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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

#131

Post by electric_muse »

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…

My compelling reason is that I live in Manhattan and frequently make trips to visit family that are not well served by public transportation. And when I'm there, I prefer using a vehicle to get around.

I often return to New York with a carful of groceries, luggage, etc. I've tried this via public transit -- it's a miserable affair. The utility of a personal vehicle for me is very high -- perhaps substantially higher than it would be for you.

There's no need to justify vehicles based on economic classes and livelihood. Why does the car debate need to be made into some kind of class conflict? It's just more convenient and pleasant, and that's how some choose to spend their money.

I'm sorry it inconveniences you, but our society exists because we're willing to be slightly inconvenienced by our neighbors (especially those with different preferences than us) in exchange for certain benefits.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#132

Post by notatoad »

electric_muse wrote: post #131
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…

My compelling reason is that I live in Manhattan and frequently make trips to visit family that are not well served by public transportation. And when I'm there, I prefer using a vehicle to get around. I often return to New York with a carful of groceries, luggage, etc. I've tried this via public transit -- it's a miserable affair. The utility of a personal vehicle for me is very high -- perhaps substantially higher…

that's not a very compelling reason. Making it slightly easier for you personally to carry your groceries isn't going to convince anybody that personal vehicles are a necessity.

>Why does the car debate need to be made into some kind of class conflict?

because it's simply not sustainable for everybody who wants to drive a car to do so. there isn't physically enough space. The only way to let some people drive a car is to make it expensive enough to discourage most people from driving a car.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#133

Post by jacobolus »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #123
jacobolus wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 comb…

Riding the train, subway, trolley, or bus and walking a couple blocks at each end is a heck of a lot “better” than sitting in traffic or driving 20 times around the block hunting for a parking space.

Even moderately dense urban areas are inherently poor places for personal automobiles, whose infrastructure wastes tremendous amounts of space. The more neighborhoods are optimized for human-scale activity and pedestrians/bikes/transit (at the expense of personal cars), the nicer they become to spend time in as a human.

Life in a place where all or nearly all trips can be made without needing to drive a car is very pleasant, especially for anyone who isn’t an able-bodied high-income adult. If neighborhoods have been designed so that that is impossible, then what needs fixing is the neighborhood design.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#134

Post by esotericn »

jabl wrote: post #90
robertAngst wrote: post #21

For the people who believe this is fair and just- Should engineers and programmers pay more money for the same laptop as an art student? I'm unsure if this pricing should only exist in the public sector or should extend to private services. Looking to hear your rationale. I'm one of those, treat everyone equal, types. Would like to hear your reason.

> I'm one of those, treat everyone equal, types. Would like to hear your reason. Here's a thought experiment: Imagine that you are born as any random person in a society. You could be born as a white male of exceptional intelligence with 1% rich parents, or you could be born as a girl of a minority race to junkie parents and suffer from mental health issues your entire life. Now, without knowing what kind of person y…

The problem with such an argument (imagine that you're born as...) is that it presupposes an arbitrary line based on the limits of your imagination.

You could just as well be born a farm animal, or a blade of grass.

Absurd? Perhaps. It's no more absurd to me than attempting to imagine being born as a Frenchman.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#135

Post by buzzy_hacker »

hedora wrote: post #70
jonstewart wrote: post #47

In Northern Virginia outside DC, I-66 had been subject to directional rush hour restrictions on single occupancy vehicles. It was illegal to drive a car with just yourself for a few hours every weekday and you risked a ticket if you were caught. People put blow up dolls in their passenger seats. Last year they rolled out automatic congestion pricing for SOVs. All the news stories were about how the toll could hit a r…

> 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…

> widening the road after a few years.

Widening roads usually does not alleviate congestion. For one of many links, see https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/2/21/the-futility-o...

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#136

Post by jedberg »

> Gasoline and gas taxes

This seems like a legacy problem that will soon go away. Gas taxes were done because they were a good proxy for both miles driven, when most cars got roughly the same milage. But now you have cars that get a few miles to the gallon while another car that might be heavier is getting 35mpg. And of course electric cars.

I suspect gas taxes will switch to milage taxes in the next few years as more and more electric cars are adopted. In California they've already started charging electric cars an extra fee on the annual registration to make up for the lack of gas taxes.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#137

Post by jedberg »

nihonde wrote: post #126
treis wrote: post #120

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. 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.

> And definitely no more tour buses.

You do realize tourism accounts for a great deal of income for NYC, yes?

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#138

Post by nawitus »

tgb wrote: post #51

I think most of the comments here are misunderstanding the article. It seems to be saying "Don't say congestion pricing is inequitable without also saying that these are things that we already have are inequitable." It's meant as a counter-argument to people saying "but congestion pricing is regressive against poor people therefore we shouldn't have it." So if you think that gas pricing should not have to be based on…

The main flaw with this article is that it's reasonable to think that since car transportation is already expensive for the poor that there shouldn't be even more costs for the poor. In "realpolitik" one can't really vote for "congestion charges but only if we remove tax A from the poor".

So yes, people can acknowledge that many things about transportation are inequitable while still believing that congestion charges are inequitable.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#139

Post by jedberg »

hedora wrote: post #72
shereadsthenews wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is a very good example because that particular "HOV" lane is 100% Teslas with a single occupant, and because the HOV lane ends abruptly in the middle of 237 before anyone exits. The real lesson of these projects is that the EV sticker program was a failure and the cost to drive down 237 at rush hour should have been $50 instead of whatever it is.

It’s not 100% Tesla’s. There are also parents with children and fleet vehicles. Those latter two categories are already as low occupancy as they can be. I suspect they’re representative of HOV users in other states. Simply eliminating that HOV lane would probably improve the commute though. There’s data from a UC Berkeley study that more or less proves it.

I've been saying for years that only licensed drivers should count for the carpool lane.

I have kids, but I'm not eliminating any cars by carpooling with them.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#140

Post by gpm »

electric_muse wrote: post #131
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…

My compelling reason is that I live in Manhattan and frequently make trips to visit family that are not well served by public transportation. And when I'm there, I prefer using a vehicle to get around. I often return to New York with a carful of groceries, luggage, etc. I've tried this via public transit -- it's a miserable affair. The utility of a personal vehicle for me is very high -- perhaps substantially higher…

The argument against here that I find most compelling is that the externalities of you driving your car are so insanely huge that it should be priced into the range of ridiculousness.

Things that you have to consider (The numbers attached are completely made up and probably off by multiple orders of magnitude in most cases, but are to make the point that you should be assigning costs to these things. Then you should multiply by them by reasonable estimates of the quantities that make up the denominator on the unit and see what you come up with. Also note that as there are less cars on the road the externalities per car probably go up):

- Air quality (say, 0.1c per person you drive past?)

- Noise polution (say, 0.1c per person you drive past?)

- Road size - realestate cost (say, 0.000001c/trip per per person who pays taxes?)

- Road size - increased walking (and other travel) time (say, 0.0000001c/trip per person who crosses a road you drove on?)

- Congestion (say, 1c for everyone on a bus behind you?)

- Road maintenance (probably negligible compared to the other costs)

- Pedestrian safety (...)

- Climate change (...)

Our society exists not just because we're willing to be slightly inconvenienced by our neighbors, but because we are willing to go to reasonable lengths to avoid inconveniencing our neighbors. Perhaps, reasonable lengths includes not driving into the city.

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