel efficiency, vehicle size, vehicle safety (including to those outside of the vehicle), VMT, and everything else that you keep ignoring or side stepping in your replies.
It's also worth pointing out that a revenue policy is only regressive/progressive depending on what the government does with the money they gain. It's why most carbon tax proposals I see are basically carbon tax + dividend for people below a certain income -- discourages behavior while not affecting the individual's bottom line.
Aye. This is also why a ton of countries fund generous welfare states with sales taxes and achieve more equitable outcomes. Because sales taxes may be regressive but it turns out regressive taxation can easily be offset and sales taxes are really good at raising money.
Or maybe we could just roll back the Trump tax cuts and fund infrastructure with that $2 trillion?
I think that's where most of my opposition comes from. I can acknowledge that, in a vacuum, increasing gas taxes could be a way to fund infrastructure improvements with some bonus driving incentives on the side. But I just have zero. fucking. interest. in distributed regressive taxation to fund basic social services when we are still, year after year, choking our revenue streams with continued tax cuts to the rich, corporations, estates, etc. Roll us back to 1960s era progressive taxation, fund a massive green investment in infrastructure, housing, and public transportation with that, and then we can talk about gas taxes to incentivize using it. Until then, I will argue that it's immoral to fund basic social services by squeezing the last drops of cash from the working class while we are simultaneously asking less and less of the rich.
This is irrelevant to the point. You can raise money many ways. There's nothing wrong with regressive taxation initiatives. Especially when they can be very efficient at raising or can curtail behaviour we want to reduce or eliminate;.
I disagree. I think it's incredibly relevant to be discussing raising taxes on the working class within the context of cutting taxes on the rich. If you don't see a political, fiscal, or moral connection between the two, I'm not sure what to say.
No one here has ever argued that we should raise taxes on the working class while also cutting taxes on the rich.
But unless we're talking about a country other than the United States, that's exactly what's being proposed. Because we have done nothing but cut taxes for the rich for the past 50 years. So when the argument is "we need to raise the gas tax to fund infrastructure improvements", it rings hollow, because there are dozens of other, less regressive, revenue sources that could be better used to fund those things.
It's also worth pointing out that a revenue policy is only regressive/progressive depending on what the government does with the money they gain. It's why most carbon tax proposals I see are basically carbon tax + dividend for people below a certain income -- discourages behavior while not affecting the individual's bottom line.
Aye. This is also why a ton of countries fund generous welfare states with sales taxes and achieve more equitable outcomes. Because sales taxes may be regressive but it turns out regressive taxation can easily be offset and sales taxes are really good at raising money.
Or maybe we could just roll back the Trump tax cuts and fund infrastructure with that $2 trillion?
I think that's where most of my opposition comes from. I can acknowledge that, in a vacuum, increasing gas taxes could be a way to fund infrastructure improvements with some bonus driving incentives on the side. But I just have zero. fucking. interest. in distributed regressive taxation to fund basic social services when we are still, year after year, choking our revenue streams with continued tax cuts to the rich, corporations, estates, etc. Roll us back to 1960s era progressive taxation, fund a massive green investment in infrastructure, housing, and public transportation with that, and then we can talk about gas taxes to incentivize using it. Until then, I will argue that it's immoral to fund basic social services by squeezing the last drops of cash from the working class while we are simultaneously asking less and less of the rich.
This is irrelevant to the point. You can raise money many ways. There's nothing wrong with regressive taxation initiatives. Especially when they can be very efficient at raising or can curtail behaviour we want to reduce or eliminate;.
I disagree. I think it's incredibly relevant to be discussing raising taxes on the working class within the context of cutting taxes on the rich. If you don't see a political, fiscal, or moral connection between the two, I'm not sure what to say.
Also relevant: impact on land use, development patterns, fuel efficiency, vehicle size, vehicle safety (including to those outside of the vehicle), VMT, and everything else that you keep ignoring or side stepping in your replies.
