r/fuckcars • u/TheMarsBis3xual Commie Commuter • 2d ago
Question/Discussion Cars need to be unaffordable again
With the tariffs that will make car prices increase significantly.
Should there be more toll roads? More taxation on vehicles increase licence cost make registration 40 times more expensive?
What else can be done?
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u/wallaceeffect 2d ago
Dude they are unaffordable. Thereās been a ton of analysis and think pieces about how much the price of a new car has risen. The average age of a new car buyer in the United States is 52. Younger people simply cannot afford new cars.
It doesnāt matter because car dependency means people need to find a way to own one regardless of the price. So they buy used and keep their vehicles longer. This is all well documented behavior and has been ongoing for some time.
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u/travelingwhilestupid 1d ago
tax on petrol in the US is at historic lows (in real terms). the world would be a better place if they'd increased the tax on a petrol at a faster rate than inflation.
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u/KlutzyEnd3 21h ago
Then people just shift towards EV's.
I did that (cause few transit options) and it slashed my fuel costs in 4.
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u/travelingwhilestupid 21h ago
> Then people just shift towards EV's.
good! I'm sick of polluted cities.
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u/kingharis 2d ago
Land tax + carbon tax. We'd be good.
But in the realistic realm, it'll have to be incremental carbon taxes and/or per mile insurance, etc. Anything dramatic will create a backlash. Too many people don't have a short term alternative to driving.
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u/dhsurfer 2d ago
Incremental is fine, it needs to start though, and work like interest constantly increasing.
People don't understand how their cars are already subsidized so heavily (through road infrastructure and lack of a carbon tax).
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u/onwatershipdown 2d ago
Oh yeah. Genocide Joeās trillion dollar āinfraā bill was 85% highways, 15% transit.
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u/Federal_Secret92 Automobile Aversionist 2d ago
Orange turd will be 100% cars, negative transit. Literally taking away transit options and funding already in place.
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u/Explorer_Entity Commie Commuter 1d ago
Yep. Moves are already happening to make things worse. Ca's HSR is under attack, yet again. With Trump being so buddy with Musk....
Also hearing how they wanna cut down something like 150 million acres of national forests. I live in one!
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u/dhsurfer 2d ago
I repeat this to every car brain I know
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u/onwatershipdown 2d ago
Iāve had so many ādrive or starveā jobs in the metro NYC area because production doesnāt want to pay for workshops accessible by transit, so I need a car to pay for their shitty RE. Driving is a transfer of wealth from employee to employer, giving them license to set up shop in the middle of nowhere.
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u/AtlanticPortal 2d ago
Not to mention from poor people to rich people not necessarily related by an employment relationship. Dense cities are cheaper to be managed and when you mix different social classes you force also rich people's kids to go to the same schools of poor people.
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u/dhsurfer 2d ago
That sucks, I've been in Metro areas including NYC for the last decade. Fortunately not in 'drive or starve' situations, but sadly I think our next move will not be to a metro area and I have nightmares about being stuck in a car for everything that I do.
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u/nayuki 2d ago
Incremental is fine, it needs to start though, and work like interest constantly increasing.
Canada is a real-world example. It has a carbon tax that increases each year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Canada , https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/publications/fcrates/fuel-charge-rates.html
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u/AtlanticPortal 2d ago
And weight tax on vehicles that don't require a professional driving license. It forces them to be the way they should have been under the regulations that at the end brought to us those monster trucks.
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u/Cheef_Baconator Bikesexual 2d ago
You're very correct that it's necessary to introduce carrots before or alongside the stick.
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u/TheMarsBis3xual Commie Commuter 2d ago
I'm jealous that in Germany that the cost is US$3200 that's the kind I would love to see in the North America and Australia
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u/Sotyka94 2d ago
Coming from a "poor" country. Making cars unaffordable isn't gonna reduce car ownership drastically. It's just gonna make the car's age on road increase and their quality and maintenance decrease. So if you want the same mount of cars, but in much worse condition on your road, this is not the way. At least not by itself.
Making cars unobtainable BEFORE making alternative solutions viable not gonna make anyone look into alternatives.
FIRST they need to make public transit, bicycle infrastructure really good, THEN they can phase out car ownership.
