"Get off the road, you don't pay rego"

[Strawburger]

Interesting to see the NSW government will forgo the need to pay rego if you pay $25 in tolls per week...

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-2 ... rs/9168264

There goes the argument "you don't pay rego" to cyclists....

[fat and old]

Get off the road, you don't pay tolls!

[duncanm]

There goes the argument "you don't pay rego" to cyclists....

Now cyclists have a comeback. "No, but do you?"

[g-boaf]

Pretty good.

Keep evidence of your tolls with you and you've got the perfect answer.

[Mike Ayling]

Interesting to see the NSW government will forgo the need to pay rego if you pay $25 in tolls per week...

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-2 ... rs/9168264

There goes the argument "you don't pay rego" to cyclists....

I can't see Victoria coming to the party on that as all the toll roads are privately owned!

Mike

[gorilla monsoon]

e-Tag stuck to the helmet or Velcroed to the handlebars?

[find_bruce]

Interesting to see the NSW government will forgo the need to pay rego if you pay $25 in tolls per week...

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-2 ... rs/9168264

There goes the argument "you don't pay rego" to cyclists....

I can't see Victoria coming to the party on that as all the toll roads are privately owned!

Mike

Most are in Sydney too - Harbour Bridge & harbour tunnel are the only ones where the money goes to the public purse.

e-Tag stuck to the helmet or Velcroed to the handlebars?

For what? I didn't think they had tolls outside the Sydney region, he says, tongue firmly planted in cheek.

[SheikYerbouti]

There goes the argument "you don't pay rego" to cyclists....

Now cyclists have a comeback. "No, but do you?"

Already saw this one on FB! Andf they've already changed form "You should pay rego" to "You should follow the rules."

https://www.facebook.com/sydneymorningh ... 22R9%22%7D

[Cyclophiliac]

The "you don't pay rego" argument never worked anyway (as most of us here already know). Given that almost all of the wear and tear on roads is caused by motor vehicles, and road maintenance is funded out of general tax revenue, cyclists are effectively paying for road degradation they don't even cause.

I'm fed up with subsiding motorists, the lazy slackers...

[warthog1]

The "you don't pay rego" argument never worked anyway (as most of us here already know). Given that almost all of the wear and tear on roads is caused by motor vehicles, and road maintenance is funded out of general tax revenue, cyclists are effectively paying for road degradation they don't even cause.

I'm fed up with subsiding motorists, the lazy slackers...

Succinct

[trailgumby]

I run that argument quite a lot in response to rego threads on FB.

My punchline is "you can say thankyou to cyclists now."

Have to say, though, this is a pretty dysfunctional subsidy they're proposing. Taxpayers already subsidise motorists to the tune of $9+ for every dollar they spend.

[fat and old]

The "you don't pay rego" argument never worked anyway (as most of us here already know). Given that almost all of the wear and tear on roads is caused by motor vehicles, and road maintenance is funded out of general tax revenue, cyclists are effectively paying for road degradation they don't even cause.

I'm fed up with subsiding motorists, the lazy slackers...

I’ve been wanting to ask the question: What is this general revenue that is often referred to in this subject? My understanding of road funding seems to be different.

[find_bruce]

In NSW that would be the consolidated revenue fund & 18% of revenue is tied to specific purposes

[duncanm]

I run that argument quite a lot in response to rego threads on FB.

My punchline is "you can say thankyou to cyclists now."

Have to say, though, this is a pretty dysfunctional subsidy they're proposing. Taxpayers already subsidise motorists to the tune of $9+ for every dollar they spend.

worse than that - this is effectively a subsidy to the private toll road owners.

'spend money with this private entity and we'll give you a taxpayer discount'

[bychosis]

So if you spend $1300 a year on tolls you get to save a few hundred on rego? I wonder how it's going to work, are we going to see car driving up and back on toll roads all night on the last night of the year to run up enough tolls to save on rego? "I'd better drive to work all next week to get my toll quota otherwise I'll pay out $1200 in tolls and have to fork out rego too"

Doesn't really do anything for people who have no access to public transport or travel long distances on non toll roads either.

Bit of a joke really. How about some incentives to not drive as much and reduce congestion.

[fat and old]

In NSW that would be the consolidated revenue fund & 18% of revenue is tied to specific purposes

Thanks Bruce

My understanding is in Victoria roads are paid for by a varied means.

Local Roads:

Initial construction is carried out and paid for by the developer of each sub-division. So in effect the residents (or commercial customers in an industrial area) who purchase those blocks have paid for the roads. Upkeep and maintenance is paid for by Local Council. This is paid for via Rates (Major component) and various State and Federal Government grants (Minor Component) such as the Blackspot Program (Fed) and The Growing Fund (Vic State Gov. Usually for community projects such as sport facilities but can be used for ""Streetscape" projects.)

Arterial Roads:

Initial construction in some areas is as above, outer suburbs can be paid for by Vic Roads (State Funding) or via a JV with V/R and Council. Post RMA (2004) duplication and major upgrades are paid for by Vic Roads (State funding, with some Fed grant money). Maintenance is split between Council and V/R (State funding) depending on which part of the road reserve requires it.

Highways:

Vic Roads overseen and funded by State Gov with Fed funding in some cases.

Freeways

As above or PPJV (usually with a maintenance contract thrown in)

Toll Roads

Private consortium or PPJV.

Further, Vic Roads is currently introducing long term (25 year) D&C of new construction/duplication along with maintenance of new and existing arterials/highways contracts in Suburban Melbourne (OSARS).

