Quote:
Originally Posted by waves
How exactly will mobility pricing be different from a gas tax and insurance?
- Those who drive more in Metro Van pay more and use more gas
- Those who drive more efficient cars pay less because they consume less gas
- Insurance charges you less if you drive your vehicle only recreationally than for work and less depending on your region.
For mobility pricing to be implemented, it would need to do all of these three things:
(1) increase/decrease the cost of driving on an hour by hour basis.
(2) increase/decrease the cost from micro location to micro location basis.
(3) charge visiting vehicles and old vehicles.
It would be a waste otherwise because you can just use other methods, such as a gas tax, insurance charges or bridge tolls.
A list of proposed systems:
- Odometer: No(1) No(2) Yes(3). Can't tell when and where you are. Could charge a flat rate per km driven for those crossing the border by road.
- GPS Tracking: Yes(1) Yes(2) No(3). Unless it is hardwired into the car someone could just turn it off. You can't hardwire it to every car because of existing vehicles and out of town vehicles. Also a privacy issue. Very expensive to implement continually.
- RFID micro zones: Yes(1) Yes(2) No(3). High initial capital cost with RFID sensors on all borders to micro zones. Low operational cost. Entry points into Metro Vancouver would need toll booth's to ensure all visitors have an RFID registered or a Metro Van Pass (similar to a National Park Pass?). Very disruptive to inter-regional traffic (Hwy 1, Sea to Sky Hwy, Ferry Highways).
- All Bridge Tolling: Yes(1) No(2) Yes(3). Zones aren't evenly distributed in size.
- Specify your work place on your Insurance: No(1) NotReally(2) No(3). People use their cars for much much more than just going to work.
- Gas Tax: No(1) Kinda(2) Yes(3). People don't fill up frequent enough that the price of gas can be changed to discourage travel during certain hours.
The only solution I think remotely worth considering would by RFID Microzones, but would be a very expensive endeavour. They should scrap this idea of Mobility Pricing and just increase the Gas Tax as a more fair and simple way of collecting revenue. People will avoid peak hours from congestion by their own accord, which increases the likelihood they will consider transit and if they do need to drive, influence what time they do drive at.
People had enough trouble with Compass and that wasn't really revolutionary technology.
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Agreed. Aren't we already paying for mobility pricing in other ways? If you drive more, you use more gas, and then will be paying more gas taxes as a result. Insurance rates are also higher for those living 15km or more away from work. We already have the highest surcharges on gas in the entire country. Like, living in Vancouver is not already expensive as it is. Lets add another bill to pay.
Mobility pricing, to be effective, needs to be done in such a way that measures accurately the amount of driving someone does. It cant be a simple formula that charges you based on X. The X in this case is driving to Vancouver, even thought you may drive elsewhere for work or pleasure. I would prefer have an RFID system or tolling all bridges at 50 cents a trip, not the current $6.30 which is excessive when you think about it.
Lastly, many people were forced to live further away not because of choice, but because they were forced to by our current speculative housing marking. Since they had to buy a home in Port Coquitlam or Langley why should they be doubly punished for living further away from the core?
To be sensible, there needs to be an economic threshold put in place. For example, if you make below 50,000 you will only pay 80%, below 75,000 you will pay 60%, etc. Otherwise, it will be another regressive tax that hurts those least able to pay.
We would not be in this position Liberals were not in power for 16 years. Cutting income taxes to the rich and having the lowest corporate taxes has not helped the public. The $3 billion income tax cut put in place after Gordon Campbell came into power meant that we lost roughly $48 billion that could have been spent on infrastructure, schools, and hospitals. The tax burden has shifted to the middle class where we are being nickle and dimed to financial death, and has further exacerbated inequality.