Nice jab with (what seems to be) an allusion to the New Jersey bridge-closing scandal that engulfed Gov. Chris Christie: "... like blaming drivers on a bridge for traffic jams when you're the one who decided to leave three lanes closed during rush hour."
Sure, but they're only using the bridge to drive to McDonalds. It's McDonalds generating all that traffic -- they should pay the bridge operator too! /sarcasm.
If we had usage-paid highways (which we couldn't have earlier due to missing technology but now such things start to pop up), I can imagine some remotely-located mega-store could advertise as "come to us and we'll pay your road toll - both directions!".
Usage-paid highways have been standard in some countries for ages - they just use toll bridges at every entrance and exit and deduce your price from entrance and exit position.
Was that sarcasm? If not, and it was a serious idea then keep in mind Walmart is not the "parent" of their employees - it's not responsible for their upkeep.
Hopefully that was just sarcasm and I'm replying for no reason.
You've already got that as the government already pays subsidies. I'm all for basic infrastructure to be collectively owned; be it co-ops, collectives, not for profits or even the government (local, national etc). This is the way it is for roads, rubbish, sewerage, etc. If you want a premium / luxury service then feel free to pay extra. Contract out support, maintenance, sales for the infrastructure by all means, but the ownership should be a collective of the users.
Property taxes tied to the level of traffic destined for a particular commercial location? This is the first I've heard of something like this, can you tell me more?
Property taxes are based on a poor approximation of what a property would be expected to sell for. The relationship between that and the size or nature of the business operating there is highly attenuated, and it's almost entirely decoupled from how much traffic a business generates on any particular road.
Isn't that true with all bridges though? You don't have to pay for each use, but you sure paid for the construction and potentially the upkeep (or are likely to have paid).
This is going very tangential, but no, not all bridges are directly paid for only by people driving on them.
To make public bridges into an ISP analogy, imagine: municipal and state taxes as well as tax revenue from other states (via Federal highway dollars) pay for a municipal broadband network. You may or may not actually use the service, and you pay for it either way. You likely don't have any other choice of ISP. And it's not-for-profit, and the general public and lawmakers constantly clamor and legislate for better service at lower prices.
Although not true, I always liked to think that taxes on my vehicle, fuel, and tolls paid for the infrastructure upon which I drive. I have no idea whether those are sufficient, but I'll bet in my state they state of high taxes and crappy infrastructure they are more than enough.
Generally, the taxes and tolls levied on drivers only pay for ~50% of US road spending - the balance comes out of the general tax pool on both drivers and non-drivers, so it's (arguably) heavily subsidized. (But one could argue that non-drivers benefit from the road system in terms of things delivered to them by truck, etc.)
I don't see the advantage of a Netflix throwing a political jab at Chris Christie when in a statement about something entirely unrelated. It would just serve to make Christie supporters turn on Netflix. As far as I'm aware only 2 lanes were closed and Christie, nor his staff, said anything about blaming the drivers.
Despite the similarities, it seems to me like this was just an analogy, nothing more.