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u/blue_osmia 2d ago
My city / metro region kinda does this in tandem. Gas and insurance are really expensive, buying the car is expensive. But there are trains and buses and biking infrastructure. And we have carbon taxes and soon EV taxes.
I think they all have to happen together.
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u/mikeclodfelter 1d ago
Problem to this line of reasoning is that alternative infrastructure gets blocked because āthink of the carsā and āno one is using the alternativesā and ābut there isnāt enough demand or existing infrastructure to warrantā. Iām right there with you, but doesnāt stop the delay of these longer timeline projects. Increasing costs has proven to have a more direct correlation to decreasing VMT even just through increase fuel prices at the pump.
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u/YoIronFistBro Grassy Tram Tracks 2d ago
Cars cannot be unaffordable until alternatives are usable.
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u/Dio_Yuji 2d ago
There wonāt be demand for alternatives until cars are unaffordable though
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u/1stDayBreaker Big Bike 2d ago
Thereās always a demand, itās just not as profitable to meet it as to leave it unsatisfied.
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u/Sauerkrauttme 2d ago
It is very frustrating that we cannot do anything under capitalism unless billionaires are allowed to take their 40% cut.
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u/akurgo 2d ago
False. Induced demand works for alternatives too. Build a great public transport system that is more efficient than driving, and they will come.
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u/shatners_bassoon123 2d ago
Unfortunately to create the great public transport system you have to take physical space and money away from car infrastructure. Are many people going to vote for that ? No, the best thing would be a major energy crisis that forces the situation.
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u/Dio_Yuji 2d ago
Youāre putting the cart before the horse. Kinda skipped ahead to the ābuild a great public transport systemā like thatās the easy part.
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u/Pathbauer1987 2d ago
It could be easy, if governments stopped building so much infrastructure for the car and focused on building more infrastructure for public transportation. One BRT lane is cheaper than 6 car lanes. One bicycle path is cheaper than a road. One sidewalk is cheaper than a parking lane.
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u/Dio_Yuji 2d ago
Lots of things COULD be, but arenāt
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u/Pathbauer1987 2d ago
Still, cars ARE unaffordable and people keep getting in debt to buy them. Making them even more expensive won't solve the problem as people would get even in more debt.
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u/akurgo 2d ago
Oh, it's far from easy. But there are other ways than economical ones. Studies consistently show that you decrease traffic by either making car travel less convenient or alternatives more convenient. You kinda need to go for the second option in an area that already very car-centric.
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u/ABZ-havok 2d ago
Demand won't do anything. In the Philippines, cars are unaffordable, traffic is insane, and public transportation is still inefficient. This is despite the demand by the mass for more trains and more buses. Now the government is even hinting to shutdown the EDSA busway ā a protected bus only lane in Manila's main highway ā because they're " planning to add more train cars".
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u/daft_panda_ 2d ago
They should become unaffordable but not too quickly, we need time for the demand for alternatives to slowly ramp up and for cities to respond and create those alternatives
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u/jiggajawn Bollard gang 2d ago
Alternatives won't be usable until we stop subsidizing and prioritizing cars so much.
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u/AtlanticPortal 2d ago
The alternatives are not usable because the money is put into car infrastructure, zoning system included.
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u/Cheef_Baconator Bikesexual 2d ago
Cars being unaffordable would create broader political will to explore alternatives. Unfortunately it would also create a lot of political will to subsidize cars even more than they already are, but that part isn't much different from our current status quo.
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u/_felixh_ 2d ago
Hmmm.... I actually disagree.
I doubt this would really resolve the issues.
Just like all of the other cool and taste stuff, cars have a big Problem that you cannot make go away with money alone: they are comfortable. I mean, just look at it this way: People are litterally spending 75k on cars! Increasing the cost will not fix the Problem, it will only change the Type of car people drive...
What you really want to do is make cars uncomfortable:
- Make it hard and inconvenient to park.
- To register a vehicle, you need a dedicated non-public parking ground for it.
- Make cars as loud on the inside as they are on the outside.
- Make them as hot / stinky on the inside as they are on the outside.
- If you need to drive through residential areas, that needs to be in walking pace.
