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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

#231

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #151
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. Why? You seem to have an implicit hierarchy of transportation, and public transit is at the bottom of it.

> Why? You seem to have an implicit hierarchy of transportation, and public transit is at the bottom of it.

No, many people prefer it -- everyone who uses it does. And everyone who drives prefers to drive. Because they both have the option to do the other thing.

But getting one person to stop driving can't get two people to use mass transit. Where is the other person supposed to come from? Why would someone who hadn't been driving to begin with change their behavior based on the option they were already not choosing becoming even worse?

If all you're doing is diverting people away from driving, you can't increase overall throughput because there is nowhere you're adding by more than you're subtracting somewhere else.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#232

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jacobolus wrote: post #133
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 pedestrian…

> 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.

Then what do you need congestion pricing for? You don't need to suppress something that's worse than the alternative because if that were true nobody should have any desire to do it to begin with.

> Even moderately dense urban areas are inherently poor places for personal automobiles, whose infrastructure wastes tremendous amounts of space.

Congestion pricing doesn't change the amount of space allocated to those things. That's completely independent. You can build over roads or eliminate minimum parking requirements without congestion pricing. That also suppresses driving, but in that case it's a trade off which people are actually getting something out of, instead of just a regressive money grab that helps nobody but the corrupt politicians who will waste the money on pork. And then keep all the wide roads and parking spaces in the city because it's the only way to continue generating the congestion pricing revenue.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#233

Post by pas »

adolph wrote: post #24

The three major themes of the article seem to be: micro transactions, variable pricing, and unbundling. I think that one of the unintended consequences of the first two is that doing them well requires a lot of information about the consumer at the transaction point. I can see some risks in that and I’m sure more devious minds than my own can think of more.

Alas license plate tracking is already pretty widespread, adding a toll gate with contactless payment doesn't make much of a difference now.

In car transponders of course would make the privacy problem worse.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#234

Post by pas »

zaroth wrote: post #222
anonuser123456 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

People come to your city to do business there. If a lot of people do business in your city, a lot of people will be coming in and out of town every day. Complaining that the people who come to your city to do business (spend their money) are poluting a bit with their cars while they are there, and the cost of that pollution is unfairly borne by city dwellers I think is bizarre, because the benefits of those people co…

it's not about rentability, it's about fairness. this is a subsidy in favor of those, who pollute by car, while usually those are the people who could pay for it easily.

of course, it's possible that if a city is at the same time both relies heavily on car based tourism/shoppers and its demography is dominantly carless poor people, then in this case probably they would get more poorer by introducing a car usage fee.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#235

Post by ddebernardy »

Tade0 wrote: post #205
paganel wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d guess that from a certain point on you don’t look at the financial incentives only, but that you want to maintain your “status” (for different definitions of that word depending on different social environments). For example I know of people close to my age (late 30s) and from my social circles (middle-class people) who pride themselves for almost never using the metro, even though in the city where I’m living (E…

Doing otherwise would be seen as a diminishing of those people’s social standing. That's what I'm getting at. Say they already drive the best car they can(or even cannot at times) afford. Do they switch to two 3 years older cars(assuming that's how long it takes for a car to lose half of its value)?

That would presumably depend on the financial situation. Anecdotally I've run into 2nd or 3rd car plans moving forward (e.g. a kid mobile to cart the family around, or a small car for use by the older children) and outright buying a 2nd Mercedes as a matter of making a point. I can't recollect anyone in my circle of acquaintances that did this for who money would have been much of a consideration.

Intuitively I do not think anyone is buying an old clunker as a supplemental vehicle to dodge such policies. The regulations during pollution spike control efforts could ban their use anyway, so it would need to be a recent car. And if cheap is a decision factor, you're probably using a combination of public transportation and the occasional cab anyway. (Public transportation is good enough in most major European cities that you can live without a car.)

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#236

Post by pas »

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.

You don't have to imagine. You have to consider for fairness. This argument is usually attributed to Rawls. He wrote extensively about it in his A Theory of Justice (1971).

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#237

Post by pas »

anticensor wrote: post #16
Tade0 wrote: post #13

let’s ask what it takes to create an overall system that is fair to all, considering all aspects of how the system is paid for, who benefits, and who bears the external costs Here's a crazy idea: instead of pricing congestion, let's introduce a point system with quotas tied to license plates and surge point deduction. Puts a hard limit on the number of cars that enter the zone and applies both to the rich and poor eq…

> Unless of course some of the rich decide to buy additional cars just so they can drive more This workaround would be made moot by adding a rule saying you can use at most the square root (or any other sublinear function) of number of your cars.

Lease it, rent it, gift it, borrow it, legal technology.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#238

Post by jabl »

pas wrote: post #236
esotericn wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't have to imagine. You have to consider for fairness. This argument is usually attributed to Rawls. He wrote extensively about it in his A Theory of Justice (1971).

> This argument is usually attributed to Rawls. He wrote extensively about it in his A Theory of Justice (1971).

Bingo! I didn't mention it in my original comment, partially because I was interested if anyone would spot it.

(And partially because it wasn't per se relevant to the argument itself)

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#239

Post by Karrot_Kream »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #231
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Why? You seem to have an implicit hierarchy of transportation, and public transit is at the bottom of it.

> Why? You seem to have an implicit hierarchy of transportation, and public transit is at the bottom of it. No, many people prefer it -- everyone who uses it does. And everyone who drives prefers to drive. Because they both have the option to do the other thing. But getting one person to stop driving can't get two people to use mass transit. Where is the other person supposed to come from? Why would someone who hadn'…

> No, many people prefer it -- everyone who uses it does. And everyone who drives prefers to drive. Because they both have the option to do the other thing.

There are many parts of the US where this isn't the case, because cars are the only transportation available.

That said, I think you're wrong about these strongly held preferences. There a decent amount of people who just want to get to where they're going and don't necessarily care how.

Re: Things that are more inequitable than road pricing

#240

Post by jacobolus »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #232
jacobolus wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pedestrian…

> 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. Then what do you need congestion pricing for? You don't need to suppress something that's worse than the alternative because if that were true nobody should have any desire to do it to begin with. > Even moderately den…

I said “Getting rid of most of the cars and putting people on trains does wonders for peak throughput.” That is clearly an entirely different proposal than “congestion pricing”.

The context was another comment criticizing congestion pricing as more or less a band-aid and advocating for increasing transportation throughput instead of trying to shift demand. I was agreeing with that comment and proposing radical changes to the transportation system as a way to increase throughput.

Your nonsensical response was that replacing roads by trains wouldn’t actually increase throughput because people like car trips better. While it went without saying that this claim is wrong on its face (throughput of the transportation system is a property largely unrelated to passenger preferences), I furthermore disputed your claim that car trips are inherently better.

Your follow-up here is a non sequitur. It is obvious that congestion pricing doesn’t get rid of most of the cars and switch them to trains, and that cities could remove cars from roads without anything to do with congestion pricing.

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