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$40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

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Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#101

Post by madaxe_again »

maxxxxx wrote: post #37

My main concern is that with tolls that high that only people with a lot of money can afford them (I make six figures but I doubt I would ever pay $40 for a toll. I would need much more money). These are also often the most influential people so they may think that everything is OK because they can afford the toll and never suffer in traffic. I think the same is happening with health care. Most people in Congress hav…

They have a strategy in the UK to get everyone to pay £40 tolls, regardless of your income - by stealth.

There’s been a trend towards digital tolls - that is, no physical means to pay, you just have to know that you need to go online to their site to pay within an hour of leaving the toll road/bridge.

Thing is, many operators have little signage, poor or unavailable websites, and you can end up in a situation where you don’t realise you need to pay, or can’t pay because their tech has failed, or simply forget. So - instead of paying the £2 toll, you get a £40 penalty, payable immediately, appeals at your expense, etc.

Now, it’s easy to go “conspiracy” but there’s one factor that strongly leads me to believe that this is by design. It’s cost. At £2 per transaction, acquirer and network fees will eat a big chunk - much more than the salary for a human, or the cost of an automatic change bucket. Therefore, they rely on the fines as core revenue.

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#102

Post by pm24601 »

vog wrote: post #87
rayiner wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Road capacity is a scarce resource, and it should be allocated with a market mechanism like every other resource. You can then take the economic gain created by the increased efficiency and tax it to provide more public transit services.

Ouch! Regulating infrastructure purely by market mechanisms is an ugly anti-pattern that is well-known for decades, if not centuries. Among others, this creates an incentive to keep the resource scarce and to not invest into maintaining and expanding it. Why? Because the lowest level infrastructure is a natural monopoly: Even if it was technically feasible (put wires next to existing wires, put pipes next to existing…

I would like you to reconsider this point.

Specifically,

1. driving causes pollution

2. people local to the freeway are heavily impacted by the pollution,

3. global warming is a real issue - solo drivers are a heavy contributor.

4. the freeway cost money and should have to pay its costs same as transit systems are made to pay their costs.

fyi - i carpool to work / take transit. I would rather see free buses and heavily charged car usage.

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#103

Post by todd8 »

Joe-Z wrote: post #100
todd8 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This $40 was a charge that allowed willing, solo drivers to use the car pool lanes. No one had to pay the $40; they could continue to drive solo in the non car pool lanes as they had previously. This option was just added.

Yes, and now there's a privileged option for privileged people, whereas before it was just banned / equal for everybody (everybody driving solo, that is). That's what the GP was getting at, I think.

Should first class seating on airplanes be eliminated?

Should seats to sporting events all cost the same?

Should all of us drive the same model car or should all models just be priced the same?

Should steak be priced the same as hamburger?

I observe that economic discussions here on HN are dominated by two interesting perspectives:

(1) We should have a Star Trek like economy: no one wants for anything.

(2) If smart people like us had our hands on the steering wheel we could regulate the economy into good shape—-Friedrich Hayek described this as “The Fatal Conceit” in his book with that title.

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#104

Post by [deleted] »

pm24601 wrote: post #102
vog wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch! Regulating infrastructure purely by market mechanisms is an ugly anti-pattern that is well-known for decades, if not centuries. Among others, this creates an incentive to keep the resource scarce and to not invest into maintaining and expanding it. Why? Because the lowest level infrastructure is a natural monopoly: Even if it was technically feasible (put wires next to existing wires, put pipes next to existing…

I would like you to reconsider this point. Specifically, 1. driving causes pollution 2. people local to the freeway are heavily impacted by the pollution, 3. global warming is a real issue - solo drivers are a heavy contributor. 4. the freeway cost money and should have to pay its costs same as transit systems are made to pay their costs. fyi - i carpool to work / take transit. I would rather see free buses and heavi…

[deleted]

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#105

Post by pwg »

RickS wrote: post #18
Someone1234 wrote: post #3

Ignoring the morals for a second, with tolls that high and difficulty identifying which vehicles qualify for a HOV exemption, I wonder how many days of tolls a single ticket is and likelihood of being caught? Let's say a ticket is $150. If the toll is $6 then you're likely better off paying the toll as you're likely to be caught at least once every 25 days. At $40 they'd need to catch you at least once a week for you…

They combat this fairly smartly: the fine starts at $125 and doubles with every incident, up into the thousands. This was the case before this toll road, circa 2013 ish.

When the I-66 HOV lanes originally opened, there was a problem of some percentage of drivers being willing to risk an $X citation (and the delay while being written up) every few months in exchange for using the road every day.

