Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
London also has a congestion tax for driving downtown though (which wasn't based on carbon and the environment) so that's another issue. That's why you see so many scooters there as opposed to other vehicles. But there are other factors at play, namely while the costs of fuel might be higher, there are viable alternatives as well which we are lacking. Its probably easier to not drive in a city like London with amazing transit infrastructure, and getting around England by train is sensible. Driving in Calgary is nearly essential. For a lot of Albertans driving is basically essential because there is no transit (think of the smaller rural towns for example)
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Europe isn't all urban. It has rural areas as well, and it's not as though there are train stations and public transit in every town and village. If you live in the Irish countryside, or in rural Austria, you're driving a car. But you almost never see pickup trucks and big SUVs even in the countryside in those countries. Part of it is cultural (they're not associated with masculinity the way they are here). But a big part is cost. It's really expensive to run a car in Europe. So people buy small and try not to drive often if they can help it.
There's clearly a point at which the cost of filling up a car affects purchasing decisions and driving habits. If gas in Alberta cost $1.91 a litre (as it does in Ireland), I think you'd see a lot of people buying smaller cars and driving less. The question is whether the Alberta carbon taxes are high enough to move the needle much. I doubt they are.