Originally Posted by Wind 'N Snow
That sounds counterintuitive. Would the gal with the hybrid have to pay more - even though she got better mileage? That sound like a disincentive.
Your second point, about taxing bike paths, here in Canuckaland, both the Federal and Provincial governments tax the hell out of gas (and everything else-welcome to socialism 101, comrade!). But very little of the money seems to be put back into the roadway infrastructure. I think the new prices will force these government to start paying some of this money back (some work has already been done here). But once this happens, I can see user pay and privately run bike and recreation paths - welcome to capitalism 101.
That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, better than what the cities can afford now.
I didn't say it very well, but what would actually happen is that the actual cost per gallon of gas would be the same. What the pump then would do is access the mileage record from the onboard computer to see how many miles the car had been since it's last fill up, and then assess a per-mile tax. The gas guzzler would actually pay more in total. He'd pay the cost per gallon, plus the additional sales tax for that, then the per mile tax on top of all that. No matter what you filled up, you'd pay a per mile tax instead of a per gallon tax. For instance, if the hybrid only used a gallon of gas to go 100 miles, the tax per mile was a buck, and the gas itself was 3 bucks, it would feel like the hybrid owner was paying $103 per gallon. In this case that would be the total sale, as well. The gas guzzler at 10mpg would buy 10 gallons to do the same hundred miles, but would pay $30 for the gas and the same $100 in tax. Total sale would be $130, but it would feel like $13 per gallon. (I pulled these numbers out of the air to make the math easy, so don't get caught up in the actual numbers, please).
Everyone would pay the more or less the same for the use of the road that way, (much the way a toll road works) but the gas guzzler would pay more in sales tax and actual fuel cost. Or, at least that was the gist of the plan. I'm not sure they'd ever pull it off, and even if they did, it would be years before cars and gas pumps could be refit to use that system.
I just thought it was an interesting idea, not necessarily a good one, but interesting none the less.