Because I haven't been arguing against those? This is a strawman I'm not interested in. I personally think that you could just regulate most of those things directly, and that the ability to shift usage patterns is going to be limited absent more direct regulation / investment in alternatives (again, much of the US has zero viable public transport alternatives right now). What I am specifically arguing is that the funding model in the United States of "gas tax = roads" is absolute regressive horseshit, and it is to everyone's detriment that we accept it as the default.
I think you're basically just ignoring what everyone else is saying in support of sales or gas taxes and just harping on them being regressive, because I've literally posted showing that a gas tax would be less regressive than other regulatory measures.
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
More power from modern engine platforms comes from a little turbocharger which increases fuel efficiency though. Cars have gotten larger the last two decades but since 2010 the engine displacement has largely gone down. My new CX-9 is way bigger than the Infiniti EX-35 I replaced, but the engine is smaller and far more fuel efficient thanks to a couple of little turbos.
High power V6 platforms have been going out of style for a while now. Only Tacoma and 4Runner enthusiasts seem to tolerate the god awful gas mileage they get.
Engine technology has meant we're for the most part holding the line on efficiency, but again: strap a modern engine to a car the size of a 1993 Camry, gear it down to take 8-10 seconds to accelerate to 60 and I bet you get 60+ mpg.
I bet I get fucking killed by the asshole that won't slow down as I merge
Almost as if there is a collective action problem spurred by continuing cheap gas incentivizing bigger vehicles rather than more efficient ones.
This is an utter non-sequitor
Being able to punch the pedal through the floor and having the car actually respond instead of just sounding like an angry bumblebee in a lawnmower while nothing happens is an improvement to my safety regardless of whether the asshole who put me in that position is driving an Escalade or a Tercel
More power from modern engine platforms comes from a little turbocharger which increases fuel efficiency though. Cars have gotten larger the last two decades but since 2010 the engine displacement has largely gone down. My new CX-9 is way bigger than the Infiniti EX-35 I replaced, but the engine is smaller and far more fuel efficient thanks to a couple of little turbos.
High power V6 platforms have been going out of style for a while now. Only Tacoma and 4Runner enthusiasts seem to tolerate the god awful gas mileage they get.
Engine technology has meant we're for the most part holding the line on efficiency, but again: strap a modern engine to a car the size of a 1993 Camry, gear it down to take 8-10 seconds to accelerate to 60 and I bet you get 60+ mpg.
I bet I get fucking killed by the asshole that won't slow down as I merge
Almost as if there is a collective action problem spurred by continuing cheap gas incentivizing bigger vehicles rather than more efficient ones.
This is an utter non-sequitor
Being able to punch the pedal through the floor and having the car actually respond instead of just sounding like an angry bumblebee in a lawnmower while nothing happens is an improvement to my safety regardless of whether the asshole who put me in that position is driving an Escalade or a Tercel
This weird scenario you are imagining is what seems like a non-sequitur here. I'm not sure what kind of acceleration you are imagining here.
More power from modern engine platforms comes from a little turbocharger which increases fuel efficiency though. Cars have gotten larger the last two decades but since 2010 the engine displacement has largely gone down. My new CX-9 is way bigger than the Infiniti EX-35 I replaced, but the engine is smaller and far more fuel efficient thanks to a couple of little turbos.
High power V6 platforms have been going out of style for a while now. Only Tacoma and 4Runner enthusiasts seem to tolerate the god awful gas mileage they get.
Engine technology has meant we're for the most part holding the line on efficiency, but again: strap a modern engine to a car the size of a 1993 Camry, gear it down to take 8-10 seconds to accelerate to 60 and I bet you get 60+ mpg.
I bet I get fucking killed by the asshole that won't slow down as I merge
Almost as if there is a collective action problem spurred by continuing cheap gas incentivizing bigger vehicles rather than more efficient ones.
This is an utter non-sequitor
Being able to punch the pedal through the floor and having the car actually respond instead of just sounding like an angry bumblebee in a lawnmower while nothing happens is an improvement to my safety regardless of whether the asshole who put me in that position is driving an Escalade or a Tercel
A 2000 Toyota Camry gets 0-60 in ~8-10 seconds. Which seems fairly typical for the time. I am unaware of there being some epidemic of older cars getting run off the highway at on-ramps due to taking ~2.2 seconds longer to get up to speed than the current model year. Do you have links to any NTSB reports that I'm overlooking?
