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Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

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Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#121

Post by anonuser123456 »

zaroth wrote: post #96

I agree with TFA’s premise, but some of the specific arguments present are faulty. Flat vehicle registration fees Excise tax is not flat, and sometimes a luxury tax on top even makes it progressive. These are registration fees paid to the town instead of the state. The storm sewer subsidy The complaint here is that pollution is contributed by commuters / travelers but cleanup is paid by locals. The travelers pollutin…

I disagree with this point:

>The travelers polluting city storm water sewers are paying taxes in the city when they do business in the city, which is why they are using the roads. If there was no reason to come to the city, there would be a lot less stormwater pollution but also a lot less commerce and the city would be worse off.

This is in effect a cross subsidy, making it hard to rationally price pollution. Usage based pricing / taxes are more efficient here. It would be better to lower city taxes and raise road taxes to reflect the cost of pollution. Then, people would either a) drive less or b) drive less polluting vehicles or c) pay the full price of cleanup.

The argument that there is 'more commerce' doesn't hold. If city business (and residents) are subsidizing consumers (e.g. paying for their pollution), the cost of doing business goes up in the city and thus producers have to charge higher prices, reducing consumption. There is no free lunch here unless you steal it from a 3rd party, and in the case of city budgets there is little in the way to prevent that.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#122

Post by gpm »

nihonde wrote: post #95
bradleyjg wrote: post #34

I don't know about other cities, but to understand the strong political push back against congestion pricing in NYC requires a bunch of local context. Neither the rich+, nor the poor, nor the vast majority of the middle class regularly commute into Manhattan by car. The poor and the lower/middle middle class because parking is prohibitively expensive. The upper middle class and the rich because they either live in Ma…

I live in lower Manhattan. My feeling is that every vehicle other than delivery trucks should be banned from the city. There is no compelling reason for anyone to drive in Manhattan. If people are commuting into Manhattan, they should take public transit to and from parking lots in Brooklyn/Queens/New Jersey. You will never convince me that there are low income workers who need to drive in the city as an essential pa…

Trades people can have legitimate reasons to need vehicles.

Imagine your in charge of, say, taking care of a large planter. You need to bring with you:

- Half a pickup truck of new plants

- A few bags of fresh soil

- A few shovels, buckets, a hose, and other similar tools

They key is really just that vehicles are necessary to transport large quantities of stuff, regardless of whether or not it's a delivery vehicle. I think you'll find that a number of trades include low income workers who are moving around large quantities of stuff.

(This is not intended to be taken as arguing for or against congestion charges or any other policy involving shuffling money around, just against the logic of the above post and outright banning things other than delivery vehicles)

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#123

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jacobolus wrote: post #108
hedora wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Commuters have effectively time-shifted, alleviating and smoothing congestion. It has been so effective that the length of I-66 subject to this treatment will be extended. Also, has anyone computed the cost of the economic externalities here? Time shifting ones commute either has severe financial repercussions for the employer (lost productivity) or the employees (a decrease in effective wages). I suspect those num…

> consider raising peak commute throughput instead of devising ways to suppress peak demand Getting rid of most of the cars and putting people on trains does wonders for peak throughput.

> Getting rid of most of the cars and putting people on trains does wonders for peak throughput.

Getting people on trains by forcing them out of cars can't actually do that. If you make it more expensive/inconvenient/impossible to drive, at most the same number of people will take the train. In practice fewer will, because some of them will find jobs somewhere else or do their shopping somewhere else etc. So the combined throughput inherently goes down.

The only way to get it to go up is to make something better instead of making something worse.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#124

Post by alistairSH »

gpm wrote: post #122
nihonde wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in lower Manhattan. My feeling is that every vehicle other than delivery trucks should be banned from the city. There is no compelling reason for anyone to drive in Manhattan. If people are commuting into Manhattan, they should take public transit to and from parking lots in Brooklyn/Queens/New Jersey. You will never convince me that there are low income workers who need to drive in the city as an essential pa…

Trades people can have legitimate reasons to need vehicles. Imagine your in charge of, say, taking care of a large planter. You need to bring with you: - Half a pickup truck of new plants - A few bags of fresh soil - A few shovels, buckets, a hose, and other similar tools They key is really just that vehicles are necessary to transport large quantities of stuff , regardless of whether or not it's a delivery vehicle.…

Modify the original post to "nobody needs to commute in a personal vehicle" and it works. The truck full of plants is a commercial truck (it might be personally owned, but should be getting reimbursed for mileage).

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#125

Post by AnthonyMouse »

nicoburns wrote: post #86
hedora wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Commuters have effectively time-shifted, alleviating and smoothing congestion. It has been so effective that the length of I-66 subject to this treatment will be extended. Also, has anyone computed the cost of the economic externalities here? Time shifting ones commute either has severe financial repercussions for the employer (lost productivity) or the employees (a decrease in effective wages). I suspect those num…

> Also, has anyone computed the cost of the economic externalities here? Time shifting ones commute either has severe financial repercussions for the employer (lost productivity) or the employees (a decrease in effective wages). That, or companies implement flexible working hours, which allow time shifting without penalty.

