I keep hearing people pushing for tolls... anti-car people...
Here is the thing. When you buy gas it has a special excise tax. This is supposed to be for road maintenance. It is perfect solution. It costs very little to implement and administer. Heavier cars that wear the road more burn more gas thus pay more tax.
It is so simple, it is so beautiful. But instead the money is often sloshed off to the "general fund" where it disappears.
Then they want to put tolls. The problem is tolls are incredibly expensive and collection is dangerous. In Quebec we abolished tolls circa 1986. What was happening is the tolls collected were about 4 million dollars. But 3 million went to collecting them and running the toll bureaucracy. So instead abolished the tolls and raised tax a bit to pay for the roads.
Now they want to put tolls back, and of course - don't want to reduce the tax.
What is worse is they want to put bridge tolls to get in and out of Montreal and put "congestion charge" like in London... it makes me angry.
As a general rule motorists have jobs, families. They are busy. The only time we hear their voice is in elections. Meanwhile we have many "activist" groups who usually have no jobs and thus no automobiles trying to persuade government to push an anti-automobile agenda. It is corrupting our democracy.
Here is the thing. When you buy gas it has a special excise tax. This is supposed to be for road maintenance. It is perfect solution. It costs very little to implement and administer. Heavier cars that wear the road more burn more gas thus pay more tax.
It is so simple, it is so beautiful. But instead the money is often sloshed off to the "general fund" where it disappears.
Then they want to put tolls. The problem is tolls are incredibly expensive and collection is dangerous. In Quebec we abolished tolls circa 1986. What was happening is the tolls collected were about 4 million dollars. But 3 million went to collecting them and running the toll bureaucracy. So instead abolished the tolls and raised tax a bit to pay for the roads.
Now they want to put tolls back, and of course - don't want to reduce the tax.
What is worse is they want to put bridge tolls to get in and out of Montreal and put "congestion charge" like in London... it makes me angry.
As a general rule motorists have jobs, families. They are busy. The only time we hear their voice is in elections. Meanwhile we have many "activist" groups who usually have no jobs and thus no automobiles trying to persuade government to push an anti-automobile agenda. It is corrupting our democracy.
