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From: geb@cadre.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: PISSED OFF
Message-ID: <188@cadre.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 20-Jan-85 09:47:43 EST
Article-I.D.: cadre.188
Posted: Sun Jan 20 09:47:43 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 23-Jan-85 09:06:55 EST
References: <1899@inmet.UUCP> <560@amdcad.UUCP>
Reply-To: geb@cadre.ARPA (Gordon E. Banks)
Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pgh.
Lines: 21
Summary: 

In article <560@amdcad.UUCP> phil@amdcad.UUCP writes:
> I don't
>understand how paying for roads with gasoline taxes is unfair.
>
>Here in California, we believe that the overhead in charging tolls for
>highways (make everyone stop, pay a coolie to take your quarter) is
>unacceptably high. Yet this is what you must have to operate private roads.
>

Actually the gas tax is among the fairest of all taxes, in that it is
a user tax.  New technology may make the toll argument obsolete.  Sensors
on the highways could detect an individual vehicle and compute tolls for
all roads to be billed to the owner monthly.  Thus, those who don't drive
or ride public transportation would not have to pay for the roads
except in the prices for goods transported over them.  Whoever built
the road, bridge, etc., could collect the tolls for it from Mastercard,
or whoever handled the billing.  This would take road building out of
the porkbarrel and into the private sector.  Most economists agree that the
free market is the most efficient way of providing services (more service
for less money), new technology may extend it into realms where it has
been impractical in the past.