Whose money is it anyway?

1 - By the time peak oil happens we will have cheap GPS technology for electronic tolling. (Comment this)

2 - Of course, transport users should be charged on the same basis that other commodoties are charged, user pays. That it is a tax is because the govt owns and provides the service.

Of course, the "beauty" of the petrol tax is that, better than many other taxes, it appears to quite closely match actual usage and so does not cause the same imbalances that other taxes sometimes create. This IS breaking down a bit with the rate not being increased to match road costs partially due to the ongoing improvements in vehicle efficiency (i.e. cars/trucks are getting better and better milage and so "wearing out more roads per litre").

The leap in efficiency of hybrids means these cars do would not cover their share of road use even if the govt did not take a cut of the petrol tax. Overseas they are considering various measures to deal with this including extra taxes on hybribs (which is ironic since most hybrids are made affordible due to signifincant tax breaks).

The bigger issue is the use of petrol tax for non-roading purposes. You outline this on your web site but expenditure on public transport subsidies (especially pasenger rail) is one of the biggest diversions.

Into the future, I think electronic tolling is a possibility (really a more direct "user pays"). They have the GPS form in Germany for trucking and, while it does work. it also has very serious privacy issues that are likely to hold it up for some time. The most interesting part of toll though will be how public transport, ACC and other services currently supported by the petrol tax are to be funded into the future.

Finally, transport is a very political issue and so the decisions made are not likely to be based on logic or fairness.

Johnsonville Commuter (Comment this)

3 - How about tax the capital gains that result from the land being near roading?

The Vice Chairman of Transport for London made such a submission here.
http://sustento.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/transport-urban-sprawl-and-justice.pdf

Even the Chairman of the Reserve Bank is proposing a Georgian (Henry George) Land Tax!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4258411a13.html (Comment this)

4 - I like that idea. Is there a simple way of assessing the capital gains?

Parliament dabbled with a similar idea a century ago.
http://www.petroltax.org.nz/PDF/MastertonBoroughBettermentAct1902.PDF

When councils first started building gutters, footpaths and street lights the law required that half the cost be charged as special rates to the adjoining property holders in proportion to their street frontage.


Another more environmentally friendly way of paying for roads was proposed by Natonal's Roading Advisory Group. GPS based electronic tolling has several benefits over RUCs and fuel taxes.

1) The cost of road capacity in excess of two lanes can be charged entirely to those road users who travel at the times when the extra capacity is actually needed.

2) Road users will receive a monthly bill instead of srip feeding their payments. This is a huge psychological change. It means the cost of road use can be directly compared with the cost of a monthly bus pass.

3) Many expenses which are currently charged on an annual basis could be converted to a per km basis. For instance registration fees, insurance.

4) Kerbside parking would be viable anywhere with demand sensitive pricing. That would go along way towards getting kids walking or cycling to school. It would also remove the "free" parking used by shop assistants and office workers in residential streets bordering commercial centres.

This method of collecting parking revenue would make it administratively simple to allocate the parking revenue to the streets from which the revenue is derived. This money could be used to replace asphalt with cooler textured concrete and install benches, planters, trees and more pedestians crossings and refuges and traffic calming features.

"Turning Small Change Into Big Changes" explains how this approach to parking meters was key to revitalising Old Pasadena and contrasts Old Pasadena with Westwood Village.
http://www.uctc.net/access/23/Access%2023%20-%2002%20-%20Small%20Change%20into%20Big%20Change.pdf
 (Comment this)

5 - People will probably have to get used to traveling less, and business will need to take this into account when basing their operations. If petrol is $10 a litre, very few people will be able to afford driving for an hour to work.

If the doom and gloomers are right about peak oil, and it is a relatively sudden downturn in availability (I'm not yet convinced) then transport funding will be a minor worry, the disappearance of 20% of our economy would be far far greater. Transport funding may decline in total, but would the increased GST on a $10 litre make up for it? Construction costs would also likely fall as labour and idled capital would be very cheap (think 1930s style conditions). Maybe the unemployed could be put to work installing electric trams.

As for global warming, what we need is a smart company to come up with a way to ferment sugar beets (a cold climate crop) into butanol (a direct replacement for petrol).

If some clever chemical engineer could crack this, we could attempt some substitution with petroleum products...







 (Comment this)