The trend toward bigger vehicles matters because CAFE fleet standards for manufacturers are now (since 2011) based on the footprint (the area under the four tires) and actually allows larger cars to have lower mpg efficiencies.
One minor addendum to this topic: We should probably be less focused on fixing the suburbs and more focused on making cities better and adding housing to them. Don't get me wrong, the suburbs can be improved, and we shouldn't give up on them entirely (bicycle infrastructure seems an especially easy addition and could be viable in many places with the rapid improvement of electric micro-mobility devices). But most of the places that were designed from the start to be based around cars will always be based upon cars for as long as they exist.
That's kind of the positive side of us being in a housing crisis, it also serves as an opportunity to allow loads of people to move into denser cities, if we can start actually building enough housing in those places to meet the demand. We can also hopefully further increase the demand to live in dense areas by constantly improving the quality of life in those places with better transit, protected bike lanes, car-free streets, better public spaces, etc. It's a long-term project, but when you think about how much the country changed between 1950 and 1980, I think we can substantially turn the tide within the next few decades.
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Cigarette taxes are regressive. Yet we tax them heavily to curb smoking.
If you look at progressivity primarily through the lens of taxation, you are removing a large chunk of corrective taxes from your toolkit. Yet corrective taxes are one of the best ways to reduce bads.
More power from modern engine platforms comes from a little turbocharger which increases fuel efficiency though. Cars have gotten larger the last two decades but since 2010 the engine displacement has largely gone down. My new CX-9 is way bigger than the Infiniti EX-35 I replaced, but the engine is smaller and far more fuel efficient thanks to a couple of little turbos.
High power V6 platforms have been going out of style for a while now. Only Tacoma and 4Runner enthusiasts seem to tolerate the god awful gas mileage they get.
Engine technology has meant we're for the most part holding the line on efficiency, but again: strap a modern engine to a car the size of a 1993 Camry, gear it down to take 8-10 seconds to accelerate to 60 and I bet you get 60+ mpg.
I bet I get fucking killed by the asshole that won't slow down as I merge
Or, and hear me out on this one, you could simply use the acceleration ramp to ramp up your acceleration and merge at the same speed as the traffic
I personally think walkability is a natural occurrence in a city if we allow for the appropriate amount of density. As I joked previously, our current situation is the direct result of active measures by bad actors to make our cities worse and more spread out. We don't need to destroy cities and rebuild, we just need to kill all nimbys change local building codes to allow for more mixed us and moderately more dense housing.
Doing so is by policy demolishing current cities not built that way. Just via a different means. Again redoing cities to be fully walkable/bikeable/based on public transit is a decades long project. And should be done. But it is also super expensive. Requires a lot of local and national buy in. And also the EV revolution is here and takes lower amount of investment to get running and helping the environment.
Barcelona just seems to do it in significant parts of the city every year or two for pretty cheap.
I personally think walkability is a natural occurrence in a city if we allow for the appropriate amount of density. As I joked previously, our current situation is the direct result of active measures by bad actors to make our cities worse and more spread out. We don't need to destroy cities and rebuild, we just need to kill all nimbys change local building codes to allow for more mixed us and moderately more dense housing.
Doing so is by policy demolishing current cities not built that way. Just via a different means. Again redoing cities to be fully walkable/bikeable/based on public transit is a decades long project. And should be done. But it is also super expensive. Requires a lot of local and national buy in. And also the EV revolution is here and takes lower amount of investment to get running and helping the environment.
I've been pretty happy with how DC has handled public transit. They are still expanding the metro lines with the Silver line planning to go out to Dulles Airport now. And Maryland is putting in a Purple line that'll go from Bethesda all the way to New Carrollton. And as someone who took the bus a lot, their buses are really nice, modern, and clean. There's also the MARC rail if you need to live way out of the city.