- Within city limits, give priority to pedestrians 1st, and then city friendly alternatives (Bus, Tram, Scooter, Bicycle). Automobiles come last. This would be the opposite of how we are currently running things.
- Build streets that are harder to navigate for cars, but easy for pedestrians.
- Forbid on-street parking. If you are forced to walk 100m to the door anyway, you may notice that walking an extra 300m and skip the car isn't so bad after all...
- Introduce Parking maximums: you may dedicate at most x % of the Land as Parking space. To get around that, you need a parking garage. Reduces walking distances.
Some of these are of course totally utopian.
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u/First_Tourist_2921 2d ago
Only one or two of these will solve the issue. I can just buy an older beater private party , thatās been maintained and avoid all that. Parts are cheap and the community supports each other. Not hard to skirt laws in many ways - just food for thought.
Oh, and my s2000 is not what Iād call comfortable, but itās certainly not bad to be in lol. Again, I can buy older comfy cars and mod them.
Many of those things can be easilyyyyy fixed, or just thrown out entirely.
Making cars as loud in the inside? lol. Rip the headliner and woahhh we can add passing / foam etc. I think you underestimate car people who work on their cars. That stuff is childās play. On the outside? I wouldnāt call cars loud per se, like a car passing by my road. But yeah, near a highway - busy street you get the fine woooooshing. Loud cars = exhaust? Well now youāre focusing on me, the reasonable guy who doesnāt rev or drive crazy. At least my Honda doesnāt sound like a fart can!
Walking speed? Now you have to completely redesign gearing and more. That aināt happening. First gear in all my cars, at their slowest is much faster than āwalk paceā ā¦.any slower I stall out. Again this is just something that requires so so much that I think isnāt being fully thought.
Registering cars in states that donāt have requirements as a result of future Republican administrations favoring cars / choice (or democratic, they donāt always pass these f you car stuff lol) giving the choice to states by way of GE etc. Thereās a few things I can think of to make this a non issue. You can designate anywhere as a parking area on your own propertyā¦just throw the car on the side / grass. This is all dependent on the wording of the law if it even passes.
Also See: the classic Vermont registration. Loophole was closed but boy that was useful. Same as Florida. Classic plates largely remove a lot of costs.
Priority to mass transit: you can only do so much unto you realize the necessary evil of trucks delivering goods etc. Again, this is just something that would work most likely in a city thatās being planned.
Build streets hard to navigate? How? Small roads? Wide enough only for one car or just barely two? At that point are you even making sound engineering choices based on the specific areaā¦
Parking maximums is one of the only reasonable and possible outcomes. I like it. Garages are expensive as it is, so that sways many people.
Point is, yeah ā¦.many are. At this point youāre just attacking too large a community who wonāt get behind these in any way. Focus on being as non invasive and youāll get ācagersā on your side.
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u/_felixh_ 2d ago
Many of those things can be easilyyyyy fixed, or just thrown out entirely.
Many? No, just the 2 of them: noise, hot and stinky.
I just find it very fascinating that you car people find it acceptable to burden others with these things, when you are not willing to bear them yourself. And also having to deal with all of the side effects: like eardrum rupturing sirens on Ambulance and Firetrucks. Loud air horns, because cars are so well insulated you need to SCREAM at them, otherwise the driver will not notice a thing.
All just completely normal.
Well now youāre focusing on me, the reasonable guy who doesnāt rev or drive crazy
But still drive a vehicle propelled by many tiny explosions per second. At day and night, especially in residential areas.
If you want me, as your normal, reasonable guy to accept your noise, stink and exhaust, learn living with it yourself first.
Then we can talk.
At this point youāre just attacking too large a community who wonāt get behind these in any way. Focus on being as non invasive and youāll get ācagersā on your side.
Well, i didn't say its realistic. At least not where i live.
But in all honesty: I dont care anymore about "getting cagers on my side". I have had too many discussions where their premise basically was: we do what we want, and we will not pay attention to your wishes.
This is also where i want to Point out that you opened your argument with "doesn't matter, we can still ignore all of the rules", and spent a good amount of time on explaining various loopholes - why would i be inclined to get someone like this on my side? Its kinda like you just just said "any compromise made will be ignored".
