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Comment by lend000 | Hacker News Reader

> Is this statism?

No, this is maximizing net freedom. Pollution infringes on the rights of others... a libertarian solution would have been more efficient and penalized the source on a consumption basis (gasoline tax), but the incentive would be similar.

Here's a libertarian-ish analysis on the formerly proposed Washington state carbon tax: http://www.leolinsky.com/2016/11/06/carbon-tax-initiative-73...

I hope to erase a lot of extremist misunderstandings about freedom (as defined by the broadly interpretable nonaggression principle), because I think a lot of those on HN who currently identify with the Democratic Party would find they actually have more in common with independent, moderate libertarians (or even the LP) than they realize.

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Sweden already has a high petrol and diesel tax. 1L of petrol is $1.61, compared to about $0.56 in the USA.

That tax doesn't take account of where the fuel is used. The pollution caused by a long journey through the countryside is less damaging than driving within a city.

Additionally, reducing congestion improves journey times for other road users. How much should that be worth?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_and_diesel_usage_and_...

I'm all for capturing externalities in the form of consumption-based incentives, but at some point you need to draw a line for added benefit/complexity. Yes, they do have relatively high gasoline taxes, but perhaps not high enough.

Theoretically, perhaps the cost should be such that the government can use the revenue to "undo" the damage (via carbon capture + ventilation infrastructure in congested areas, for example). If there was truly a compelling case that city congestion, per liter, is so much worse: just levy an additional city petrol gasoline tax. Similar to city vs state sales taxes.

Sweden is a large and sparsely populated country. In the north, many have 1h, 60 mile commutes. In Stockholm a commute might be 1h and 10 miles. There is pretty stiff opposition to raised gasoline taxes because it is seen as an unfair on rural people. It's also regressive since income is much lower in rural areas. If "city pollution" and "congestion" are the externalities then congestion taxes actually make more sense - and are extremely popular compared to gasoline tax.

City gasoline taxes would make sense, but they don't allow hour by hour control of congestion. I don't work in the city but I can drive in "for free" e.g late in the evening.

I'd be surprised if you could commute 100km in one hour on ordinary rural roads. I have a colleague who commutes from Åmot to Drammen and he takes about an hour and its only about 60km and that's pretty good roads most of the way. I know Swedish roads are often better than Norwegian ones but are they really that much better? Or do Swedes just drive a lot faster?

Roads are certainly straighter and wider in rural Sweden than Rural Norway, because of the geography (topography rather perhaps). In Norway you are never far from the next tunnel.

If you live next to e.g. The E4 that spans the length of Sweden (most people in the northern 2/3 do) the speed limit is 110/120 for the most part so at least in summer conditions you have no problem doing well over 100km/h since there is so little traffic. If you have a long commute in rural Sweden it's almost certainly mostly freeway driving in a very flat landscape.

https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:E4,_Nyk%C3%B6ping_2009.j...

Obviously you are driving much slower at the beginning/end of such a commute, but normally you can do it without being slowed down by traffic. On more normal rural roads and in winter conditions you might be lucky to do 70 or 80 (90-100 on the largest roads).

It's actually an interesting difference between city and country - in rural areas we always talk about distances in km (since they translate directly to driving time with an expectation of doing 80-100km/h no matter where you are going, since traffic or road quality is almost never a factor) whereas in cities a distance is almost always given as a driving time.

True about the tunnels but in fact they generally make things better not worse. The problem with roads in Norway is that there is almost always a hill of granite rock or a lake or fjord in the way. My 22km commute to Drammen hugs the edge of the fjord and the longest straight is probably not more than about 300m.

Swedes do overspeed a lot more than their Norwegian neighbors. More speed cameras in Norway as well. Even the speed limit is lower (80km/h) in Norway (vs. 90km/h in most of the EU)

Source: a recent (last May-June) road trip Stockholm <-> Bergen with quite a bit of rural/mountain exploration.

> city petrol gasoline tax

Higher tax for gasoline sold inside the city?

A lot of people commute, and would just fuel up outside the city limit. Others would make an extra trip out of the city only for that.

> Higher tax for gasoline sold inside the city?

I'm all for taxes that attempt to follow a mathematical distribution, which makes the most sense in such a scenario. This would have to be a "federal government" thing, which on top of the pollution tax (equal everywhere) adds a congestion tax that increases as you approach dense city areas, such that it's probably not worth it to drive more to fill up the tank. But no system will be perfect so it's best to minimize complexity in my opinion.

effect on roadways would be far greater than any pollution cost and that translates quite well into fuel consumed

I learned recently that Finland is contemplating removing tax on both gasoline and cars (including the purchase of cars) and replacing it with a tax on distance driven, using some kind of mandatory installed device.

That seems counter-intuitive because it would make vehicles with high fuel consumption more economical than before. I can't imagine that his is their intention?

No, it isn't. But it's not entirely opposed to their intention either.

Try to make a list of your own of what you personally think is important goals to optimise traffic policy for: Less noise in the city, less pollution in the city, fewer traffic accidents, fewer people killed, fewer people hurt, faster journeys, lower cost, less fuel spent, less fuel per kilometer, less per joyrney, and so on and so forth. Many of them partly overlap. Is saving fuel important to you?

IMO, I'd disregard the drivers fuel cost savings completely and focus completely on emissions, noise and accidents. If optimising for lower total emissions leads to lower fuel costs per km, fine. If higher, also fine.

That was indeed the suggestion of one of the government ministers, but the proposal caused a media storm and was withdrawn within a week.

Oh right, I didn't know that.

a libertarian solution would have been more efficient and penalized the source on a consumption basis (gasoline tax)

The purpose of the tax in question isn't to lower pollution, though: it's a congestion tax intended to spread out traffic over time to reduce congestion (lower the need for more and/or larger roads). Lower pollution just happened to be a side effect.

The official website says both:

"Congestion taxes are justified by the fact that the people who are contributing towards congestion and environmental problems are paying for the costs to society this causes."

http://transportstyrelsen.se/en/road/Congestion-taxes-in-Sto...

They aren't taxing bicycle riders as I understand it, who also cause a great deal of congestion in cities (at least in US cities I've lived).

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