Could they do better, sure. The purple line just lost their contractor due to bureaucracy. Could they be more efficient? Probably, seen quite a few articles talking about how China's public transit is way faster than ours. But hell if it isn't better than other cities like LA or Detroit.
I personally think walkability is a natural occurrence in a city if we allow for the appropriate amount of density. As I joked previously, our current situation is the direct result of active measures by bad actors to make our cities worse and more spread out. We don't need to destroy cities and rebuild, we just need to kill all nimbys change local building codes to allow for more mixed us and moderately more dense housing.
Doing so is by policy demolishing current cities not built that way. Just via a different means. Again redoing cities to be fully walkable/bikeable/based on public transit is a decades long project. And should be done. But it is also super expensive. Requires a lot of local and national buy in. And also the EV revolution is here and takes lower amount of investment to get running and helping the environment.
I've been pretty happy with how DC has handled public transit. They are still expanding the metro lines with the Silver line planning to go out to Dulles Airport now. And Maryland is putting in a Purple line that'll go from Bethesda all the way to New Carrollton. And as someone who took the bus a lot, their buses are really nice, modern, and clean. There's also the MARC rail if you need to live way out of the city.
Could they do better, sure. The purple line just lost their contractor due to bureaucracy. Could they be more efficient? Probably, seen quite a few articles talking about how China's public transit is way faster than ours. But hell if it isn't better than other cities like LA or Detroit.
Both of which were designed around streetcars before we decided to replace them with freeways.
Cigarette taxes are regressive. Yet we tax them heavily to curb smoking.
If you look at progressivity primarily through the lens of taxation, you are removing a large chunk of corrective taxes from your toolkit. Yet corrective taxes are one of the best ways to reduce bads.
And it makes many smokers think the government is stupid and shitty and kinda useless for anything but hassling them. Like it's certainly one of the more understanding demographics being hit with a regressive tax, cause it's a pretty well known fact that cigarettes are deadly. However the cost doesn't really play into the decision to drop an addiction. I'd say that the rise in knowledge of the longterm effects of smoking, and a general anti smoking message permeating most of pop culture, are far more responsible for preventing smokers than the cost of smoking deters active smokers. In fact all the high cost of smoking does is force smokers to smoke even more questionable tobacco. Like you avoid a bunch of cost if you just roll your own cigarettes, unfortunately you also generally end up avoiding a lot of filters on those cigarettes too.
Gas taxes should be an onerous burden at this point but to keep it from being a crushing weight primarily on the poor it should be clearly structured to ramp up over a decade if not more.
We should absolutely be taking the screws to the automakers right now about what they are producing and we should be dumping money into efforts to get better mass transit options into gear.
We should also be forcing companies over x size to provide shuttles to mass transit stops and rewarding companies under that size for providing the same/forming co ops that do the same.
RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Cigarette taxes are regressive. Yet we tax them heavily to curb smoking.
If you look at progressivity primarily through the lens of taxation, you are removing a large chunk of corrective taxes from your toolkit. Yet corrective taxes are one of the best ways to reduce bads.
And it makes many smokers think the government is stupid and shitty and kinda useless for anything but hassling them. Like it's certainly one of the more understanding demographics being hit with a regressive tax, cause it's a pretty well known fact that cigarettes are deadly. However the cost doesn't really play into the decision to drop an addiction. I'd say that the rise in knowledge of the longterm effects of smoking, and a general anti smoking message permeating most of pop culture, are far more responsible for preventing smokers than the cost of smoking deters active smokers. In fact all the high cost of smoking does is force smokers to smoke even more questionable tobacco. Like you avoid a bunch of cost if you just roll your own cigarettes, unfortunately you also generally end up avoiding a lot of filters on those cigarettes too.
Results:
From 2001 through 2015, increases in state-level excise taxes were associated with declines in prevalence of cigarette smoking. The effect was strongest in young adults (age 18-24) and weakest in low-income individuals (<$25,000).
[...]
