[paganel]

It also adds to the price of food that gets transported from one place to another, and, as such, acts as a regressive tax on people who pay the biggest part of their income on their basic needs (like food). That's one of the main reasons why I don't get the "death to cars!" movement and why I regard it as mostly middle-class privileged discourse: no cars means fewer or worst roads, means food being a lot more expensive.

[snordgren]

Road transport of goods accounts for a majority of wear on the roads. Rail is naturally more cumbersome because railroads are less ubiquitous than roads, but it is much more efficient in terms of both energy usage and labor.

If we subsidize road transport by letting tax payers or commuters pay for their road wear and tear, we end up with more road transport at the cost of more labor and more energy use. That's deadweight loss caused by the government distorting the market with road subsidies.

Road transport should be used where its flexibility gives it a competitive advantage, not be the default because taxpayers subsidize it.

One way to compensate lower-income earners for higher food prices is to lower taxes for those with low incomes, making the tax rate more progressive. Another is to reduce VAT for basic needs products like food.

[erpellan]

A truck can carry 10 or 20 times more cargo than a car. The truck toll is not 20x more.

The movement to reduce car use is about replacing them with better alternatives such as efficient local public transport and high speed rail, not going back to travelling on horseback.

[paganel]

> The truck toll is not 20x more.

Yes, that was my exact point. The car owners (of which I'm one) subsidise cheaper food for many not car-owners (many of them, presumably, poorer people) by paying more expensive road tolls relative to our vehicles' sizes. And that's good.

Make road toll for trucks commensurate to the real wear they're adding to the roads then you're increasing the price of food (by increasing the cost of transporting said food), hence you're making it harder for poorer people.

[tjoff]

That's a very roundabout way to justify it though. How much would toll really affect food prices per person?

And is there really no other way to offset that?

[paganel]

> How much would toll really affect food prices per person?

Transportation costs (of which toll costs are a reasonable part, my brother is a lorry driver, I would know) are a big part of food costs, what's "roundabout" about it? That's how the economy works, that's how putting food on people's tables works.

> And is there really no other way to offset that?

No, one cannot offset it that by whooshing it way or by creating a clever phone app for it. This is real life, not Silicon Valley-make believe. People's lives depend on this, on the price of food, that is.

[astrange]

Wouldn't say food is especially expensive in Japan or that they don't have enough roads.

[paganel]

Yes, exactly, because the "small" cars are paying the roads for the trucks transporting the food (through relatively higher tolls, through direct or indirect taxation applied on "small" cars' owners etc).

Take the small cars completely out of the equation (like banning them) and you're putting all the costs of building those roads on whom?