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

Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

cityobservatory.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 276 posts

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#141

Post by DataWorker »

andrewem wrote: post #85
DataWorker wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas taxes and congestion prices are different. If you can’t grasp that then you probably don’t see the foolishness of the original article and probably are as confused as the articles author about what critics of congestion pricing think and why.

I've downvoted your comment, because you claim without explanation that "gas taxes and congestion prices are different", and therefore the article is foolish. Maybe you're right in some meaningful way, but showing that will require some evidence or explanation.

One important difference is that one thing is currently free and the other is not. There are many other important differences. The original article is a lot of whataboutism and false equivalency but doesn’t grasp the fundamental problem, people being displaced.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#142

Post by koboll »

hopler wrote: post #129
dmix wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That isn't true at all in this circumstance. He isn't disrupting traffic, on private property, or breaking any law. It's not illegal to disobey police except under special circumstances.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#143

Post by chroma »

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…

People would just get their cars registered as delivery vehicles.

NYC already has rampant abuse of placards and literal "get out of jail" cards. A ban on personal vehicles wouldn't go any differently than those.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#144

Post by alasdair_ »

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…

>There is no compelling reason for anyone to drive in Manhattan.

It's remarkably difficult for disabled people and many elderly people to get around by public transportation.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#145

Post by tokyodude »

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…

You could ship the stuff home... Yes I know that's probably not realistic but here in Japan for example it's extremely common to ship your luggage to the airport the day before and/or ship it home from the airport on the way back. I've done it a few times.

It's also common to buy things at a store like a PC or printer or microwave and have them delivered instead of carrying them home.

Japan's shipping services are relatively cheap and generally pretty good at delivering in 2hr windows

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#146

Post by briandear »

gpm wrote: post #140
electric_muse wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When every subway stop has elevators, then we cannot talk. Until then, try transporting kids or groceries using the subway. When the sidewalks are cleared of construction scaffolding, bike share racks blocking sidewalks or crazy grown adults dressing like Spider-Man, or psychotic homeless harassing people, then maybe we can talk.

As far as climate change; if NYC went to zero CO2, it wouldn’t make a single bit of difference compared to a single day’s worth of pollution compared to a small Chinese or Indian city. Perhaps a tariff on all goods and services from China or India would be more effective than banning cars in NYC. Banning cars from NYC would have a cosmetic effect on climate change and nothing more. And, in case you weren’t aware, cars already pay huge costs in NYC. It costs over $10 just to cross a bridge or tunnel into NYC. They don’t pay a toll to leave NYC: so someone is getting money just for a car to enter the city.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#147

Post by astura »

SweetLlamaMyth wrote: post #25
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.

Many manufacturers DO have discounted student pricing (not that it's publicly mandated).

Student discounts, military/veteran + family discounts, employee discounts (negotiated pricing), bulk purchase discounts, preferred customer discounts, subscription discounts (like Amazon Prime), senior discounts, promotional discounts, price matching, negotiated pricing, courtesy discounts, employee discounts, retired employee+family discounts, low income subsidies, certain tax exemptions for certain populations, etc.

The idea we all pay the exact same for the same product/service is... not accurate.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#148

Post by briandear »

gnopgnip wrote: post #113
hedora wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t work if you have kids. You miss seeing them in either the morning or evening, and the schools don’t time shift to match your schedule.

If you have kids and work either the kids can get to school without you needing to drive them and pick them up, or you need to have some sort of childcare.

You don’t have kids, I’m willing to bet.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#149

Post by Robotbeat »

jedberg wrote: post #139
hedora wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, but you are reducing the impact on other transportation systems.

The killer app for personal cars is families. And families have enormous positive long-term externalities for the human race for obvious reasons.

And your proposed system doesn’t make sense. It’d encourage people with no need for driving to get their driver’s license and punish others who couldn’t pass based on age and disability.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#150

Post by cuillevel3 »

esotericn wrote: post #134
jabl wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Human rights apply to farm animals now? :)
Post reply on HN