Impact of cigarette taxes on attempts to quit:
It appears that increased taxes also have an association with the percentage of smokers that tried to quit the past 12 months. Our analyses suggest that an additional $0.25 in cigarette tax was associated with an estimated 0.67% increase in the percentage of active smokers that reported trying to quit smoking (Table 1). This effect was most pronounced in participants aged 25–44 (0.85% increase per $0.25 additional tax) and 45–64 (0.87% increase per $0.25 additional tax). The impact of an additional $0.25 tax is relatively similar across income levels, with the smallest effect being 0.63% for those making $50,000-<$75,000, while the largest absolute increase is 0.70% for those making <$25,000. Finally, when stratifying by race, we again see that White/Non-Hispanic (0.60%) and Hispanic (0.58%) have similar absolute increases in the percentage of smokers who tried to quit, while Black/Non-Hispanic has the smallest estimated increase of 0.2% in response to the additional tax.
I feel like a middle rung between bicycle/pedestrian accessibility and car-based infrastructure that is extremely prevalent in Japan and a lot of Europe, but relatively rare as hell in the USA, is using scooters/mopeds and small motorcycles for urban transit
my car gets ca. 19 mpg city, whereas my 250cc Honda bike gets somewhere around 60 mpg. the bike's brilliant for getting me to the exurban industrial lot I work at 5 miles from my house, which is just too far away from public transit lines and major roads to be properly walkable (done it once, it kinda really sucked), and only a little bit more bicycle-able
I basically only use my car for times I need to haul significant amounts of stuff, during really inclement weather, and when I need to roll with passengers. the rest of my life is bike-based these days
but between gear, licensing, practice, and having to pay for a second vehicle, along with a culture that sees most bikes as luxury items or toys (as well as a demeaning attitude towards bikes that aren't large Harley tourers or aggressive sportbikes), it seems like getting Americans attuned to the idea of small motorcycles as cheap personal transportation is like pulling teeth
The majority of the working and middle class do not require cigarettes for hours a day, every day to survive, nor have we spent the last 60+ years structuring our entire society around requiring cigarettes to function.
The majority of the working and middle class do not require cigarettes for hours a day, every day to survive, nor have we spent the last 60+ years structuring our entire society around requiring cigarettes to function.
Sure, and you can make the exact same argument about carbon emissions. In fact, they're almost equivalent. And even if you look at the power sector, pretty much every policy to encourage power producers to shift to renewables will be costlier than a carbon tax.
I feel like a middle rung between bicycle/pedestrian accessibility and car-based infrastructure that is extremely prevalent in Japan and a lot of Europe, but relatively rare as hell in the USA, is using scooters/mopeds and small motorcycles for urban transit
my car gets ca. 19 mpg city, whereas my 250cc Honda bike gets somewhere around 60 mpg. the bike's brilliant for getting me to the exurban industrial lot I work at 5 miles from my house, which is just too far away from public transit lines and major roads to be properly walkable (done it once, it kinda really sucked), and only a little bit more bicycle-able
I basically only use my car for times I need to haul significant amounts of stuff, during really inclement weather, and when I need to roll with passengers. the rest of my life is bike-based these days
but between gear, licensing, practice, and having to pay for a second vehicle, along with a culture that sees most bikes as luxury items or toys (as well as a demeaning attitude towards bikes that aren't large Harley tourers or aggressive sportbikes), it seems like getting Americans attuned to the idea of small motorcycles as cheap personal transportation is like pulling teeth
I don't wanna take a bike, powered or not, on a road that also has cars on it.
I feel like a middle rung between bicycle/pedestrian accessibility and car-based infrastructure that is extremely prevalent in Japan and a lot of Europe, but relatively rare as hell in the USA, is using scooters/mopeds and small motorcycles for urban transit
my car gets ca. 19 mpg city, whereas my 250cc Honda bike gets somewhere around 60 mpg. the bike's brilliant for getting me to the exurban industrial lot I work at 5 miles from my house, which is just too far away from public transit lines and major roads to be properly walkable (done it once, it kinda really sucked), and only a little bit more bicycle-able
I basically only use my car for times I need to haul significant amounts of stuff, during really inclement weather, and when I need to roll with passengers. the rest of my life is bike-based these days
but between gear, licensing, practice, and having to pay for a second vehicle, along with a culture that sees most bikes as luxury items or toys (as well as a demeaning attitude towards bikes that aren't large Harley tourers or aggressive sportbikes), it seems like getting Americans attuned to the idea of small motorcycles as cheap personal transportation is like pulling teeth
I don't wanna take a bike, powered or not, on a road that also has cars on it.