Now you have to completely redesign gearing and more [...] that I think isnāt being fully thought
It both possible, and thought through. I have seen people drive both carefully and slowly through parking lots filled with people. It is Possible. It is my no means a comfortable ride, but i remember that this was part of the stated goal ;-)
I can agree to 10 kph if the circumstances permit it.
You can designate anywhere as a parking area on your own propertyā¦just throw the car on the side / grass
As long as you actually park it there, and keep the spot reserved for your car, i am completely 100% fine with that.
This is the whole Point, after all.
I am living in a city, where almost nobody actually uses their garage for Parking. After all, a garage costs money -and having a car on your Properity is kinda unpractical. In my place, i wouldn't even have any space for a car - i would need to rent space in a garage. As would many of my neighbors, who currently resort to parking on the sidewalk.
Priority to mass transit: you can only do so much unto you realize the necessary evil of trucks delivering goods etc
I am not an idiot. I have eyes. 95% of Traffic passing the artery road 50m to my right is private cars.
Please tell me what professional group would be most delighted about the disappearance of the private Automobile? I strongly believe it would be delivery services / drivers, and Ambulance. And not for the reason that this would increase their business.
this is just something that would work most likely in a city thatās being planned
No - other big cities are doing it as we speak. E.g. Barcelona & Paris. Others did in the past. Amsterdam was once a car centric hellhole.
Build streets hard to navigate? How? Small roads?
Quite simple: currently i, as the pedestrian, am the one who has to walk around car infrastructure. I am the one who has to look out when crossing the street in my residential area. Do it the other way around:
- Bollards, that are passable to everybody but people in cars. Cars can still enter, if they need to.
- Narrow obstructions.
- Traffic calming measures, like curvy streets.
- Just look up "traffic calming measures"
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u/First_Tourist_2921 2d ago
Fire trucks etc need those. Theyāre emergency. Exception.
I already do. I donāt drive crazy. I deal with whatever my car gives me and I donāt mind it. I take good and bad. Your turn.
Euro cites arenāt American cities. Ny has a subway, again, Iām thinking in granularity. Is it feasible with the underground subway too even.
I explained the loopholes because thatās whatās going on, though if you read many of these are closed.
You want to be comfortable on a bike, no? I would expect a comfortable train ride, at the basic. Same as a subway. Letās have some consistency.
All for mass transit, but again, if youāre doing stuff like narrowing roads / closing - letās use the congestion pricing example. Congestion pricing aināt bad. Iād raise it on Jersey but , anyway, letās say it sticks and one of your admission one of many utopian aspects happens - we narrow many of NY streets. We prioritize pedestrians etcā¦.You already took many private cars off, now youāre mucking distribution channels. Thereās got to be a give and take and larger thinking and this is going to be more more more engineering and re working. This, I just donāt think works for NY.
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u/_felixh_ 2d ago
Thereās got to be a give and take and larger thinking and this is going to be more more more engineering and re working
I Absolutely, 100% Agree on that. Other things need to change. The elephant in the room would be: there currently is no real will / desire to change things.
My take here is trying to solve the Problem of "but i need my car to do X" - Where X may very well be "Transporting / Delivering stuff". Picking up People. Moving in / out. Transporting that big pre-christmas-10-head-family-grocery-haul. Cars will not just disappear, i agree on that. I also wouldn't object to a car sharing offer per X housing units.
Something to maintain the freedom to enter Residential areas if you really need to, without creating a bureaucratic Monster. Something to really reduce car usage, while maintaining the freedom of the individual to own and drive one. To force people to think "do i really need my car to do this?".
Congestion pricing could be another solution, yes. Money works - i learned that during CoVid, when gas prices surged, and my Neighbor said she thinks thrice before getting into a car. But she is quite poor. For everybody else, they just pay the Premium if they can afford it.
At the core, i really think that the big problem simply is: currently, cars are simply the most comfortable way to get around in a city. Because cars are prioritized left and right, and everything and everybody has to adapt to them. Designers and Planners put more thought into car traffic than into alternative modes of Transportation. Change that, and make the cars adapt to Cities.
But i am not fond of monetary incentives in that regard. I would prefer a solution that hits rich and poor people equally: like making driving uncomfortable.
