Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 267 posts

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#131

Post by berbec »

ben_jones wrote: post #70
nwah1 wrote: post #7

Congestion pricing is one of the most economically literate ways to improve traffic, and those funds can be used to improve infrastructure. It isn't so different from surge pricing in ridesharing apps. There is a narrowmindedness on the part of opponents of both congestion pricing and surge pricing, because they are ignoring the obvious point that if they weren't paying the fees they'd be paying in terms of time. Not…

While I agree in principle poor people are going to be hit by this the hardest and that's something that has to be taken into account in public policy.

Actually, lower income people are likely to overwhelmingly gain from this plan. Poor people don't drive to Manhattan. The cost of parking and tolls puts it out of their reach. Therefor, this is funding which will be used to upgrade the transportation system they do use - the Subway.

"The median household income of those with wheels is more than double that of those without - $85,000 compared with $40,630." [1]

Do you really think someone who is "poor" can afford "UP TO 12 HOURS $31.25" [2] daily parking, when an unlimited Metrocard is $32 weekly? The commute would be shorter in the car, but with $150/week for parking, add tolls and the cost of insuring/maintaining a car, I do not see congestion pricing being a poor tax.

1: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/opinion/editorials/manhat...

2: grabbed from one major garage site. not the end-all pricing, but it's close http://www.rapidparknyc.com/daily-parking-nyc-garage-rates-M...

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#132

Post by alkonaut »

setgree wrote: post #85

Weighing in as a Manhatto who works in midtown -- I welcome this! But another fruitful option is curbing the very worst behavior attendant to driving. Blocking the box -- apparently being policed heavily in Queens! [0] -- is typically addressed (near times square) by having traffic cops in the streets guiding traffic. How about tickets that scale up by orders of magnitude for each repeat offense, i.e. $1 for the firs…

Traffic violations fees should be proportional to income to really be painful to rich people. See e.g Finland.

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#133

Post by herbturbo »

thebiglebrewski wrote: post #15

As someone living in Brooklyn who drives to NJ regularly, I wonder if this will increase congestion on the Staten Island bound route to NJ. People will dodge the Holland Tunnel to avoid this surcharge.

To be fair that's probably a good thing. The BQE and Turnpike are more appropriate places for large amounts of through traffic than SoHo.

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#134

Post by ghaff »

chimeracoder wrote: post #125
ghaff wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak specifically to the Beijing system but rationing (or lotteries) as a general approach are often seen as a fairer way to distribute a limited good than letting whoever has the most money have it. That said, especially given the circumstances of Manhattan, congestion charging probably makes the most sense and also has the virtue of bringing in additional money that can theoretically be used to improve pub…

> I can't speak specifically to the Beijing system but rationing (or lotteries) as a general approach are often seen as a fairer way to distribute a limited good than letting whoever has the most money have it. Lotteries are an absolutely terrible system. They fail the basic test of Pareto efficiency. Or in other words: lotteries result in outcomes in which one person could be made better off without making anybody e…

There are scenarios though where lotteries are really the only reasonable option.

Say there's a national park campground that fills up within a few minutes of opening up reservations.

However the lottery is implemented exactly (wardialing, picking applications at random), it's pretty much how you have to do things. Raising prices until supply meets demand is (properly) politically a non-starter even if it's the "correct" economic solution.

You can have a waiting list (as I believe many Grand Canyon permits use) but creating multi-year waiting lists have their own set of problems because it makes it hard for people to plan.

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#135

Post by QuarterReptile »

maxsilver wrote: post #79
lazerpants wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always surprised by the only-in-this-circumstance libertarian philosophy of people who support congestion pricing. I think if you took the exact same logic and applied it to say, schools, supporters would feel completely differently about it. Example: It's really hard to get your child into certain public schools in NYC. Why not start charging $3k a year per child (much less than private schools) at high demand s…

> Why is congestion pricing okay when applying the same philosophy to other matters of public good isn't? I think the real root of the problem is that congestion pricing is never okay in matters of public good, we've just conditioned ourselves to believe that infrastructure is this special case of impossible problem to solve, so our terrible workaround to this artificial problem sometimes seems begrudgingly reasonabl…

The immediate problems of infrastructure are two-fold: funding and the matching of supply and demand. Ignore the environmental ramifications for the moment and kick that can to your kids like everyone else does.

Supply and demand solves itself. The solution is staring right back at you any time you drive around a city at 5PM local. The funding could be solved by taking more money out of general revenue from income and other taxes. It's not too far a stretch from where we are now.

The argument for congestion pricing could be framed as frustration with either of those two components. First, some people want to pay for their use in dollars instead of hours. Second, some people would rather target the users of the public good to recoup the enormous costs of it. Personally, I try to opt out to the maximum extent because I find the time cost unacceptable, and I would avoid the monetary cost for the same reason. And given the risk of runaway time cost or runaway money cost for a rare trip, I'd rather keep the time. If nothing else, my loss aversion would make me avoid driving like the plague after paying a high toll.

We prefer bakeries to bread lines, and food is arguably more important to life than driving. So why should we want the bread line equivalent when it comes to driving? As far as I can tell, it's because that's the system we're used to, and change is hard.

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#136

Post by cobookman »

nwah1 wrote: post #7

Congestion pricing is one of the most economically literate ways to improve traffic, and those funds can be used to improve infrastructure. It isn't so different from surge pricing in ridesharing apps. There is a narrowmindedness on the part of opponents of both congestion pricing and surge pricing, because they are ignoring the obvious point that if they weren't paying the fees they'd be paying in terms of time. Not…

The rich aren't effected and the poor are. The poor also can't afford to live near work & public transit. As that comes in at a premium.

So this ends up not impacting the rich, but drastically hurts the poor.

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#137

Post by thescriptkiddie »

ben_jones wrote: post #70
nwah1 wrote: post #7

Congestion pricing is one of the most economically literate ways to improve traffic, and those funds can be used to improve infrastructure. It isn't so different from surge pricing in ridesharing apps. There is a narrowmindedness on the part of opponents of both congestion pricing and surge pricing, because they are ignoring the obvious point that if they weren't paying the fees they'd be paying in terms of time. Not…

While I agree in principle poor people are going to be hit by this the hardest and that's something that has to be taken into account in public policy.

I find it hard to believe that a congestion charge is going to disproportionately affect the poor, especially in Manhattan.

The majority of New Yorkers — and a supermajority of Manhattanites — do not own a car. Those who do own cars have incomes nearly twice as high as those who don't. Only 5.8% of commuters to Manhattan arrive by single-occupancy vehicle.

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/04/21/a-reminder-pricing-ca...

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#140

Post by ebikelaw »

This framing of the issue is typical for the mainstream press, however readers should note that this scheme changes nothing about the cost of driving. It only changes who pays, and how. Today everybody pays the costs associated with driving in Manhattan, even though driving in Manhattan is only practiced by a tiny minority of people. Congestion pricing will shift part of that burden to the people who cause it, which is perfectly fair.
Post reply on HN