> That, or companies implement flexible working hours, which allow time shifting without penalty.

The issue there is the two aren't that related. Congestion pricing doesn't get employers to implement flexible working hours, because most of the cost or the inconvenience of using alternatives is on the employee.

By contrast, if you passed a law requiring large employers in the city to implement flexible working hours, then you wouldn't need congestion pricing, because given the option people already prefer to commute when there is less traffic.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#126

Post by nihonde »

treis wrote: post #120
nihonde wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in lower Manhattan. My feeling is that every vehicle other than delivery trucks should be banned from the city. There is no compelling reason for anyone to drive in Manhattan. If people are commuting into Manhattan, they should take public transit to and from parking lots in Brooklyn/Queens/New Jersey. You will never convince me that there are low income workers who need to drive in the city as an essential pa…

>I live in lower Manhattan. My feeling is that every vehicle other than delivery trucks should be banned from the city. How do you expect to get your plumbing fixed?

Expand my original post from “delivery trucks” to “small trucks/vans on demonstrable business”. Also, other than for major construction, no more semi-trucks in the city.

And electric buses ASAP. They’re the loudest and dirtiest vehicles out here. And definitely no more tour buses.

That would make this city soar in terms of places people want to live and visit.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#127

Post by barrkel »

devereaux wrote: post #81
barrkel wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flat taxes are not the fairest taxes for a very simple reason: the decreasing marginal utility of money. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lawofdiminishingutility... If you're poor, a tax - no matter how small - affects things like food expenditure. If you're income rich, the difference tax makes affects things like what kind of car you buy or what quality of hotel you stay at when you're on vacation. These are no…

Decreasing marginal utility of money is just a theory, and there are many flaws in the theory - including measuring happiness with a discrete scale of questionable boundaries (5=very happy, etc.), considering self administered questions at face value, etc. Another theory is hedonic adaptation- you adapt to whatever and regress to a baseline. Finally, there seems to be proof that some people do not spent their money o…

If you are seriously suggesting that a penny is worth the same to a wealthy man as a child, we cannot have a serious conversation.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#128

Post by hopler »

bradleyjg wrote: post #34

I don't know about other cities, but to understand the strong political push back against congestion pricing in NYC requires a bunch of local context. Neither the rich+, nor the poor, nor the vast majority of the middle class regularly commute into Manhattan by car. The poor and the lower/middle middle class because parking is prohibitively expensive. The upper middle class and the rich because they either live in Ma…

If everyone who drives is opposed to congestion control, why is it even on the table?

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#129

Post by hopler »

dmix wrote: post #92
jacques_chester wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those outside NYC, it can be difficult to understand the sheer scale of this phenomenon ("placard abuse"). https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2018/12/28/streetsies-2018-placa... https://twitter.com/placardabuse

That top tweet of the police just casually harassing the placard guy for filming an officer’s car is very interesting. Particularly how the officer is using carefully chosen words “I’m giving you an order to show me your ID” to skirt the fact he had no legal right to demand his ID. So much of law enforcement abuse of power depends on intimidation and (most) people’s default reaction to trust their authority in all si…

“I’m giving you an order to show me your ID” isn't skirting the law, it's invoking it. It's illegal to disobey police, even illegal orders.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#130

Post by gpm »

alistairSH wrote: post #124
gpm wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trades people can have legitimate reasons to need vehicles. Imagine your in charge of, say, taking care of a large planter. You need to bring with you: - Half a pickup truck of new plants - A few bags of fresh soil - A few shovels, buckets, a hose, and other similar tools They key is really just that vehicles are necessary to transport large quantities of stuff , regardless of whether or not it's a delivery vehicle.…

Modify the original post to "nobody needs to commute in a personal vehicle" and it works. The truck full of plants is a commercial truck (it might be personally owned, but should be getting reimbursed for mileage).

Commercial is the wrong qualifier for two reasons.

The first is that you're going to have investment banks declaring their employees cars as commercial.

The second is that you don't have to be a business to take a job taking care of a planter (or whatever). You probably are, but it's not required.

I agree with the principal that "nobody needs to commute in a personal vehicle", but I find it hard to codify it into a reliable law.

Edit: Actually I like Nihonde's own modification: “small trucks/vans on demonstrable business”, I'd add "involving transporting stuff for use in the city".

It will probably still be gamed, but the ambiguity of the wording allows selective enforcement to fight the worst of that.

Edit 2: Actually I don't, considering the other discussions in this thread about police abusing their authority giving them more ambiguous laws seems like a bad idea.

Also - This is a perfect example of why I try to avoid advocating for/against policies on the internet unless it's abundantly clear that they are good/bad.

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