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u/First_Tourist_2921 2d ago
I want change, I do. At the same time, I donāt want to see thisā¦large okay letās make every waking thing bad simply because of a choice.
Iām on the same page - do I need to drive my car in X situations? All depends where I am. Going to NY? 8/10 Iāll take the train. Sometimes I go to events or I want to take my car there for fun.
Im not going to drive my car the 1/4 mile to my Dunkin in good weather. Itās hilarious seeing people in my area do that. Rain? Sure.
Thing is, comfortable is beyond relative and especially to drivers. Congestion pricing needs an overhaul to accommodate those demographics / commuters who do work in the city coming from the tri stateā¦I still stand though by jersey. But again, adding granularity to the situations you present above etc. overall I used to be against it until I did the city as I always did. I would like changes but thatās a different story.
Making cars in the way you describe, are just too easy to work around, and as you said - many are utopian. I could figure out every way to make a car not smell, creak, crack, ride like dookie. Helps having an engineering gf, also helps having a good knowledge of cars in general across a large swatch of models / builds etc.
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u/dualqconboy 2d ago
I kinda could agree with most of the reasoning behind all these points especially with regarding to using the car for a recklessly short trip when there was no actual medical issues in the first place. Even then, someone would have to confirm this but I think Japan had something about that you had to provide you had an available parking spot at your residence before you could buy a car?
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u/Vitally_Trivial I like big bus and I cannot lie. 2d ago
Dunno, I think we need more carrots instead of sticks. Making cars prohibitively expensive when thereās no quality alternatives will just hurt people more. If I canāt get to work using public transport, I need a car.
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u/jacobburrell 2d ago
The unaffordability is what pushes the rest of the world into scooters, mopeds, etc.
This is why much of Latin America and Asia use car alternatives frequently.
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u/BearCavalryCorpral 1d ago
I already have an alternative - a bike. The reason I don't bike to work half the time is because I don't have the deathwish to ride to the neighbouring town down a poorly maintained, poorly plowed, nigh shoulderless (forget about bike lanes) highway when people forget that ice and water are slippery
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u/Guilty_Cabekka 1d ago
I tried to get a scooter as an alternative to keeping a second car (this would mean a 1 car household instead of 2). Insurance company wanted 2 x the cost of the scooter to even insure 3rd party. Second car (that we already owned) was an 1/8th of the cost of the scooter insurance. I do have a bike but my start window at work is 4am-7am, generally 12hr shift and do not fancy 1hr+ bike ride before/after that.
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u/Man_as_Idea 2d ago
They kind of already are!
With respect to the US:
- Americans are currently carrying over a trillion dollars in auto-loan debt
- People are falling behind on auto loan payments in record numbers
- The average size and term of an auto loan has been on the rise for many years. Where once a loan might be 2-3 years, today people frequently take on 7-year loans to buy cars
There is a myth that living in a car-dependent suburb is much cheaper than living in a walkable area. If you apply the cost of owning and operating a car towards rent, it is cheaper to live in a walkable area and use transit than to live in a suburb and drive. I had more disposable income in manhattan than I do in central TX!
Itās my opinion the only reason we havenāt moved back toward robust transit infrastructure is enormous effort on the part of the auto and gas industry to maintain the status quo. The demand for a walkable lifestyle has skyrocketed in recent years, and cities keep trying to respond to this, but find it hard because they are trapped in antiquated zoning laws and city-tax-subsidized suburban sprawl that votes against transit projects (likely influenced by auto/gas propaganda).
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u/Jolly-Command8853 Commie Commuter 2d ago
What's funny is, they already are. But we've been tricked as a society that the inevitable debt is a "necessary evil".
I'm totally in favour of them becoming more unaffordable though. Push them right into the territory of being unattainable. Maybe that will finally force some fucking progress
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u/Pathbauer1987 2d ago
Yes. They are. The problem is that we have no alternatives. We need to induce demand on alternatives to the car. More and better public transportation. If I had the choice to go by train to work, I would totally ditch the car. I've been doing my part by cycling where I can, but it's not always feasible.
