Agreed!

Think about it this way. The government ain't against buffets. They are against people who go to the buffet and overeat. Taking more food than necessary to fill their stomachs; this causes wastage and waiting times as the buffet queue gets longer and the buffet food runs out more quickly and takes longer to get replenished. So what is the best way to make sure you don't overeat? Change the buffet concept. You still pay a hefty price to step into the restaurant but you are forced to pay a la carte prices every time you take something to eat. It resembles a buffet less and less when the a la carte prices become more and more expensive. If we can raise the price to make it a super bad deal, i.e. charge more than Morton's for every steak you take in the buffet, eventually people will stop eating at the buffet. But they can still choose to if they are rich and don't care about the $$. So the solution to solve the ineffectiveness of ERP is to raise it to the price of average taxi fares. Say about $20.

What a narrow point of view. Our roads are like the arteries of our economy, the vehicles are like the blood which bring the imports, exports, food and daily necessities island wide to keep the economy going. Too much intervention the country will suffer, too little it will also suffer. The policy in place is not perfect but it's needed to be there to act as a heart to regulate the blood flow to keep it healthy.

Your narrow point of view only sees the roads for yourself to use. Why not take a few steps back to see the bigger picture. If only it's as simple as dining.

No one is arguing the need for usage control to keep the roads free flowing. The point is, if there is going to be such a measure in place, what is the purpose of the high ARF we pay upfront on our cars? And how about the silly road tax system which taxes larger capacity cars so heavily? Are all these really necessary? There should be just 2 controls - COE to limit the number of cars on the road, and ERP to control usage.

I'm not an econs expert but I remember something from my class. You can look at cost as a combo of two components: there's fixed cost and variable cost. fixed cost is like your ARF, road tax, etc and variable cost is your ERP, petrol tax, etc.

Sure you can take out fixed cost and add it to variable. Overall remains the same, but cost is entirely in the variable component, with zero fixed.

Now, consider, is this the right thing to do? Is there a reason for the fixed component?