Mixed road use on roads properly designed for it increases traffic efficiency for all vehicles and decreases road wear, as well as increasing car driver awareness of non-car vehicles. it's a win/win
I feel like a middle rung between bicycle/pedestrian accessibility and car-based infrastructure that is extremely prevalent in Japan and a lot of Europe, but relatively rare as hell in the USA, is using scooters/mopeds and small motorcycles for urban transit
my car gets ca. 19 mpg city, whereas my 250cc Honda bike gets somewhere around 60 mpg. the bike's brilliant for getting me to the exurban industrial lot I work at 5 miles from my house, which is just too far away from public transit lines and major roads to be properly walkable (done it once, it kinda really sucked), and only a little bit more bicycle-able
I basically only use my car for times I need to haul significant amounts of stuff, during really inclement weather, and when I need to roll with passengers. the rest of my life is bike-based these days
but between gear, licensing, practice, and having to pay for a second vehicle, along with a culture that sees most bikes as luxury items or toys (as well as a demeaning attitude towards bikes that aren't large Harley tourers or aggressive sportbikes), it seems like getting Americans attuned to the idea of small motorcycles as cheap personal transportation is like pulling teeth
I don't wanna take a bike, powered or not, on a road that also has cars on it.
Mixed road use on roads properly designed for it increases traffic efficiency for all vehicles and decreases road wear, as well as increasing car driver awareness of non-car vehicles. it's a win/win
That's great, but we don't have those. I live in Gods waiting room, and fuck being on a bike down here.
I feel like a middle rung between bicycle/pedestrian accessibility and car-based infrastructure that is extremely prevalent in Japan and a lot of Europe, but relatively rare as hell in the USA, is using scooters/mopeds and small motorcycles for urban transit
my car gets ca. 19 mpg city, whereas my 250cc Honda bike gets somewhere around 60 mpg. the bike's brilliant for getting me to the exurban industrial lot I work at 5 miles from my house, which is just too far away from public transit lines and major roads to be properly walkable (done it once, it kinda really sucked), and only a little bit more bicycle-able
I basically only use my car for times I need to haul significant amounts of stuff, during really inclement weather, and when I need to roll with passengers. the rest of my life is bike-based these days
but between gear, licensing, practice, and having to pay for a second vehicle, along with a culture that sees most bikes as luxury items or toys (as well as a demeaning attitude towards bikes that aren't large Harley tourers or aggressive sportbikes), it seems like getting Americans attuned to the idea of small motorcycles as cheap personal transportation is like pulling teeth
I don't wanna take a bike, powered or not, on a road that also has cars on it.
Mixed road use on roads properly designed for it increases traffic efficiency for all vehicles and decreases road wear, as well as increasing car driver awareness of non-car vehicles. it's a win/win
Posts
Doing so is by policy demolishing current cities not built that way. Just via a different means. Again redoing cities to be fully walkable/bikeable/based on public transit is a decades long project. And should be done. But it is also super expensive. Requires a lot of local and national buy in. And also the EV revolution is here and takes lower amount of investment to get running and helping the environment.
yeah, but destroying current cities via natural evolution and growth is more ship of Theseus than the actively shitty Robert Moses policies that got us here.
Aye. This is also why a ton of countries fund generous welfare states with sales taxes and achieve more equitable outcomes. Because sales taxes may be regressive but it turns out regressive taxation can easily be offset and sales taxes are really good at raising money.
Square/cube law says that if an object is 2x larger on all sides it’s 4/8 x larger in area/volume.
But I already went through to get a by volume measure by multiplying out the individual dimension percentage increases. So 25% more volume is 25% more volume.
