Economics of Stupidity

[chainkill]

As many of you know, I frequently take the train part of the way to work, riding my bike the rest of the way. If I took the train all the way from Cambridge to Acton, it would be $13.50/day, which comes out to roughly $270 (or a monthly pass for $235). I usually save some money by biking part of the way, but it still comes out to $10/day, or

Comments

[lucky_otter]

Maintenance and depreciation are also huge components of the cost of owning a car. Suppose you buy a car for $22,000 and drive it for 10 years. That's $183/month. Even if you buy a less expensive, used car ($10,000) and drive it for 15 years, that's still another $44/month, and the maintenance costs will be much, much higher than on the newer car driven for fewer years.

So while the marginal cost may appear lower, it likely is not. The IRS values your 38 mile commute at $19. They try to take into account gas, maintenance, and depreciation for coming up with that number. Looking at it that way, it's cheaper to take public transit.

Oh, and having transit passes can help reduce your car insurance costs, btw. Worth looking into.

[chainkill]

I am aware of the fact that monthly passes save on my car insurance. I buy enough monthly passes each year (usually interzone 6, because it costs half as much and I often get on/off at Belmont) to bring down my insurance.

Even if the IRS values the commute in this way, most people, on a sociological level, are too dumb to do so. In order to reduce car use, there should be a 150% tax on gasoline. This would be a progressive tax: the people who don't own cars are the poorest people, and the people who use the most gasoline are the wealthiest, for the most part.

There are exceptions, such as landscaping companies. They are not overly wealthy, and inherently use inefficient vehicles to carry large amounts of people and equipment. Perhaps some arrangement could be made to provide for those people.

But we need to reduce our dependency on petroleum, people need to drive less, and the current system is set up WRONG.

[chainkill]

Parking can be included (again, for some people) but the costs of OWNING a car cannot, because owning a car is considered such a necessity in this culture. I don't care if people own them, they just shouldn't use them more than once or twice a week. The fact that most people use them at least twice per DAY (to and from work, and anywhere else they go that day) is disgusting.

[neuroticsquirrl]

Wired just had an interesting article related to this.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ff_komanoff_traffic/

[chainkill]

This is awesome! I love the $9 tolls that people would have to pay to get around certain parts of a city.

It would also make sense to separate the tolls/taxes/policies in the city from those outside the city: if you're in the middle of west bum--, you don't have access to public transit yet, so it would be trying to punish one behavior without giving an alternative behavior, similar to kicking a dog for not doing your calculus homework for you.

His plan doesn't go far enough, by not taxing gasoline, but it is an awesome idea. A 50% tax on gasoline should still be added to his plan.

[chainkill]

The check is in the mail.