From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: Re: Transit Levy on BC-Hydro Bills
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 08:28:11 GMT

In article <schuck.721414922@sfu.ca> Bruce_Schuck@sfu.ca writes:
>> & >>> John Paul Morrison writes:
>
>>>      Brad Crockett writes:
>
>>Then stop making people who don't drive to work subsidize the system!
>>By using it they will pay for it.
>>>
>
>>>> >>Let's make a deal: I'll agree to pay the full share of road costs for 
>>>> >>my driving, 
>>>
>>>> >I sincerely doubt you can afford it.
>>>   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>>The tax revenue disproves this , especially when the cost of roads, bridges,
>>repairs etc. is amorttized over 20 years of use.
>
>>$20 / week * 52 weeks = $1040
>
>>divide by two to get government's share: = $520
>>multiple by 100,000 cars (a very conservative amount) = 52 million per year.
>
>>$52 million is an extremely low estimate, but is still a fair bit of cash.
>>I suspect 100 million or more is a good estimate for BC.
>
>>So obviously "I sincerely doubt you can afford it." is false.
>
>The Coquihalla itself cost 1 billion. 
>

hey, guess what? The Coquihalla is a *TOLL* road!!!

The highway is actually ahead of schedule  in paying itself back, because
it was so badly needed, that many people use it.

>The interest [without paying back capital costs] is between 50 and 100
>million a year at current or recent interest rates -- let alone the
>one prevalent at the time.
>
>Thats just one highway -- no maintenance costs added in.
>

But they don't build billion dollar projects every single, so whatever
the tax revenue, the cost of building the bridge is fixed, as is amortized
(ie paid back) over a 20 year or longer period.

I also suspect that the rough gas tax calculation I made was very low.

>Your gas taxes don't pay the cost at all.

I don;t know the exact figures, do you?

It is not implausible that gas taxes end up paying for a significant amount
of the cost of roads.

The real point is that motorists are not getting a free ride, and that
people who use the roads pay their fair share.

Now if you want to quibble more, I could argue that sales taxes help pay
for roads etc. and that people who use roads have nothing to feel guilty
about. The reasoning is that there would be almost nothing to sell if
it were not for roads etc.


Anyway, this is getting way off topic.

I thought it was whether or not it is fair for people who do not directly
or indirectly use a service (public transport) to subsidize it for people
who do use it.

People can sit here blowing smoke about how nice transit is, therefore it
should be subsidized, but that does not tackle the fact that it would be
fairer, more expedient, and more efficient to let the actions of the 
competitive free market determine the optimum combination of buses, cars
taxis etc. Subsidies make waste and misallocation of resources a virtual
certainty.

>
>
>
>-- 
>============================================================================
>"We've got to get bigger guns" -- Dick Durkin                  schuck@sfu.ca
>============================================================================


-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
 John Paul Morrison                     |  
 University of British Columbia, Canada |  
 Electrical Engineering                 |   .sig file without a cause
 jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca              VE7JPM |  
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Newsgroups: bc.general,ubc.general