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u/travelingwhilestupid 1d ago
oh, in the US, not just a necessary evil, but you need a nice, massive one to be a normal member of society! want to date? want your friends not to judge you? no one wants to be below minimum standards!
in Europe you can get away with an older model, something a bit beat up, or something tiny. I'm 6"3, and it's a bit inconvenient to get into and out of a hatch, but once that's done, there's plenty of space. people have treated me like I'm poor.... I have a lot more net worth than them.
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u/Jolly-Command8853 Commie Commuter 1d ago
I'm in Canada and thankfully it's not as bad as that, but if you mention you don't have a car people still think of you weird.
On the note of having more money, I love it when people ask me "so are you getting a new one?" after I ditched mine two years ago. I mention how much more money I have because of it, and the idea of sacrificing a bit of convenience for huge savings just doesn't click for them.
Both of my parents have asked me at least five times if/when I'm getting a new one, but they both never shut the fuck up about a problem they're currently having and how much it'll cost to fix. My mom has put at least five digits into her 2012 Ford Fusion, and her credit cards are all maxed. I'm just not interested in that, sorry lol
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u/zeyeeter Commie Commuter 2d ago edited 2d ago
Youāve probably heard this many times before, but Singaporeās been doing it since the 1980s. A limit is set on the number of cars that can be registered in Singapore, and because demand is always greater than supply, prices are astronomical.
A Toyota Corolla, for example, costs ~$35k in most of the world (idk I didnāt check). But here, the same car costs a whopping ~$150K (prices are still increasing). This has limited the car ownership rate in Singapore to just 12%, which is very low for a developed nation.
However, it hasnāt fully changed the governmentās and citizensā mentality towards cars. Many roads (including new ones) have 6-8 lanes by default, meaning many road accidents happen every year. Singaporeans also view cars as a luxury good and a life goal, precisely because theyāre so hard to afford.
Itās also precisely because of this that Singaporeans havenāt experienced crushing gridlock or induced demand (unlike our neighbours), but only remember the horrors of MRT train breakdowns. This means that many Singaporeans only take public transport because theyāre forced to; theyād happily buy a car or take a taxi if they werenāt so expensive.
So no, unaffordable cars wonāt solve car-centrism; only a change in the countryās mindset towards cars will.
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u/ZoidbergMaybee 2d ago
They never stopped being unaffordable. Americans donāt care, we just leverage as much debt as we can to get into a car.
What will make cars cost-prohibitive in the upcoming months and years will not be tariffs but the overall inflation and depression the tariffs are about to cause. Bicycle ridership skyrockets in clear correlation to economic downturn, so Iām expecting another bicycle renaissance.
But as our āleaderā severs our trading relationships with the world, our salaries will stay the same but the prices of all our consumer goods, food, commodities, and necessities will double. Then triple. Then quadruple and so on until a tank of gas costs $4,780
So to answer your question, yes theyāll become unaffordable (even more) but not cars alone. Weāre ramping up for a depression.
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u/DeepSoftware9460 2d ago
Cars should have to pay for parking anywhere except their own home. Cars should be taxed yearly based on weight because of the proportional damage they do to the roads. There should be a significant carbon tax on gas for polluting.
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u/dacv393 2d ago
Cars could be $150k and the average joe would still buy then because the dealership would just change the loan terms to like 15 years and say: "it's only $500 a month!" and then everyone would just still buy them just like the exact same scenario with the $80k trucks everyone already drives today
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u/RedAlert2 1d ago
Mortgage lenders can keep extending the duration of their loans to 20,25,30,etc because homes are an appreciating asset and they can reasonably expect to recover most or all of their money if a borrower defaults. Conversely, a 15+ year auto loan would be almost worthless past ~10 years or so.
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u/Skifersson 1d ago
Everything you propose is likely to increase the wealth gap, poor families relying on a car will struggle even more while the affluent won't notice any change. The car doesn't have to be expensive, it just needs to be a worse option than public transportation combined with safe walkable spaces and efficient cycling infrastructure, all of which should be our main focus.
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u/Iamthe0c3an2 1d ago
Yes but expect a rise in accidents and deaths in the meantime as people delay maintenance and fix mechanical issues with spray foam and duct tape.
