In article >,
Scott en Aztlán <newsgroup> wrote:
>
>Obviously nobody really wants to get people out of their cars. If they
>did, it would be incredibly simple: remove all subsidies, gas taxes,
>sales taxes, property taxes, and every other hidden method of paying
>for roads and parking, and charge drivers EXPLICITLY for those costs.

You're confused. Drivers already pay more than enough to build the
roads. Moving that from (largely) gas taxes to an explicit fee, if you could
somehow do it, wouldn't change anything. In fact, some drivers already
pay an explicit fee for the roads -- for instance, those who drive the
Pennsylvania Turnpike (and they pay the gas tax ON TOP of that!).
Doesn't stop them.

>Why, the parking costs alone would be enough to get most people to
>take the bus to work.

Parking is a cash cow for cities and makes a profit for garage
operators; it's not typically subsidized except sometimes in shopping
districts. I park in a private lot leased by my employer. Since
taking the bus would involve going something like 20 miles out of the
way (for a 10 mile trip), that's not going to happen even if they did
start charging me for parking