$40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology • Hacker News Board

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#141

Post by nawtacawp » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:42 PM UTC

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 live in DC and I recently took a trip to a rural part of America. I must say I was a bit shocked. I have been in my little metro bubble for so long that I was completely out of touch with how rough rural areas are looking.

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#142

Post by avar » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:47 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #124

pm24601 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's what gas taxes are for. Living near a freeway you are better off if they reduced congestion. Increasing congestion increases pollution as cars accelerate and break more frequently etc.

Fuel taxes are a very crude tool, road tolls are much better instrument to actually regulate the behavior you care about.

If you raise fuel taxes because there's too much congestion that's going to equally affect someone who lives in some rural area where congestion isn't an issue at all, and someone who's driving down a busy freeway every day contributing to congestion.

You also raise the price of gasoline, which has other uses that have nothing whatsoever to do with road transport.

If you want to discourage specific behavior you should tax that specific behavior, not tax something one or two steps removed from the behavior you care about.

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#143

Post by snowpanda » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:48 PM UTC

Joe-Z wrote: post #140

todd8 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

The answer to all of your questions is no and here's the important distinction to the roads-problem: private vs. public goods / services.

The same applies to public goods/services though. E.g. if you can afford the electricity (public utility) to mine bitcoins, should we not?

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#144

Post by mattmcknight » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:52 PM UTC

todd8 wrote: post #97

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…

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.

Not quite...there aren't, and haven't been for over 20 years, any non-HOV lanes on the road at rush hour. They expanded the rush hour HOV time period, so it catches people that left early or late to avoid it. They also removed an exception for hybrid vehicles with special plates and traffic to the airport.

The real issue is that the NIMBYs in Arlington won't let them expand the road at all.

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#145

Post by mattmcknight » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:56 PM UTC

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #51

freetime2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> "I'm curious how they use the money from the $40 toll." The article says that it is being used to fund new construction: "This is what transportation costs!" "The real reason there's sticker shock is that the real cost of road transportation is hidden from most voters. Gas tax money goes to states and the US Department of Transportation which flows back as what seems like free federal money to build a lot of roads.…

It's not true. The road had a planned expansion to go to 4 lanes in each direction in 1977. It was blocked by Arlington County, and the only new construction they've done for 40 years is extending the exit lanes. It's so ridiculously under the needed capacity that all of the canards about not being able to build your way out of traffic don't apply.

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#146

Post by Joe-Z » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:58 PM UTC

snowpanda wrote: post #143

Joe-Z wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to all of your questions is no and here's the important distinction to the roads-problem: private vs. public goods / services.

The same applies to public goods/services though. E.g. if you can afford the electricity (public utility) to mine bitcoins, should we not?

The important thing is that the rules for using publicly financed goods/services are the same for everybody. If you pay for your electricity of course you are free to choose what you do with it.

This is not the same as with roads though, since they are a finite resource (whereas, arguably, electricity can be seen as infinite in this case). You can't ask people to pay for roads which they then can't use because they can't afford the tolls for it. It's already bad enough that so much tax money flows into building roads, which can only be utilized by people wealthy enough to own and maintain a car in the first place. (I'm reading the book "Happy City" at the moment, so this topic struck a chord with me)

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#147

Post by humanrebar » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 1:04 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #88

ForHackernews wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some interesting ideas on this front: 1) Using markets to allocate resources without real money: http://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2016/article/why-fa... 2) Finland charges road fines on a "day-rate" that varies depending on the offender's income: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland...

Making fees and fines dependent on income is a good way to get incentives right. In Germany for example health insurance is based on your income, not a fixed amount like here.

No, they should just improve the economy and supplement income (minimum income, negative income tax) to ensure that everyone can afford the cost of living, $40 tolls included.

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#148

Post by kaybe » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 1:06 PM UTC

mnm1 wrote: post #12

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…

I think the likelihood of getting caught is close to 100% each day. HOV policing is an extremely high priority in the DC area and because of dedicated highways like this, also extremely easy and profitable for police. Also, I believe fines start around $250 and quickly move to $1000. There is a whole informal system of carpooling called "slugs" that works with the system. That'd be your best bet. Or, at $70 round tri…

For everyone else wondering about the "slugging", here's an explanation:

http://slug-lines.com/Slugging/About_slugging.asp

edit: And a how-to, and a description of the common NY pickup places.. as I'm reading it I discovered it's an all-around interesting page.

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#149

Post by dsfyu404ed » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 1:09 PM UTC

An individual car might not be a mass transit system but a highway is (albeit inefficient). I think it's just as absurd to use demand pricing for highways as it would be to use them for subways. (I support HOV lanes though)

The main issue I see with a non-HOV toll option on an HOV road, toll lanes, etc. is that it gives the wealthy an option that others do not have. If there isn't enough commuting capacity (regardless of medium) we need to provide more. The state should not give the rich an option to make their commutes tolerable because that's easier than solving the problems (because we all know that when the rich and powerful have problems with how the state is running things that's when they change).

The wealthy have to wait on the same subway platforms as the poor. The national parks don't have a "skip the line if you're rich enough to justify the insane price" option. The wealthy should have to sit in the same traffic jams as the rest of us. Congress should have the same healthcare options as the rest of us.

The worst part about toll lanes and the other demand based pricing for necessities is that they reduce the incentive to increase supply.

If it were independently verifiable that any given implementation of surge pricing was optimized for bandwidth (people-miles over the time period surge pricing applies) rather than latency (average speed) or revenue I might feel differently but considering how pretty much every other traffic control rule turns into a revenue source of some sort (tolls on I90 in MA were only supposed to last long enough to recover the construction cost) I quite frankly don't trust any government to do it that way unless it's 100% in the open.

Re: $40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology

#150

Post by humanrebar » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 1:10 PM UTC

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…

> My main concern is that with tolls that high that only people with a lot of money can afford them...

Yes, the toll is high, but only during peak usage hours. And there are other routes to take (that low income people presumably have been already using).

In general, progressively pricing services is a mistake. Instead, we should be progressively supplementing incomes (minimum income, negative income tax, commuter cards, etc.) until people can afford market-priced bills, goods, and fees. Until we approach problems this way, end-consumers don't really feel the impact of discrepancies in costs.

Consumers aren't dumb. If they see the bus is $5 but the toll is $20 because that's the actual demand-based market price, they'll change their commute habits, change what they'll pay in rent, the prices of homes, the lobbying of their representatives for more public transportation, and so on.