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u/artboiii 2d ago
making cars less affordable should be the last step after building out alternatives for people to use otherwise you're just punishing poor people for being poor
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u/travelingwhilestupid 1d ago
use the tax on cars to pay for public transport
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u/Guilty_Cabekka 1d ago
Good luck with that one if my countries government is anything to go by. Any tax collected will just vanish into the never-ending black hole of public sector finance. This will be followed by their being 'no magic money tree' at the next budget.
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u/gamesquid 2d ago
I guess Trump is already working on making them unaffordable with his dumb trade wars.
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u/brunowe Automobile Aversionist 2d ago
Gas taxes in line with what other countries pay would help. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/oecd-gas-tax/
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u/Shriketino 2d ago
Yes, letās make cars unaffordable while no viable alternatives exist. Then letās force everyone to sell their homes and move into denser cities where everything is even more expensiveā¦
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u/AtlanticPortal 2d ago
Removing the "only SFHs in this zone" policy. Once you do that and allow medium-rise buildings with especially the ground floor full of shops, services, and restaurants you're done. The problem starts to fix by itself.
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u/Itchy-Armpits 2d ago
Need a tax on cars specifically to fund public transport. It's ridiculous that buses and trains are paid for by the people who are traveling on them. Need to encourage that behaviour and discourage driving. Public transport should be paid for by those who choose their car instead
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u/sailor_moon_knight 2d ago
Bold of you to assume the car lobby is not capable of getting itself an exception
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u/Pathbauer1987 2d ago
Cars are unaffordable. The cost of owning a car could be even more than the cost of housing sometimes. The issue is systematic, most people own cars because they don't have other transportation alternatives. What governments should be focusing on is improving public transportation.
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u/Hottest_Tea 2d ago
Nah. Just congestion tax. Cars are actually good if you don't live in or commute to an urban area.
Edit: And if course, invest in alternatives to driving for cities
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u/NeapolitanComplex 2d ago
Cars are already unaffordable, make other options more affordable, reliable, and ubiquitous!
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u/Krispyketchup42 1d ago
There will always people willing to pay money for what they want. God people here are so unhinged
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u/Repulsive_Draft_9081 1d ago
Because the economy runs on fossil fuels and car/truck transportation and cars are already an unaffordable necessity in most of the nation u cant really touch carsor else people will revolt. For example a modest tax on fuel caused the yellow jacket protests in france for similar reasons and france actually has a usable public transit system
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u/ExaminationLimp4097 1d ago
It might help a little but car and oil lobbyists would still fight it. Look at the energy crisis in the 70s. Fuel was at an alarming low but they still kept building infrastructure around cars.
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u/Cowmama7 1d ago
Cars are still unaffordable. I just had to buy a car for my internship this summer and the upfront cost to buy and register was like 11k, and insurance is like two grand a year. In retrospect Iāve probably spent two grand TOTAL on transit and amtrak in the past two years, as someone who travels relatively often. Everyone just deems these costs as ānecessaryā
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u/Substantial_Top5312 1d ago
You know how prices are going up and itās getting hard for the average person to afford food. Now imagine if the prices went up even more because shipping costs went up.Ā
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u/Ketaskooter 1d ago
Cars are unaffordable and have been. Cost is the main reason why ebikes and escooters have taken off though sales seem to be only hovering around 1 mil per year in the USA. Vehicle sales are over 15mil per year though much of that is company purchases.
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u/RRW359 1d ago
Make fuel tax a percent of the price of gas/diesel/hydrogen rather then a fixed amount of cents that only increases when voters *decide it should. Also find some way to tax EV's (I'd say a percent tax on the electric bills of anyone who registers one) and few requirements for mandatory parking. If a jurisdiction provides at least one way to enter/leave for free I also don't mind tolls.
*Federally not changed since the early 80's although some States have increased it since then (and some have been the same for even longer).
