Hardly. The two of you can go on about the marginal cost all you want but in the end it is nothing more than a disguised attempt to appropriate the cost solely on users while ignoring that the benefit of highways is wide spread. I would have a much easier time believing that both of you and Whoaccio were not arguing based on anti-car rhetoric if you both applied the same logic towards public transit. Or do you support the idea that those whom do not use the TTC should not have to pay for it (capital and operating subsidies)?
I said nothing about recouping the cost of the highways. The intent of tolls is to reduce demand to the point where it does not exceed supply, which would greatly improve the utility of highways (you could use them to travel the speed limit, and not as a parking lot). People who are willing to pay get good service, and the rest of us (society) are compensating for foregoing the use of the highway.
Cars are great. I don't think we should get rid of them. But, the economic incentives we have surrounding their use have caused us to develop cities that don't work very well wrt car use and alternatives. We can try the good ole commie approach of command and control, telling people what they can or cannot build, etc. but that is like pushing water uphill.
We could apply some of the same principles to the TTC, such as a fare by distance scheme, or fare by time. During rush hour, fares for subway etc. can be increased and during off-peak times, the fares can be dramatically reduced.
If you are only referring to the marginal cost related to operating and maintenance cost, as opposed to the capital construction cost, you may have a point. Though the cost per/km would be so low that the overhead of recouping that would be more than the actual expense.
The actually cost of providing these services are more or less irrelevant to the goal of road-pricing to reduce congestion. Where it does make a difference is that government has incentive to provide roads that would serve a genuine need as it would be more self-funding and require less political capital. Tolling may provide more or less revenue than what it costs to build and operate highways--it's not really material.
So when there is line ups for the TTC it no longer is a public good because someone 's consumption' displaces the supply for another?
Yep, you've got it.
They're only free to people who don't pay taxes. Otherwise, the end users are just pre-paying
Different pockets, same pants.
No, it really does make a difference. If you want evidence, look at water consumption before and after water meters are installed. When there is no meter, you are 'prepaying' for water through property taxes, but you tend to use a lot because the marginal cost to the user of the water is zero (or near infinitesimal). Why not water your driveway for an hour each day? It sure looks pretty when it's dark and clean...
Once you install meters, you're still paying for your use, except the marginal cost to the user is most certainly not zero. Maybe it's ok to wash your driveway only once a week, if it costs you a dollar each time you do it...
And yes, gasoline taxes increase the cost of driving proportionally to distance, but they do not discriminate based on time of day, so it wouldn't be a very good way of reducing congestion.
Who says I was limiting my remarks purely to economic definitions? You?
Why should there not be a congestion tax on crowded sidewalks during rush hour? Also, shouldn't cyclists pay for access to congested roads as well?
Hydrogen, if you want to debate in your own personal language where you can ascribe whatever meaning you want to words, please set up your own forum. The language of this forum is English.
If sidewalks are congested to the point where one person using it is restricting the ability of another in a meaningful way, it is no longer a public good. Market failures happen all the time, and whether the government should step in to correct them is a matter for the public to decide. It is pretty easy to see that tolling sidewalks would be expensive to administer (likely consuming more resources than it would generate), and thus reduce social welfare overall. There is demonstrable evidence that this is not the case for highways.
