Congestion Pricing in Manhattan Close to Approval • Hacker News Board

Re: Congestion Pricing in Manhattan Close to Approval

#111

Post by CydeWeys » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 8:34 PM UTC

johnnycab wrote: post #108

CydeWeys wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In NYC we have a huge problem of placard abuse, and placarded people would presumably be excluded from the congestion charges, a huge mistake. A pointer to more information: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2019/02/21/why-mayor-de-blasios-...

Thanks for the link. The only parallel I can draw with London proper in this case would be the 'Blue Badge' abuse. Although, it seems trivial in comparison to the Placard abuse. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46715503

Yeah it's bad. Having a placard is basically like getting a $6k+ tax-free transportation subsidy from the government (the cost of the monthly garage parking you'd otherwise need near your office), and over 100,000 valid placards are out there, plus all the fakes that people make up. It's a joke. All the time you see vehicles with placards parked on sidewalks, in bike lanes, in front of fire hydrants, in crosswalks, blocking curb cuts, or blocking daylight spaces necessary for safe lines of sight in intersections. And nothing is done about them because of the stupid placard.

Re: Congestion Pricing in Manhattan Close to Approval

#112

Post by baddox » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:38 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #105

baddox wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know if I like your model. I would say tax things in order to remove negative externalities, then people will decide what they want more of.

These models are pretty much the same, just phrased a little bit differently. The reason you tax things you want less of is usually because of their negative externalities (and definitely is so in this circumstance).

I mean, the difference is that you don't actually want less of the thing, or even less of the externality, you just want the person buying the thing to pay for the entire cost of the thing.

Re: Congestion Pricing in Manhattan Close to Approval

#113

Post by CydeWeys » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 12:43 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #112

CydeWeys wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These models are pretty much the same, just phrased a little bit differently. The reason you tax things you want less of is usually because of their negative externalities (and definitely is so in this circumstance).

I mean, the difference is that you don't actually want less of the thing, or even less of the externality, you just want the person buying the thing to pay for the entire cost of the thing.

You often do want less of a thing, in addition to the person buying the thing paying the cost for the entire thing.

As one example, we do actually want less CO2 being released into the atmosphere, full stop. Or alternatively phrased, it's impossible to pay the true cost of the thing, as the true cost of everyone doing unrestricted emissions is that the human species goes extinct (which has effectively infinite cost).

Or, similarly, imagine an industrial plant releasing waste that spreads through groundwater and poisons adjacent properties. We don't just want the industrial plant to pay the entire cost of the thing; we actually want them to not do that at all, because it infringes upon the properties of others, who do not want it to occur.

So there's room for multiple times of frameworks that operate simultaneously -- Pay for the entire costs of some things, but also have less of or do not allow at all some things.

Re: Congestion Pricing in Manhattan Close to Approval

#114

Post by Simple_Guy » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 4:22 AM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #85

Simple_Guy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes. when there is a competition for limited resources, the poorer you are the less likely you will have access to the resources. That's how it works. No matter what you do you could never change this. You will simply create an alternative (and/or parallel) system with its own poors.

You could go full socialist and divide the parking/road space exactly equally amongst everyone.

You could try, but then you will end up with north korea.