The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain • Hacker News Board

Re: The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain

#281

Post by chasedehan » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

nickles wrote: post #71

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don’t masquerade this as some kind of “economic reckoning” In New York, low-income New Yorkers who own a car (or live in the zone) will be eligible for a waiver [1]. People with disabilities, too, will probably be eligible for a waiver. (Some carve-outs are still being pinned down.) Taxis, Ubers, trucks and cars owned by people who opt to pay hundreds of dollars a month in parking are who will be taxed. Given the u…

> Taxis, Ubers, trucks and cars owned by people who opt to pay hundreds of dollars a month in parking are who will be taxed. Given the unusability of our streets, this seems closer to an economic reckoning than a political money grab. Taxis and Ubers are forms of public transportation, and likely reduce the overall number of cars on the road. Simultaneously, they reduce the incidences of drunk driving, providing posi…

> Taxis and Ubers are forms of public transportation, and likely reduce the overall number of cars on the road.

I read a study not too long ago (sorry couldn't find it), but it found the opposite - that ride sharing increased the amount of congestion.

At first it didn't make much sense to me, but the study did acknowledge car ownership decreased, but that there was more congestion. This was largely due to the time between trips for Lyft and Uber - driving from a dropoff to a pickup.

Re: The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain

#282

Post by paulgb » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

e1ven wrote: post #231

seattle_spring wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We paid for it with our tax money. I hate this argument so much. It comes up all of the time when chronically underfunded national and state parks say they need to raise prices. "buT muH taX doLLarS alReaDy PaY for MAH PARKS!!" Doubly true for places that add quotas and lotteries to curb overcrowding delicate areas. This is the exact same situation: Your tax dollars paid for part of it, sure, but not close to enoug…

Sure, personally I think it's worth increasing taxes nearly any amount to keep public roads freely available to everyone. Rather than charging everyone and giving some people waivers, increase the taxes with a progressive tax rate, where low-wage people pay less. If you want to take them out and force everyone to use public transportation that's one thing - But if they exist they ought to be subsidized to ensure ever…

We could have all the money in the world for infrastructure and not fix the congestion problem. There's a hard limit to how many cars can physically fit on the roads at a time, and the number of people who want to use the road at rush hour exceeds that limit.

Given the cost of driving in NYC, using congestion pricing to pay for transit would almost certainly be a move that increases, not reduces, equality.

Re: The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain

#283

Post by 0x5f3759df-i » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #95

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you go to an expensive you're not just paying for the meal. You're paying for the fact that they have to over provision so you can be seated quickly. You're paying for the fact that almost everybody who isn't high class will elect to go somewhere else. Roads (nor rails, nor buses, nor sidewalks, nor any other bit of government infrastructure) should be a restaurant that charges $50 for a $20 meal because keeping…

> Other cities, cities where you can't live without a car without making massive sacrifices should not be implementing toll lanes and congestion pricing. Kicking the poors off the system so that people rich enough to justify the daily tolls can have a good experience. If the well off don't want to deal with gridlock on the streets and packed train cars below the streets during rush hour and aren't willing to travel e…

Even if congestion pricing included funding for the construction of public transportation, are you just proposing the poor wait 10 years for the construction of usable public transportation after they are priced out of using the roads?

Re: The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain

#284

Post by hessproject » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 7:16 PM UTC

hourislate wrote: post #53

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don’t masquerade this as some kind of “economic reckoning” In New York, low-income New Yorkers who own a car (or live in the zone) will be eligible for a waiver [1]. People with disabilities, too, will probably be eligible for a waiver. (Some carve-outs are still being pinned down.) Taxis, Ubers, trucks and cars owned by people who opt to pay hundreds of dollars a month in parking are who will be taxed. Given the u…

How do people feel on a congestion fee for sidewalks. Too many people on sidewalks in NYC making them almost unusable. If you want to walk on a sidewalk during the busiest times you should pay a congestion fee. Why would we stop at just roads?

For one, the crowded NYC sidewalks are at least partially caused by the sidewalk narrowing efforts to make room for cars: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2016/07/01/the-new-york-of-2016-...

