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New York City will charge drivers going downtown

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Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#131

Post by bdw5204 »

ghaff wrote: post #109
dangus wrote: post #42

There's an important concept to the success of city planning: the alignment of incentives. When transit is faster and cheaper than driving, people don't drive as much. The individualistic personal freedom of the automobile doesn't outweigh those practical aspects of getting around. People generally make pretty logical decisions about what they want to do. I'm definitely in favor of congestion charges in certain areas…

>Even assuming those folks are correct, it doesn't really matter, because these taxes are incredibly effective. It's eye-opening to see how a nearly insignificant tax (literal pennies per bag) changes the behavior of everyone. Yep. People have discovered that it's pretty easy to make it a habit to carry a small bag if you live in a city and just keep some bags in the car if you're driving to the store--and it's gener…

Or you just don't bother shopping in stores and just order from Amazon instead? Or you take the train/drive to somewhere where they still have free bags?

Since the area where I live put in a paper bag fee and banned plastic bags a few months ago, I make far fewer shopping trips and I definitely don't go on a random shopping trip while I'm out walking because I'm not paying the bag fee as a matter of principle. Every single additional barrier you put up to people shopping in physical stores whether it's a bag fee or "you must wear a mask to shop in this store" or whatever just drives more people to online shopping and accelerates the death of physical stores.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#132

Post by pclmulqdq »

ghaff wrote: post #109
dangus wrote: post #42

There's an important concept to the success of city planning: the alignment of incentives. When transit is faster and cheaper than driving, people don't drive as much. The individualistic personal freedom of the automobile doesn't outweigh those practical aspects of getting around. People generally make pretty logical decisions about what they want to do. I'm definitely in favor of congestion charges in certain areas…

>Even assuming those folks are correct, it doesn't really matter, because these taxes are incredibly effective. It's eye-opening to see how a nearly insignificant tax (literal pennies per bag) changes the behavior of everyone. Yep. People have discovered that it's pretty easy to make it a habit to carry a small bag if you live in a city and just keep some bags in the car if you're driving to the store--and it's gener…

That nice bag also accounts for >300x more CO2 than the plastic bag it replaced.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#133

Post by ghaff »

bpye wrote: post #118
cronix wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the county government layer that cities must adhere to in addition to state/national.

London and unitary authorities don't have a county above them.

I assumed that was in the context of the US. Country governments in the US vary a lot in how powerful they are from being mostly a judicial unit or organization to being pretty powerful (e.g. parishes in Louisiana).

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#134

Post by rileymat2 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #119
tlogan wrote: post #110

So rich people (who really do not care about few dollars) will be able to drive to downtown just for fun. while poor people who truly need to come to downtown by car will struggle. This is an unfortunate reality of life: wealth equates to more available time.

This “poor people will be affected more” is a tired refrain. That is always obviously true, given the consequences of being poor. Not every solution can or has to solve the wealth/income gap. Solve congestion with one solution, solve wealth redistribution with another.

Rationing by payment is only one strategy though. Choosing that strategy brings in wealth disparities. So it is fair to bring it up when that is the chosen strategy.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#135

Post by pclmulqdq »

dangus wrote: post #61
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libertarians are usually much more in favor of taxes to on externalities rather than outright bans. So I dispute your characterization. I agree with the rest of the post though, I think taxing externalities is the right thing to do. Cars have gotten a gigantic subsidy for far too long. A car is allowed to take up 140 sq ft of land for free in one of the most expensive places on earth.

In my experience people who claim they are libertarians are against all forms of government regulation and taxation. But it doesn't really matter to me if my characterization of libertarians isn't 100% accurate because I have no respect for anyone who calls themselves libertarian in any way. That ideology is a swirling bag of contradictions and people who claim to be libertarian usually just circle back around to bei…

> In my experience people who claim they are libertarians are against all forms of government regulation and taxation.

> But it doesn't really matter to me if my characterization of libertarians isn't 100% accurate because I have no respect for anyone who calls themselves libertarian in any way.

Tell me you've never spoken to a libertarian without telling me you've never spoken to a libertarian.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#136

Post by pierat »

bombcar wrote: post #27
DaveExeter wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree! Let's get the poors off the roads. The peasant class belongs on public transport, not on taxpayer-funded roads.

Discrimination is much easier once you take a racial aspect out and just use socioeconomic status instead.

Absolutely true. In fact this was the 1980s republican plan. Lee Atwater has a great hot mic moment about this.

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Ni*er, ni*er, ni*er.” By 1968 you can’t say “ni*er”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Ni*er, ni*er.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwa...

---------------

And you also have New York City and the racist/classist bridges. Bridges were built too low for public transit to get out to Long Island. It did a VERY effective job at keeping black people and poor people away from the middle class and higher areas.

" In one of the book's most memorable passages, Caro reveals that Moses ordered his engineers to build the bridges low over the parkway to keep buses from the city away from Jones Beach—buses presumably filled with the poor blacks and Puerto Ricans Moses despised. The story was told to Caro by Sidney M. Shapiro, a close Moses associate and former chief engineer and general manager of the Long Island State Park Commission."

Who would have thought that building a bridge could be racist and classist?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-mo...

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#137

Post by pessimizer »

analognoise wrote: post #80
mc32 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was poor, I took the bus to college and work (there were times I'd have to add 30 minutes where I knew I'd have to leg it). It was an hour and a half with transfers. It's doable --you get used to it, just like tech workers get used to driving in from the East Bay into the Peninsula. It's no biggie. On the way home, sometimes you get off at a different stop to pick up groceries and then you're the one walking home w…

Hour and a half is no biggie? Is that one way? That sucks more than having a car does by far. Even the last part about "your arms ache but you get used to it" - how is that for disabled people? How is it for the elderly? An extra hour and a half - what about if you have kids at home? Honestly that... Blows? If the options are to destroy the environment or to have to take an extra three hours daily to commute, I choos…

To people who can't afford to drive, this just sounds like relatively wealthy people whining about being reduced to living like they have been the entire time.

If you want to reduce the relative privileges of wealthy people, tax them and redistribute or do a socialist revolution. Never crusade for the privileges of people with some money while ignoring the situation of the people with less money. In the limit, you'll end up crusading for the privileges of billionaires against the privileges of multi-billionaires. As activism, imo it's silly.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#138

Post by dotnet00 »

elijaht wrote: post #50
shrubble wrote: post #13

So despite the massive ridership of the subway and the fully paid infrastructure and rights of way from 100 years ago, it can't throw off enough cash for modernization of its systems? And instead politicians decide to tax the successful mode of transportation, which is cars. Note that given the density and NY gas taxes, it is a certainty that cars in this area generate surplus cash.

Have you been to New York? The subway is the mode of transportation for nearly everyone and it works great. I wouldn’t say cars are the successful mode of transportation in New York at all

Describing the NYC subway as "working great" is an amazing twisting of the truth. The only thing good about it is that it isn't as bad as public transport in Long Island. Otherwise, good luck going anywhere on time without having to add 30 minutes - an hour of waste just standing around.

The discomfort and cost of public transportation would be at least somewhat tolerable if there was anywhere near as much of an emphasis on timeliness as there is in, say, Japan. As it stands though, the public transport is the one thing I miss least and hate most about the city.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#140

Post by dotnet00 »

zip1234 wrote: post #99
shrubble wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of paying enough taxes to sustain further use, is how I should have phrased it. Why can't the subway fund its own improvements?

Road user fees don't even cover half of the cost of roads let alone make up for all the negative externalities.

If we're complaining about the costs of negative externalities, are we also considering the value of the positive externalities?
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