> The reason that electrical power and air travel don’t fail every time they get crowded is that we raise prices to manage demand.
Air travel and electrical power:
(1) Are easier to add capacity for during times of peak demand
(2) Actually do fail (even though tolled!) when demand exceeds capacity (brown/blackouts for electrical power, cascading delays easily exceeding those for ground traffic when weather knocks down capacity).
On top of that, it isn't as if driving has been anything close to free -- gasoline and associated taxes are immediate costs for every mile driven, and most people know at some level that each mile also has an additional total cost in terms of insurance and impact on maintenance/lifetime of the vehicle.
And people still choose to make it more expensive in the form of higher-end (and often lower MPG) automotive purchases.
If there's a solution to the traffic problem, instead of attempting to make driving particularly more expensive, it probably involves:
(a) make other transportation options more affordable in terms of reach, time, and money
(b) making the housing market more liquid and affordable, so people can more easily choose locations convenient to their living activities
People do know that it costs to drive a car but the cost is hidden in some sense. I think few people actually calculate how much driving really costs. When I drive 10 miles I don't think to myself that it's going to cost me $5.40 (using IRS mileage rate). Gasoline taxes do not come close to paying for the road system. I remember when gas hit around $5 a gallon in the U.S. some years ago people did think about driving cost a lot more.
I suspect if the costs were more apparent people would be more apt to support public transportation and reconsider their driving habits.
When dreaming up new ways to tax cars, please bear in mind that wear on roadways from vehicles is proportional to miles driven times per-axle weight to the fourth power.
A gas tax is already proportional to miles driven times vehicle weight times a fuel efficiency factor.
Congestion, on the other hand, is a more difficult thing. Vehicle length certainly plays a factor, as well as width, acceleration, and braking distance. Number of passengers is an obvious factor. Trip routing efficiency has a role. I really don't expect local legislators to understand the mathematics of traffic. If they don't commission a study by traffic experts, and do exactly what those experts recommend, they might just end up making things worse.
You haven't added the external cost to society -- accidents, pollution, congestion and so on.
A study in Copenhagen found that the total cost (personal + to society) of cycling 1km was 8¢, versus 50¢ for driving, or 89¢ for driving at peak times. (That includes 16¢ given back to society in fuel tax.)
The low cycling figure is mostly due to the positive benefit to society of a healthier population (reduced healthcare costs, offset by slightly increased state pension costs when people live longer).
"Accident costs are founded in market values, and comprise public services (police, rescue and treatment), the loss of net productivity, premature deaths, minor and major injuries, and the cost of material damage. Costs are calculated in comparison to number of accidents related to cars/bicycles, and interpolated by the number of km driven/cycled. Accidents entail a cost of Euro 0.022/km for driving and Euro 0.106/km for cycling (COWI and Køpenhavns Kommune, 2009; Transportministeriet, 2010). Even though accidents involving cyclists entail lower material damage costs, overall costs are higher, as cyclists are more exposed and hence affected by accidents. As outlined by Transportministeriet (2013), there remains considerable uncertainty regarding average accident costs for cyclists."
I doubt the cost of treatment is recovered from road insurance policies in Denmark.
(Also NB this is urban driving at 50km/h, the accident cost of extra-urban driving may be higher.)
The marginal cost per mile is probably significantly lower (and will vary by vehicle) but I agree with your basic point. I expect that people would be a lot more inclined to combine errands etc. if they had to literally pay per mile.
ghaff alluded to this, but there is also a disconnect between the cost at point of use and the sunk cost when it comes to cars. If you live somewhere where there are poor transit options, you must buy a car. Once you own a car, each additional mile is cheap, considering the conveience - gas taxes be damned.
It follows that converting a car-based city to a transit one necessarily takes away resources from the people who have sunk high costs into their acquisition of a car. That population almost always objects to transit-oriented development.
> it isn't as if driving has been anything close to free
Driving isn't free, but the costs you mention are all part of the cost to the person choosing to drive. That person has presumably incorporated these into their decision of whether or not to drive.
A congestion tax (or dynamic toll) is an attempt to internalize the external costs that a driver imposes on others; when I get in the car and drive, I slow everyone else on the road down, but without a toll (or an expectation of altruism toward random strangers), that won't affect my decision making at all. The goal of a toll is to make the cost of choosing to drive equal to the sum of the costs it imposes on everyone, not just the driver.
1) is completely false. If you have a entirely full airport at peak like LAX, JFK or LHR, how do you add more flights? The marginal cost of more flights is another runway or terminal building, which is (tens) of billions of dollars.
The same problem exists within electricial grids. Providing 'peaker' plants which are only used 5% of the time are incredible expensive. cf how expensive electricity got in california when Enron shut these plans down intentionally in summer.
Demand response [0] is an interesting solution to the electrical grid problem; utilities will pay customers (usually large commercial customers) to use less energy during periods of peak demand (which allows the utility to build fewer plants, so everybody wins).
Not really. Firstly, planes need to be spaced after takeoff more if they are larger (eg a A380 will require more spacing than a 747). This cuts the capacity gain somewhat.
Secondly, not all gates can take larger aircraft.
Thirdly, larger aircraft take a lot more time to turn around than smaller ones (fewer doors per passenger). Which means your gates are tied up for longer.
I agree tolls aren't the end all solution. However, if that revenue was explicitly applied to making public transit better/more accessible/more affordable, I'd be all for it. Alas, we don't live in such a world and I'm sure the tolls would just be spent elsewhere.
Air travel and electrical power:
(1) Are easier to add capacity for during times of peak demand
(2) Actually do fail (even though tolled!) when demand exceeds capacity (brown/blackouts for electrical power, cascading delays easily exceeding those for ground traffic when weather knocks down capacity).
On top of that, it isn't as if driving has been anything close to free -- gasoline and associated taxes are immediate costs for every mile driven, and most people know at some level that each mile also has an additional total cost in terms of insurance and impact on maintenance/lifetime of the vehicle.
And people still choose to make it more expensive in the form of higher-end (and often lower MPG) automotive purchases.
If there's a solution to the traffic problem, instead of attempting to make driving particularly more expensive, it probably involves:
(a) make other transportation options more affordable in terms of reach, time, and money
(b) making the housing market more liquid and affordable, so people can more easily choose locations convenient to their living activities