#Washington is planning a #RoadUsageCharge (#RUC). The main driver for this seems to be that WA is mostly funding its road maintenance from the gas tax and that is projected to fall significantly, ostensibly due to EVs ("from $1.3 billion in 2026 to under $1 billion in 2035" - https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2023/10/11/washingtons-long-road-to-replacing-the-gas-tax/). I understand that the migration to EVs causes revenue loss that needs to be addressed but I'm very skeptical that an RUC can be implemented in a reasonable way.
The website for this initiative - https://waroadusagecharge.org/ - is sparse on details on how this is supposed to be implemented. They mostly want to use odometer readings: "In implementing an initial RUC program, require annual odometer readings of participating vehicles as the method of mileage reporting to determining RUC charges."
You need to submit proof of out-of-state miles traveled to get exemptions - but only once this replaces the gas tax or if you enroll to get the gas tax reimbursed.
This sounds like it will cause huge administration overhead.
The charge is per mile. Not all miles traveled cause the same cost to society though. A 2.5 ton F150 causes more damage to the road than a 1.8 ton Leaf or a 1.5 ton Soul. Not to speak of a 4.5 ton EV Hummer.
An #RUC will do nothing to alleviate congestion. The price is too low to get people to use public transport instead in places where it is possible and will still make people pay who have no other choice.
I could not find any mention of rather trying to drive road maintenance cost down, e.g. through #RoadDiet, reducing the road network, denser population, reducing #CarDependence or #PublicTransit.
A toll system w/ #CongestionPricing could be an alternative. The problem with this is that something like #GoodToGo needs expensive equipment. The cost of building this out needs to be weight against the cost of #RUC. My guess is that the long term cost of it is lower than the administrative cost of RUC with all its exemptions. It can be made much fairer by only charging in places where alternatives are available and it's a better tool to address congestion and environmental concerns. #Traffic
Going down the rabbit hole... Looks like WSP Global - a Canadian consulting company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSP_Global - is pushing #RUC across the US and many DOTs are buying into it. Seems like something #StrongTowns should have on their radar but I could not find them commenting on it.
🤔 I often post about how many innocent Black folk (millions) spend up to 2 years in jail, just because they can't afford bail. About how the less likely you are to be a criminal or in a gang, the more likely you are to experience prison violence. About how I am not hard. I'm soft as a kitten's belly! And yet 15 minutes in a cell with me, and I could have you confessing to crimes you didn't commit, just to get out of jail and away from me.
But Chauvin gets stabbed, and now y'all wanna talk? BFR.
Erzkonservativer US-Abgeordneter will McCarthy absetzen
Der Weg zum Vorsitz des US-Repräsentantenhauses war steinig für Kevin McCarthy. Nach dem heftigen Haushaltsstreit vom Wochenende macht ihm der rechte Rand seiner Partei erneut das Leben schwer - und greift zu einem seltenen Mittel.
I'm considering to get a #CargoBike. I don't really need it for groceries as my normal bike with panniers works just fine for that. It might be useful to haul stuff from the hardware store but the main reason would rather to be able to transport one or two dogs when I want to go for a walk with them. The question now is electric or not? An electric cargo bike would certainly be more comfortable especially with the hills. 1/2
OTOH if I want to go bike packing with one of the dogs, a lighter non-electric cargo bike would probably be better as I'm not depending on electric power to recharge. Long term, the answer might be "Por que no los dos". 2/2
@mikestreety yes, I think for everyday applications I would get more utility out of an electric cargo bike. However, the original Bullitt weights only 22.3 kg. I'd still need to construct a box for the dogs which I hope I could keep at around 10kg (maybe using fiberglass?). OTOH that model will probably still barely fit one of our dogs. Might still be a good option for bike packing with one dog.
Many people are surprised to learn that weak cryptography systems (including any systems of any ostensible strength with mandated or other backdoors) are vastly more dangerous than using NO cryptography at all.
Why? Because if someone is lulled into complacency and passes their private information through a compromised system as defined above, it becomes vulnerable to criminal and/or illicit government abuse.
On the other hand, if you KNOW that a communications channel is not encrypted, you know what the limits are about what you should or should not pass through that channel.
@lauren I wonder how much another issue would compound this: encrypted systems are harder to debug. With weak cryptography you get the downsides of reduced debugability but not the upside of actual security. Attackers will be more likely to create tooling to circumvent encryption and thus be able to reverse engineer than the engineers actually working on the product.
In the era of rotary phones, some businesses (and others) would put simple locks on the dial to prevent them from being rotated far enough to actually dial calls. However, a "practiced" caller could effectively "dial" calls by tapping the hook switch (aka switch hook) with the proper timing to emulate the dial. This was a common "phone phreak" skill. Or, uh, so I'm told.
@lauren fun fact. The emergency number in Germany is 112. So people put the lock in the 2 (which let you only dial 1s and 2s) to allow you to still make emergency calls. In any case you could not make a distance phone call as that required a leading 0. And a 0 is the farthest on the dial as it was encoded with ten pulses.
Have you ever been walking across the street when a driver turned into your path and almost hit you? How did you respond? Did you lash out verbally or dare to lay hands on their precious vehicle?
In Episode 107, we ask: Is It Worth It To Confront Drivers?