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Good luck setting up a system that everybody deems fair. I am not holding my breath. The necessary accounting bureacrazy will be huge and prone to abuse. It's easier, more efficient and hence cheaper, to not do it.

Mileage surcharges are useless. If you want to tax usage, do it by pollution and a gas tax increase. Europeans have done so, and are fine with it. I.e., they complain just as much about high gas prices as Americans.

I don't know how the Hasselt system is supported. One really big difference between European and American taxes is that Europeans rarely earmark their taxes, unlie Americans. Europeans tax, dump all the money in the treasury and then start spending. Belgium has the most complex government system in the world (a mere 7 hierarchical layers), so I have no clue where the money comes from. Quite frankly, I don't care. They managed to do it, and the citizens are happy. That's what counts.

Or (to cite a wiki entry) shuttle services provided by universities. Universities save on parking (we can turn that parking lot into a dorm), maintenance, etc., and communities benefit from increased connectivity to a university (and all the students' disposable income). In both cases, a decision was made that facilitated the passing of infrastructure costs to users. No more free parking at universities (we have a shuttle bus!), no more need for that long commute (I save all this money if I live in town!).

It is inefficient to hand out infrastructure to private entities, like universities. By letting them soley handle their campuses, you lock out visitors of the campuses and other people. Case and point: The GUTS bus vs the blue shuttles in Georgetown. It would be more efficient to merge those buses lines. With a bit of smart planning, you can transport more people, at a higher frequency, with less buses, less noise, and less pollution.

Secondly, I don't know of any university that has free parking. Not here in DC. Not in VA, and even OSU charges the hell out of its employees and students despite having a 4 square mile campus and a bus system.

98 percent of Maryland will never, ever, travel to new development X in Hagerstown.

98% of Marylanders never drive by Hagerstown on I-81 or I-70? 98% of Marylanders never go shopping at the outlet Mall in Hagerstown? 98% of Marylanders will not profit from the sales and corporate and income tax generated by the outlet Mall?

Because that's where the people who live in development X work: The Hagerstown Outlet Mall. They provide good deals to citizens of MD, PA, WV, VA and DC. They collect sales tax for ALL citizens of MD. They need I-81 and I-70 to get goods in the Mall. They need I-81 and I-70 for you to get to the Mall. The need power lines. They need water treatment to sell you food in the food court of the Mall.

This is exactly what I mean. You can not allocate infrastructure to individual users. Infrastructure enables economical activity. Without infrastructure, there is no economy, and you can go chase squirrels in the woods.

Everybody is paying for those roads, because the people that live their provide economical activities that benefit everybody through taxation.

by Jasper on Mar 10, 2009 11:49 am • link • report