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To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

latimes.com

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Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#71

Post by touchofevil »

The traffic in LA is soul crushing. I just finished a job where I commuted about 18 miles each way and the drive would take 50 minutes each way. That might not sound unreasonable, but nearly the entire commute was freeway driving, which should have been much faster.

I don't know if tolls are the answer, but it's probably worth a try. Also massively expanding the metro system would be fine with me. LA needs to try whatever it can to solve the traffic problem. Traffic makes living in LA a huge drag and I found that friends often wouldn't bother to get together even on weekends because the traffic and parking are just so unpredictable.

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#73

Post by pavel_lishin »

jessriedel wrote: post #63
pavel_lishin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess because people would rather have the certainty of getting to work in 1.5 hours, rather than wait for a stranger to pick them in a semi-determined block of time (or pick up a stranger in the same) for a 1 hour commute. Waiting and hoping that the person who promised to pick you up will actually do so seems annoying and nerve-wracking. "Sorry, boss, I know I'm late again, but a complete stranger was 30 minute…

> rather than wait for a stranger to pick them in a semi-determined block of time I think the idea is that it's supposed to match you in real-time and give GPS updates, just like regular Uber and Lyft. That is, it's not like BlancRide in Canada (which has been struggling) where you schedule in advance, have blocks of time, etc. https://blancride.com/ > Waiting and hoping that the person who promised to pick you up wi…

What's the incentive for people to be the driver in this scenario, other than not crapping up the commons (which in this case is the freeway?)

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#74

Post by soheil »

prodikl wrote: post #60
soheil wrote: post #56

What about the poor? LA for most parts, against popular belief, is a pretty homogenous city when it comes to wealth, sure you have Beverly Hills and Malibu but LA is so vast that majority of it doesn't feel secluded. Now if you toll the non-wealthy (the rich will not notice the toll) you remove that dynamic, that headline should really say let's remove more poor people from the freeways.

he touched on that > the most common complaint being: "Oh, so only rich people can drive?" > This critique ignores the fact that working Americans often suffer the most severely from the impacts of poor mobility. Working-class parents who are late to pick up their kids from day care, for example, often pay severe financial penalties. Having the option to reach their destination quickly could actually save them money.…

> Tolls may disproportionately burden the poor, but so do sales taxes, gas taxes and every other way we pay for roads.

So let's add yet another burden?

> Americans often suffer the most severely from the impacts of poor mobility.

Wow, somehow my crazy brain interprets this as if you're poor you're probably not as American as the rest of us.

> Working-class parents who are late to pick up their kids from day care, for example, often pay severe financial penalties.

So let's charge them up front so that they can't even afford to drop off their kids at day care?

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#75

Post by AnimalMuppet »

tptacek wrote: post #31
endianswap wrote: post #13

Aren't tolls like this an incredibly regressive tax that further hurts the poor?

Use taxes such as highway tolls are among the most economically efficient ways to raise revenue to maintain and improve public goods. Since most tolling is electronic now, it's straightforward to provide a means-tested toll credit for people who would otherwise have trouble paying for their portion of the use of the expressway.

I think you need one more twist. If I'm poor, and I have a means-tested toll credit, then I have no incentive not to use the toll road. That is, the economic incentives you're trying to create don't apply to the poor. (Unless by "credit" you mean "I get to keep the cash if I don't use it", in which case my objection does not apply.)

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#76

Post by ghaff »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #69
r00fus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should also consider the concept of mass transit? The increased likelihood of injury or death from increased transit time in automobiles alone is a health hazard.

LA is getting better with mass transit. The problem is it's not running 24 hours. It shuts down around 1am so you it's not really good for doing things at night like in NYC. Also, there's a TON of crazy people riding, literal homeless crazy people, or kind of thuggish people. There needs to be some sort of loitering code enforcement on the train along with more security. I feel uncomfortable as a dude, I bet women fe…

Almost no cities have 24 hour mass transit including many that are considered to have good transit systems. That's a very high bar you're setting.

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#77

Post by adrr »

Problem with LA is that we build horizontally and not vertically. We keep adding more homes in suburbs and not building up in the cities that have the jobs. There's a big anti growth movement preventing high density housing. They have been successful in preventing high density projects like the Bergamot transit village(on a rail line too). Today we're voting on initiative that prevents large scale developments. If it passes, housing will get more expensive and traffic will get worse.

To fix the problem, we just need more affordable housing where the jobs are located and that means building upwards.

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#78

Post by the_commentary »

MegaButts wrote: post #48
RamshackleJ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You are thinking about it wrong. By making it cost prohibitive for the poors to move around we will be able to concentrate their populations into designated "bottom feeder" neighborhoods allowing us to more effectively rob them of basic public services like education, healthcare, and potable water.

> By making it cost prohibitive for the poors to move around Am I the only person who found the phrase 'the poors' offensive? I'm genuinely asking.

I think based on the rest of the context that was kind of the point - to drive home the "screw these people" attitude that policies like this would spring from.

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#79

Post by Apocryphon »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #69
r00fus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should also consider the concept of mass transit? The increased likelihood of injury or death from increased transit time in automobiles alone is a health hazard.

LA is getting better with mass transit. The problem is it's not running 24 hours. It shuts down around 1am so you it's not really good for doing things at night like in NYC. Also, there's a TON of crazy people riding, literal homeless crazy people, or kind of thuggish people. There needs to be some sort of loitering code enforcement on the train along with more security. I feel uncomfortable as a dude, I bet women fe…

From a NorCal perspective, that is sad because BART stops around 12:30, seven days a week. But I suppose there are MUNI lines that run all night, which is slightly better.

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#80

Post by vkou »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #69
r00fus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should also consider the concept of mass transit? The increased likelihood of injury or death from increased transit time in automobiles alone is a health hazard.

LA is getting better with mass transit. The problem is it's not running 24 hours. It shuts down around 1am so you it's not really good for doing things at night like in NYC. Also, there's a TON of crazy people riding, literal homeless crazy people, or kind of thuggish people. There needs to be some sort of loitering code enforcement on the train along with more security. I feel uncomfortable as a dude, I bet women fe…

> Also, there's a TON of crazy people riding, literal homeless crazy people, or kind of thuggish people. There needs to be some sort of loitering code enforcement on the train along with more security. I feel uncomfortable as a dude, I bet women feel even more so.

One of the ways to improve the public transit, as a whole, is to make people of all socioeconomic classes take transit. Consider New York, for instance, where millionaires are shoulder-to-shoulder with waiters, and homeless people on their commute... And it works surprisingly well.

Until politically wealthy people have to deal with the problem, they won't support any solutions.

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