It also explains why you might not think your car is much larger as it’s “only” 10% larger on its largest dimensional increase
I bet I get fucking killed by the asshole that won't slow down as I merge
I missed that you said by volume there, my pedant petard, I am hoisted by it.
Or maybe we could just roll back the Trump tax cuts and fund infrastructure with that $2 trillion?
I think that's where most of my opposition comes from. I can acknowledge that, in a vacuum, increasing gas taxes could be a way to fund infrastructure improvements with some bonus driving incentives on the side. But I just have zero. fucking. interest. in distributed regressive taxation to fund basic social services when we are still, year after year, choking our revenue streams with continued tax cuts to the rich, corporations, estates, etc. Roll us back to 1960s era progressive taxation, fund a massive green investment in infrastructure, housing, and public transportation with that, and then we can talk about gas taxes to incentivize using it. Until then, I will argue that it's immoral to fund basic social services by squeezing the last drops of cash from the working class while we are simultaneously asking less and less of the rich.
Almost as if there is a collective action problem spurred by continuing cheap gas incentivizing bigger vehicles rather than more efficient ones.
Right, this just ends in everyone driving tanks
Also the people bearing most of the brunt of this problem are pedestrians, who are increasingly getting killed by vehicles because they are larger or are being replaced by fucking SUVs which are even larger. Because these things have consequences even if they aren't immediately obvious.
This is irrelevant to the point. You can raise money many ways. There's nothing wrong with regressive taxation initiatives. Especially when they can be very efficient at raising or can curtail behaviour we want to reduce or eliminate;.
Can we just skip to exosuits
And who are also mostly working class because they can't afford a car in the first place. The stereotype of cyclists and transit riders being white urban hipsters obliterates the more accurate reality of statistically who is actually sitting on the bus or riding a bike to get to work.
I disagree. I think it's incredibly relevant to be discussing raising taxes on the working class within the context of cutting taxes on the rich. If you don't see a political, fiscal, or moral connection between the two, I'm not sure what to say.
No one here has ever argued that we should raise taxes on the working class while also cutting taxes on the rich.
No, it's utterly irrelevant. "We could also raise this tax" or "We could raise this tax instead" does not in any way change that regressive taxation is not a actually problem in and of itself. Because you have to factor in where that money gets spent too. It's the overall picture that's important. On top of which using taxes to shape behaviour is a good lever the government can use to fix problems. Taxing gas consumption hits both of these. It shapes behaviour in ways we want and the fact that it may be regressive (arguable) doesn't really matter that much anyway. How much really rich people are paying in income taxes doesn't effect either of those points. "The rich should pay more in taxes" can be both true and also not relevant to the point.
Also relevant: impact on land use, development patterns, fuel efficiency, vehicle size, vehicle safety (including to those outside of the vehicle), VMT, and everything else that you keep ignoring or side stepping in your replies.
But unless we're talking about a country other than the United States, that's exactly what's being proposed. Because we have done nothing but cut taxes for the rich for the past 50 years. So when the argument is "we need to raise the gas tax to fund infrastructure improvements", it rings hollow, because there are dozens of other, less regressive, revenue sources that could be better used to fund those things.
Because I haven't been arguing against those? This is a strawman I'm not interested in. I personally think that you could just regulate most of those things directly, and that the ability to shift usage patterns is going to be limited absent more direct regulation / investment in alternatives (again, much of the US has zero viable public transport alternatives right now). What I am specifically arguing is that the funding model in the United States of "gas tax = roads" is absolute regressive horseshit, and it is to everyone's detriment that we accept it as the default.
This is an utter non-sequitor
Being able to punch the pedal through the floor and having the car actually respond instead of just sounding like an angry bumblebee in a lawnmower while nothing happens is an improvement to my safety regardless of whether the asshole who put me in that position is driving an Escalade or a Tercel
This weird scenario you are imagining is what seems like a non-sequitur here. I'm not sure what kind of acceleration you are imagining here.