Re: The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain

#285

Post by paulgb » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

entropicdrifter wrote: post #225

hannasanarion wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usage taxes (gas and registration fees) only cover 54% of road expenditures in New York. The other 46% comes out of the public fund that could be spent elsewhere.[1] 1. https://taxfoundation.org/statelocal-road-spending-covered-u...

That's its own separate issue, don't you think? The gas tax should be raised since it's a progressive way to penalize those who waste it and damage the environment as well as fund the roads in proportion to the damage they cause to them (since larger vehicles that cause more damage also use more gas)

This is an easy tax to avoid if you commute from out of state each day. (In fact, it's a hard tax not to avoid given the scarcity of gas stations in Manhattan)

Re: The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain

#286

Post by astine » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

akira2501 wrote: post #241

Jorge1o1 wrote: post #31

The streets were never free. We paid for it with our tax money. (Not to mention our 22 trillion dollar public debt) I don’t think people expect streets to be free in the same way you don’t expect the police department to be free, the fire department to be free, public schools, etc. In any case, my point is, we paid for the streets with our tax money and our debt, so don’t masquerade this as some kind of “economic rec…

> where the people are FINALLY going to have to pay for those roads the government’s been giving away for free for so long. The article also makes the annoying case that there are those who live in apartments and dwellings that have to pay for parking by code, but don't use that parking because they don't drive; however, this entirely fails to take into account the effect on the city as a whole. Parking and road acce…

"While these people may not drive and thus are seemingly cheated out of tax money, I have to ask, where do they get their groceries and other goods? How do they expect medical services to reach them in an emergency? How do they expect commerce to occur within an arms reach but at reasonable prices?"

If they live in New York, presumably they get their food from bodegas. Those corner stores in turn get their inventory shipped in mostly by truck. So, when congestion taxes go into effect, that shipping will get more expensive and the food will get slightly more expensive. Which seems fine to me.

Either you are paying for it directly through your taxes or indirectly through pricing, but one way more directly places the burden on the industries that use the roads, creating (in my opinion) less market distortion and better allocation of resources. If fewer people use the roads in a major city, the vehicles that do will have an easier time of it. This would likely make food delivery and emergency services cheaper, not more expensive.

I don't live in a major city, but I do live in a suburb with extremely bad traffic during rush hour. A big part of the problem is that there is a disconnect between the cost of the roads and their use. As a result, people treat the roads as a free resource and this creates traffic. The government attempts to expand the road system to handle the traffic, but that just encourages higher usage. There is no back pressure and people who don't drive much subsidize those that do. Charging people directly for road usage rather than hiding it in gas and other taxes would be helpful.

Re: The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain

#287

Post by imgabe » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #268

imgabe wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>. But you don't want to suppress demand -- you don't want people to stay home instead of patronizing local businesses etc. The problem isn't too much demand. Demand is good. The problem is insufficient supply. This is not a choice between people staying home and patronizing local businesses. People are not driving into the congestion zone in Manhattan during rush hour to patronize local businesses. They're going to…

> This is not a choice between people staying home and patronizing local businesses. People are not driving into the congestion zone in Manhattan during rush hour to patronize local businesses. Aren't they though? You drive to work, you stop at a coffee shop for a coffee and a muffin, you go to work, on the way home you stop somewhere and pick up dinner. The bus isn't going to stop at the coffee shop and wait there f…

Do you honestly believe people who take public transportation don't go to coffee shops? This is Manhattan we are talking about. You walk out of the subway...there's a coffee shop. You actually see it because it's on the walk from the subway to your office. You're not parking in an underground garage and getting directly into an elevator. You get your coffee before or after you get on the transportation. Obviously you don't stop in the middle for it. That is a ridiculous strawman.

> you don't have your car at work to go anywhere on your lunch break either.

Dude. Again. We are talking about downtown Manhattan, not some suburban office park. Nobody needs to drive anywhere for lunch. There are hundreds of places to get lunch within walking distance.

