Motorist income should include costs of owning a car

Democracy 4
1

Cars are expensive, we all know that. https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/average-annual-cost-of-new-vehicle-ownership according to the American Automobile Association the average annual cost of owning a car in the USA is about $9,000 including the costs of fuel, maintenance, repair, tires, insurance, licensing, registration, taxes and depreciation. Because of this, one of the biggest real life advantages of a car free society would be that people have higher disposable incomes because on a large scale the costs of public transport are way lower than the costs of cars.

However, in Democracy 4 cars are apparently free besides taxes. Which means that the only real reasons to increase bus and train usage are environment, CO2 and traffic congestion. I think that transportation costs should be taken into account for both commuters and motorists where motorists spend more on transportation because cars are more expensive.

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This could be true specifically for public transport v private transport in the United States. But is this so for all countries included in game? If not, it would be best to have this as a country-specific adjustment for the United States. The underlying question could be, are cars more expensive all things considered in every country?

For example, I did a rough calculation with an acquaintance of mine, about whether cars or public transport would be cheaper in India, it seemed that cars would be cheaper per year. Of course CO2, train depreciation, etc. were not included in this calculation, perhaps there is a comparative study somewhere to enlighten us all?

As seen in the link, do expense saving measures help in bringing car v public transport to parity, or even make cars more attractive?

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