A 2000 Toyota Camry gets 0-60 in ~8-10 seconds. Which seems fairly typical for the time. I am unaware of there being some epidemic of older cars getting run off the highway at on-ramps due to taking ~2.2 seconds longer to get up to speed than the current model year. Do you have links to any NTSB reports that I'm overlooking?
That's kind of the positive side of us being in a housing crisis, it also serves as an opportunity to allow loads of people to move into denser cities, if we can start actually building enough housing in those places to meet the demand. We can also hopefully further increase the demand to live in dense areas by constantly improving the quality of life in those places with better transit, protected bike lanes, car-free streets, better public spaces, etc. It's a long-term project, but when you think about how much the country changed between 1950 and 1980, I think we can substantially turn the tide within the next few decades.
If you look at progressivity primarily through the lens of taxation, you are removing a large chunk of corrective taxes from your toolkit. Yet corrective taxes are one of the best ways to reduce bads.
Or, and hear me out on this one, you could simply use the acceleration ramp to ramp up your acceleration and merge at the same speed as the traffic
*grumbles in seattle*
Barcelona just seems to do it in significant parts of the city every year or two for pretty cheap.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-11/barcelona-s-new-car-free-superblock-will-be-big?utm_source=url_link
I've been pretty happy with how DC has handled public transit. They are still expanding the metro lines with the Silver line planning to go out to Dulles Airport now. And Maryland is putting in a Purple line that'll go from Bethesda all the way to New Carrollton. And as someone who took the bus a lot, their buses are really nice, modern, and clean. There's also the MARC rail if you need to live way out of the city.
Could they do better, sure. The purple line just lost their contractor due to bureaucracy. Could they be more efficient? Probably, seen quite a few articles talking about how China's public transit is way faster than ours. But hell if it isn't better than other cities like LA or Detroit.
Both of which were designed around streetcars before we decided to replace them with freeways.
And it makes many smokers think the government is stupid and shitty and kinda useless for anything but hassling them. Like it's certainly one of the more understanding demographics being hit with a regressive tax, cause it's a pretty well known fact that cigarettes are deadly. However the cost doesn't really play into the decision to drop an addiction. I'd say that the rise in knowledge of the longterm effects of smoking, and a general anti smoking message permeating most of pop culture, are far more responsible for preventing smokers than the cost of smoking deters active smokers. In fact all the high cost of smoking does is force smokers to smoke even more questionable tobacco. Like you avoid a bunch of cost if you just roll your own cigarettes, unfortunately you also generally end up avoiding a lot of filters on those cigarettes too.
We should absolutely be taking the screws to the automakers right now about what they are producing and we should be dumping money into efforts to get better mass transit options into gear.
We should also be forcing companies over x size to provide shuttles to mass transit stops and rewarding companies under that size for providing the same/forming co ops that do the same.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6147505/
my car gets ca. 19 mpg city, whereas my 250cc Honda bike gets somewhere around 60 mpg. the bike's brilliant for getting me to the exurban industrial lot I work at 5 miles from my house, which is just too far away from public transit lines and major roads to be properly walkable (done it once, it kinda really sucked), and only a little bit more bicycle-able
I basically only use my car for times I need to haul significant amounts of stuff, during really inclement weather, and when I need to roll with passengers. the rest of my life is bike-based these days
but between gear, licensing, practice, and having to pay for a second vehicle, along with a culture that sees most bikes as luxury items or toys (as well as a demeaning attitude towards bikes that aren't large Harley tourers or aggressive sportbikes), it seems like getting Americans attuned to the idea of small motorcycles as cheap personal transportation is like pulling teeth
Sure, and you can make the exact same argument about carbon emissions. In fact, they're almost equivalent. And even if you look at the power sector, pretty much every policy to encourage power producers to shift to renewables will be costlier than a carbon tax.
I don't wanna take a bike, powered or not, on a road that also has cars on it.
Mixed road use on roads properly designed for it increases traffic efficiency for all vehicles and decreases road wear, as well as increasing car driver awareness of non-car vehicles. it's a win/win
That's great, but we don't have those. I live in Gods waiting room, and fuck being on a bike down here.
Aye, and there's the rub.