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PietdeVries | 4 years ago

No - the use of gasoline does not impact the cost of the road. But it can be used to persuade people to use the bike lane next to it. People are amazingly sensitive to costs - check for instance tax benefits. As soon as a product is subsidized by means of a tax rule, people run as fast as they can to get it. Hybrid and now electric cars are a great example (at least in the Netherlands). By having people pay by the mile instead of whether they own a car or now, usage is more evenly charged. You drive a lot? You pay a lot. Even nicer would be to add a charge to the gas prices: your car uses a lot? You pay a lot. But it seems that the gap between buying gas at the pump and riding your car is too wide: people will get a guzzling car regardless. But if you know that every mile you pay 10 cents..? I guess it will get people out of the car very, very quick...

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choeger|4 years ago

But road usage by cars is not the problem, CO2 emissions is. By doing this kind of punishment-by-proxy the whole taxation becomes ideological (car too big, car too foreign) and loses legitimacy. Keep in mind that in a democracy you shouldn't aspire to force people to do "the right thing", you should aspire to create consensus. A high tax on gasoline is easy to understand and easy to argue for. Double payments, illogical taxation, and "nudging" just pisses people of into the arms of right-wing parties.