The solution that VA put in place to combat that is that the HOV violation citation not only has a money cost, but second or subsequent infractions within a five year window result in assessment of points [1] against your drivers license. Only a small number of points [2] is necessary to risk losing your license.

[1] https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title33.2/chapter5/secti...

[2] https://www.dmv.org/va-virginia/point-system.php

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#106

Post by eru »

rayiner wrote: post #63
maxxxxx wrote: post #37

My main concern is that with tolls that high that only people with a lot of money can afford them (I make six figures but I doubt I would ever pay $40 for a toll. I would need much more money). These are also often the most influential people so they may think that everything is OK because they can afford the toll and never suffer in traffic. I think the same is happening with health care. Most people in Congress hav…

Road capacity is a scarce resource, and it should be allocated with a market mechanism like every other resource. You can then take the economic gain created by the increased efficiency and tax it to provide more public transit services.

Or even just to hand it out as yearly lump sum all citizens: than even the poorest person can afford the tolls, as long as they use the average amount or less of road capacity.

The problem with _not_ charging any money for road capacity is that you are still rationing, but now the price is measured in people's willingness to waste time in traffic. And that time is just that, wasted. The money collected can be re-routed to other purposes.

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#107

Post by eru »

pm24601 wrote: post #102
vog wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch! Regulating infrastructure purely by market mechanisms is an ugly anti-pattern that is well-known for decades, if not centuries. Among others, this creates an incentive to keep the resource scarce and to not invest into maintaining and expanding it. Why? Because the lowest level infrastructure is a natural monopoly: Even if it was technically feasible (put wires next to existing wires, put pipes next to existing…

I would like you to reconsider this point. Specifically, 1. driving causes pollution 2. people local to the freeway are heavily impacted by the pollution, 3. global warming is a real issue - solo drivers are a heavy contributor. 4. the freeway cost money and should have to pay its costs same as transit systems are made to pay their costs. fyi - i carpool to work / take transit. I would rather see free buses and heavi…

Add in that subsidising commuting by comparison punishes locating closer to your destination.

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#108

Post by dalbasal »

rayiner wrote: post #63
maxxxxx wrote: post #37

My main concern is that with tolls that high that only people with a lot of money can afford them (I make six figures but I doubt I would ever pay $40 for a toll. I would need much more money). These are also often the most influential people so they may think that everything is OK because they can afford the toll and never suffer in traffic. I think the same is happening with health care. Most people in Congress hav…

Road capacity is a scarce resource, and it should be allocated with a market mechanism like every other resource. You can then take the economic gain created by the increased efficiency and tax it to provide more public transit services.

>> a market mechanism like every other resource.

Well... the mechanism is prices. A market machaninism, but not really a market in the full sense...

Anyway the result of this mechanism are fairly predictable. Fixed, scarce, resource. Price system. Unequal distribution of wealth/income. Most of the scarce resource will be allocated to the wealthy, who will outbid the rest.

At present, the non market price-like mechanism is generally time, and all people get 24 hrs per day.

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#109

Post by eru »

raverbashing wrote: post #89
rayiner wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Road capacity is a scarce resource, and it should be allocated with a market mechanism like every other resource. You can then take the economic gain created by the increased efficiency and tax it to provide more public transit services.

Donated organs are a scarce resource Radio spectrum is a scarce resource You can't solve those with market mechanisms Electrical transmission and generation facilities are somewhat scarce and we all see how the "free marked" worked great in the Enron case there

Are you trolling?

Radio spectrum auctions are fairly commonplace these days.

Organ markets work reasonably well in Iran, and would be great for the rest of the world as well.

Electrical transmission and generation work really well in a market setting in most places that's been tried. What does Enron have to do with it?

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#110

Post by eru »

freetime2 wrote: post #40
maxxxxx wrote: post #37

My main concern is that with tolls that high that only people with a lot of money can afford them (I make six figures but I doubt I would ever pay $40 for a toll. I would need much more money). These are also often the most influential people so they may think that everything is OK because they can afford the toll and never suffer in traffic. I think the same is happening with health care. Most people in Congress hav…

I'm curious how they use the money from the $40 toll. If, for example, they used the money to improve roads and other public transportation options so that everyone on average gets where they need to go faster, then that ought to make everyone happy. Or else just divide up the revenue and mail everyone in the state a check at the end of the year. That would make me less angry about the fact that other people are able…

What's wrong about using a tax/fee to fund the general expenditures of the collecting authority?

(That's what eg income tax does.)

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