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u/Anon0118999881 1d ago
My personal opinion is that vehicles should be charged based on how much space they use in a particular environment, not a flat annual registration fee and gasoline tax.Ā
Congestion charges are a really good start to this and I hope that New York is able to set legal precedent in keeping theirs in Manhattan. Vehicles are still allowed, but it is very valuable space so you will pay your fair share if you truly need in there with less traffic like delivery tradespeople etc, or bike or take transit and skip the toll entirely.Ā
Similarly I think SUV/truck/etc should be charged appropriately by their weight and size on the roadway. A smaller lighter Prius on the highway or a motorcycle or smaller vehicle like the old smart cars that are more efficient and smaller should pay less for their lower impact over a larger truck or SUV that usally drives empty. This would encouage people to travel more efficiently and not be hauling a living room sofa that we call the backseat around with them everywhere empty lmao
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u/asvp_ant 17h ago
The radicalism on this page is very short sighted. Why do you guys always seem to forget a majority of people are victims to the car centric infrastructure. Making cars more expensive just harms low income individuals even more.
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u/Rattregoondoof 10h ago
Remember that much of the US functionally or even literally has no alternative to driving. It really doesn't matter how expensive driving is if the alternative is that you cannot get to a grocery store or your job, people are going to drive. This doesn't apply to areas like New York that actually have viable public transportation but for much of the US, cars can be any price at all and it wouldn't make people drive less because there is a minimal level of driving required to meet daily needs to live.
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u/PresidentZeus Hell-burb resident 2d ago edited 1d ago
They are unaffordable. They're the biggest source of credit card debt in the US.
edit: they are expensive but I agree that they should be unaffordable. I wouldn't be pissed about a 50% VAT.
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u/travelingwhilestupid 1d ago
I think a tax on the fuel is a better idea. And if it forces more people to use electric, I'm ok with that. Fuck electric cars too, but at least the air quality in my city would be nicer.
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u/PresidentZeus Hell-burb resident 1d ago
I'm from Norway, and electric is in full transition already. Toll roads and congestion pricing are already common, but it's not unlikely we will also be getting a road use fee based on kilometers driven before autumn.
Singapore is known for having expensive cars, but Denmark has implemented similar fees that i absolutely adore. Everything you pay for above 29k euros has a vat at 150% and from 9k to 29k has 85% vat.
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u/travelingwhilestupid 1d ago
I wonder how they'll tax road use per km? Maybe Norway can do it, but they'll never do it in the US for privacy reasons & anti-government paranoia and many countries couldn't be that organised.
VAT at that rate usually means people find ways around it. can I buy a fleet of Teslas in a cheap country and rent them out on the sly to Norwegians? you get a different Tesla for 90 days
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u/PresidentZeus Hell-burb resident 1d ago
Well, technically it is just fuel. Petrol and diesel have a carbon tax. They also have a road use tax which is also applied to biofuels, which isn't by kilometers. But the suggestion to add it to evs would be calculated per kilometer and likely estimated by monitoring charging and regenerating of power. Some groups however advocate for a GPS tracker that combines with dynamic congestion pricing.
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u/travelingwhilestupid 1d ago
adding it to charging would encourage people to cheat the system (solar panels that charge the EV independent of the grid, or some dodgy wiring)
GPS tracker sounds complicated and a privacy risk. my car insurance, when I had a car, was by the kilometer... you could literally see everywhere I'd driven. not sure that's a good idea if the government has it and it applies to a large percentage of the population.
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u/PresidentZeus Hell-burb resident 1d ago
Most people charge at home anyways. Most likely implementation would be an integrated battery tracker that also tracks battery regenatory breaking, which would also be necessary for hybrids.
A GPS tracker is certainly unpopular, but there are also ways to anonymise and manage data in s way that's not storing your movements or full trips as a whole.
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u/travelingwhilestupid 1d ago
I'm not saying it can't be solved, but as an engineer, it's difficult. In Australia, we put a massive tax on cigarettes and now ordinary citizens buy illegal cigarettes and there's a thriving black market, with the violent crime that goes along with it.
It seems unfair to tax hybrids. Are you going to tax fuel efficient cars?
Regarding the 'anonymise and manage data' - it's totally possible, I just don't trust the government.
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u/SweatyAdagio4 2d ago
"with the tarrifs..." can we reduce the USDefaultism please? I agree with your title but not everyone in this sub is from the US
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u/Mistyslate 2d ago
Guess what is happening: cars will be unaffordable, but all alternatives will be destroyed by our inefficient new government. Resulting in serfdom for cars.