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Politics : The Citizens Manifesto
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To: TimF who wrote (114)6/16/2005 1:40:28 AM
From: combjelly  Read Replies (1) of 492
 
"causes people to find ways to reduce their commute, and encourages greater use of public transportation."

Public transportation has to exist before it can be used. It is by no means universal. You can make the argument that it should be, but the fact of the matter is that it isn't. To further complicate the situation, people already live where they live and work where they work and it may not be possible for them to change their arrangements on short notice. Raising the gas taxes to a high level would cause a great deal of pain. John's car tax wouldn't. As an added bonus, it would actually encourage a replacement cycle with smaller more efficient cars.

Since you mentioned it, let's look at the European gas situation. We just did some traveling through Germany and the Benelux. Gas prices were between 0.97 and 1.28 Euros per liter. That makes gas between $4.54 and $6 a gallon at current exchange rates. Most of the cars on the road were similar to what we were driving, a VW Polo with a 1.2 liter engine and gets around 5 liters per 100 km or about 46 mpg. And then there are things like the Smart Car... There was an occasional SUV, no clue what kind of mileage those get. If most of those cars were any smaller, you'd have to lace them on. Now compare that with the traffic on the typical Interstate in the US. It is going to take a number of years to get people to switch to cars like that. In addition, the roads would need to be upgraded, the suspensions on those cars can't take the potholes and poor road patches that are common on our streets...
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