> Options that are worse, by definition, or they would already have chosen them.

They are worse because you are currently able to offload the negative externalities of your driving onto everyone else. Now that you have to pay for those, you can weigh the true cost of driving vs. the cost of other options.

> And one of those options is to not go to work -- you take a job closer to where you live at the cost of lower pay, because you've been priced out of the one you had before. That is not a social benefit.

That's fine. How is that not a social benefit? If it encourages people to find work closer to home, that means less transportation, less pollution. Everyone wins. On the other hand, maybe it encourages employers in the city to pay more to offset the costs. That's good too.

>Compare this to improving the alternatives. Build more housing in the city,

This is not mutually exclusive. We can have congestion pricing and build more housing in the city. With fewer cars running around thanks to congestion pricing, that means we don't need as much parking, so there's more space to build housing. There you go.

Re: The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain

#288

Post by hessproject » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

dannyw wrote: post #3

It's sad to see congestion pricing in America. I had hoped that the long-lived cultural freedom of driving would keep it at bay for longer, but I guess not anymore. I live in Sydney. It takes a 45 minute drive to visit a family member, who is sick and homebound. To do so in the shortest and least congested route, I must pay 3 tolls: $14.85 total, one way; $30 dollars a trip. Public transport is not a suitable option.…

The major difference here being that congestion pricing is only going into effect in Manhattan south of the park, where public transport is absolutely a suitable option.

Re: The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain

#289

Post by mancerayder » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41

Jorge1o1 wrote: post #31

The streets were never free. We paid for it with our tax money. (Not to mention our 22 trillion dollar public debt) I don’t think people expect streets to be free in the same way you don’t expect the police department to be free, the fire department to be free, public schools, etc. In any case, my point is, we paid for the streets with our tax money and our debt, so don’t masquerade this as some kind of “economic rec…

> don’t masquerade this as some kind of “economic reckoning” In New York, low-income New Yorkers who own a car (or live in the zone) will be eligible for a waiver [1]. People with disabilities, too, will probably be eligible for a waiver. (Some carve-outs are still being pinned down.) Taxis, Ubers, trucks and cars owned by people who opt to pay hundreds of dollars a month in parking are who will be taxed. Given the u…

Disabilities should get a waiver. There is already a special license plate and a placard.

But now, low-income? There are problems:

. You can be low-income and still own a car, and still be near public transport. Why would you be incentivized to own a car, first off, and drive it into a congested area?

. It's not the "low-income" exception that's the last exception. There are tens of thousands of City-provided placards for teachers, firefighters and civil servants with an unspoken rule by the police to never ticket them, even if parked illegally. This, plus the idea of exceptions just smell like another foray into a De Blasio handing something out for please one union or group or another.

These are parking placards, and I used that example to demonstrate what happens when we pick and choose winners and losers - what criteria do we go by, in a city of 8.5M? Which group suffers the most?

. There are low-income allowanced for things such as HPD buildings and other subsidies. I know people who make (as a couple) half a million dollars a year who still own real estate with income restrictions, because the income was only verified Year 1 and it became de facto voluntary in the years after that.

. A huge percentage of people are low-income in this City. And hold on just a second - you're low income but you're spending how many hundreds of dollars a month on a lease, gas, maintenance, and so forth for a far, and insurance in one of the most expensive insurance markets? Have people lost their senses to not question that?

Re: The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain

#290

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

lenocinor wrote: post #251

gpm wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxis and Ubers are forms of public transportation, and likely reduce the overall number of cars on the road. This doesn't make sense to me. IME - the vast majority of time there is a single customer or group in a taxi or uber. Assuming this is in fact the case. Taxis and ubers increase the number of trips taken by vehicle, but let's pretend in their favor that they leave that number flat. While they have a passeng…

It lessens the amount of car storage needed too, though, which is also important. It would be nice if multi-person trips like UberPool would be exempted to encourage their use, but I don't know if that's technically feasible.

It lessens the amount of cars storage and increases the amount of cars on the road.

You can't transport by car and reduce both at the same time!