The way I see it the bulk of roads are actually "paid for" by the residents in that local area if anything. If you're driving a car up my street you're freeloading!!

[find_bruce]

Its similar in NSW, you just need to remember that Blackspot Program (Fed) and The Growing Fund (Vic State Gov) both come out of the general revenue fund.

Its an obscure point, even by lawyers standards, and little understood. Taxes etc are paid into the one fund & only parliament can authorise money being withdrawn from it, by what is called an appropriation bill which must be for a particular purpose. Sometimes the purpose is quite specific -$Xm for this road, sometimes it is quite general - eg the $295 million the Finance Minister can spend on urgent matters that was the subject of public interest back in September 2017.

So the Blackspot Program and The Growing Fund are examples of where the relevant parliament has approved spending money on those projects, there is still no connection to where the money came from.

There are some Sydney councils that raise a significant portion of their revenue from parking fees & fines. These are seen to have a political benefit in the fines etc are paid by people who can't vote, unlike rates which are politically sensitive. Even in those cases however the money still goes into a big pot from which the council decides how the money will be spent.

Public - private joint ventures, despite the illusion of being private, are massively subsidised, whether indirectly such as land acquisition or use or directly such as revenue guarantees for the toll road operator, often based on dubious traffic flow projections - Sydney's Cross City Tunnel is the most obvious example.

"User pays" has often been the rhetoric for abolishing public transport, but it has rarely been applied to motor vehicles for which this latest proposal is yet another example - use more, pay less.

[fat and old]

Yeah, I'd guess that there's less than 100 people in a state who really do know where each dollar spent on roads comes from! Point I was getting across is that the majority of spend on the majority of roads that cyclists cop this argument would seem to be Local Gov. revenue. I would assume (big assumption) that the bulk of that is via rates.

Anyway.....

[RobertL]

the majority of spend on the majority of roads ... would seem to be Local Gov. revenue ... the bulk of that is via rates.

That's certainly the argument that I always use. Followed by pointing out that rego cannot possibly pay for those roads as it is paid to the State government.

It's a succinct-enough argument to counter the "rego pays for roads" beliefs.

[familyguy]

I find it helpful to explain a position with 'overly optimistic rounded up maths'.

Explanation goes like:
4.05-odd million people in Sydney, so let's say 3.5 million cars (optimism 1) at $500 a go for rego (optimism 2, and you have to specifically exclude insurances as that goes to private companies) equals $1.75bn.

WestConnex is costing $16bn (conservatively estimated, optimism 3), so where's the other $14.25bn coming from? 8 years solid of rego?

Expand it to NSW, 7.5 million. So lets say 6.5 million cars (optimism 4) at $500 equals $3.25bn.
That's still $12.75bn short for building that ONE road project, let alone ongoing maintenance for all the main roads in the state.

And what of the other projects, excluding the privately built roads? Funded by rego are they?

Council rates, GST, and admittedly fuel excise. Because local roads maintained by councils, don't you dare drive through another council area if you're not a ratepayer.

Next argument...?

Jim

[AdelaidePeter]

the majority of spend on the majority of roads ... would seem to be Local Gov. revenue ... the bulk of that is via rates.

That's certainly the argument that I always use. Followed by pointing out that rego cannot possibly pay for those roads as it is paid to the State government.

It's a succinct-enough argument to counter the "rego pays for roads" beliefs.

The argument I prefer is that rego mostly pays for the human damage cars cause.

I just looked it up: here in SA, out of $733.75, 26% is for actual registration ($123 for registration, $60 stamp duty and $7 admin) - and that's if I'm generous and include stamp duty on insurance as part of registration. The remaining 74% is CTP insurance ($372.08) CTP insurance GST ($28.67), Emergency Services Levy ($32.00), Lifetime Support fund ($111.00) ... in other words, funds to cover the damage to people cars cause.

In contrast, damage caused by bicycles is so low, that most home contents insurances include 3rd party insurance for damage caused riding your bicycle (outside competitions). And that's personal AND property - that $500+ in my car rego covers personal injuries only.

So my answer is: get back to me about registration when bikes are killing hundreds of Australians per year.

[Cyclophiliac]

^^^ and when you add to that the cost savings to society attributable to cycling, we really are subsiding non-cyclists. I'm pretty sure that my health insurance premium (to name just 1 example) would be a hell of a lot lower if Australia had the same proportion of cyclists as The Netherlands.

[trailgumby]

worse than that - this is effectively a subsidy to the private toll road owners.

'spend money with this private entity and we'll give you a taxpayer discount'

Agreed. Helping to keep their political donor mates in the road building industry happy, now that property developers are political poison.

Learning; BNSW needs to start budgeting for political donations.
#possiblesarcasmdetected

[tcdev]

...are we going to see car driving up and back on toll roads all night on the last night of the year to run up enough tolls to save on rego? "I'd better drive to work all next week to get my toll quota otherwise I'll pay out $1200 in tolls and have to fork out rego too"

A mate of mine used to buy/lease/? his car and petrol through work, but there was a minimum km requirement to get the tax break (don't ask me how it worked). So in the last few weeks of the financial year, he'd drive from Sydney to Melbourne, as many times as it took to get his km's up to spec. Pretty stupid system...

[tcdev]

How about some incentives to not drive as much and reduce congestion.

Well that's the thing, isn't it. These types of motorists are the same ones complaining that they had to wait 20s to overtake a handful of cyclists... who would be sitting in their cars in front of them if they weren't on their bikes. That fact escapes them completely...