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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

#551

Post by PM_me_your_math »

joshuaissac wrote: post #393
cyberax wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only a fraction of the US population work and thus commute. The fraction that doesn't work is either too young to pay taxes anyway, or they had used road commutes before they retired. Everybody else are within the margin of error. Additionally, if you are not using a car for commute, you're likely to be in the lower tax brackets and thus not paying (much) in taxes anyway. I had a paper looking at exact numbers book…

> Additionally, if you are not using a car for commute, you're likely to be in the lower tax brackets and thus not paying (much) in taxes anyway. To the contrary, those in the highest income brackets are the ones most likely to walk to work,[1] and also the most likely to be paying more in taxes. 1. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0739456X18796652 page 9, figure 'Work Trip Walking by Income and Density'

70% of the tax burden is carried by people making $120k/year or more. The argument that the poor pay more taxes than the rich is mental gymnastics with back injury. Similar to how some believe the rich get richer taking something the poor didn't have in the first place. It is all just class warfare used to divide and conquer.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#552

Post by PM_me_your_math »

nimbleplum40 wrote: post #496
cyberax wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s what a subsidy is my dude. Dictionary definition: "a sum of money granted by the government or a public body to assist an industry or business so that the price of a commodity or service may remain low or competitive." What I have is NOT a subsidy. I use the resources, and I pay for them. I don't have people from New York paying for my fire department in Seattle. > Are you saying that if taxes pay for transi…

Do your taxes go towards the fire department even if you never have a fire? (Subsidy) Do your taxes go towards the public parks even if you don’t use them? (Subsidy) Do your taxes go towards public schools even if you don’t have kids? (Subsidy)

Taxes are not subsidies. Good Lord

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#553

Post by MandieD »

blkhawk wrote: post #537
MandieD wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 49 EUR/month ticket in Germany covers all local transit, and you can generally piece together regional trains to get across the country if you’re patient, but it doesn’t cover the InterCity Express, InterCity, or some long-distance regional trains. So it’s a good way not to worry about how Berlin transit pricing works if you’ve already have a Deutschlandticket to cover a Nuremberg-area commute, but getting to Ber…

I agree - takes almost 3 times as long than with an ICE. It might be interesting to people that if you buy early enough the prices get stupidly cheap. I bought a ticket in march for May and the ticket for a Nuremberg - Frankfurt ICE would have only cost me 12,90EUR. I splurged for 1st class (instead of just seat reservation) at 22,90EUR. So if you say visit Germany by plane you are probably booking that early as well…

Price orientation for those of you who don't regularly use German trains: the impulse buy price for me for this route today, a BahnCard 50 holder, is 35.50 EUR, while it would be 71.00 EUR without the annual discount card, which is expensive enough that it only makes sense for people who live here and use long-distance trains a fair bit.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#554

Post by nemo44x »

comte7092 wrote: post #535
nemo44x wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone in NJ already has a car though so it’s not material to the discussion.

1. Everyone does not own a car in NJ, just the vast majority.[0] 2. The discussion is about NYC, not NJ, so it is material to the discussion. [0] 11% of households in New Jersey have no access to a car, see https://www.valuepenguin.com/auto-insurance/car-ownership-st...

The parent you replied to was talking about NJ and people in NJ who own cars being accommodated by NY. Your comment was about how people choosing to drive in don’t consider the cost of buying a car. I’m saying no one buys a car to drive in. They already have one because having a car is awesome if you live in NJ.

90% is just about everyone. There are poor people that can’t afford cars and also NJ has cities like Hoboken and Jersey City that are more like being in NYC.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#555

Post by PM_me_your_math »

pessimizer wrote: post #125
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multiple levels of poor, like there are multiple levels of rich. Plenty of people are rich enough to drive, but not rich enough to live in convenient locations. It’s weird that, when I was going to university, many people would save money by living far off campus and driving to pay $5 for parking. The richer kids were living on or next to campus, and didn’t even need cars. Housing is expensive, and the Amer…

> Plenty of people are rich enough to drive, but not rich enough to live in convenient locations. Now they're not rich enough to drive, they're become poor enough to use public transportation. Maybe their votes will improve the convenience of public transportation. To somebody who can afford to live in Manhattan, you'd have to charge $200 a trip to bother them. Just tax them, and use that money to build out public tr…

A resident of NY is already one of most, if not the most taxed citizen in the country. You pay fed, state, city, and/or borough tax. Relative to the rest of the country, you pay the most for rent, mortgages, food, electricity, natgas, internet, tolls, and even toiletries.

And you want to tax these residents more, and dump the money into the black hole of state-run public transportation projects that take 10x the budget and 10x the time of any where else on planet earth? ...and that is with no guarantee that project would a) get finished b) not be a total clusterfuck like all the others.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#556

Post by ericmay »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #449
tshaddox wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another thing while I’m at it - how much does your car, insurance, gas, maintenance, tires, and other things cost? How much money per month are you paying to pay for the roads and highways? Not to mention the driver’s costs are artificially reduced because they benefits from externalities that are distributed across everyone, particularly pollution and climate change. Driving would be a tad more expensive if you ha…

Even better would be if office workers whose jobs can be done from home could fill out paperwork to pass along that carbon sequestration to their employer when they are required to come into the office. Why let the companies that are responsible for all of the transport and traffic off the hook?

Very neat idea. I think if employers were required to realize economic impacts of commutes they’d be a lot more open and judicious about who they require to come in to the office. Being able to effectively price in the cost of the commute and potentially saving money via tax credits or something is cool.

On the other hand this presents a bit of a problem for, say, Boeing or Honda or Caterpillar who require workers to physically be present. I guess you could argue well then they should figure it out, but that probably results in private transit infrastructure and company towns and those probably aren’t a good path either.

One thing that kind of sits in the back of my mind is that you can effectively create a rat race about going to the office since ostensibly the C-suite team will have the company pay for their commute and then so on and so on as more people demand the company privilege of being able to go to the office.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#557

Post by Jcowell »

cyberax wrote: post #385
seadan83 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a fraction of the US population work and thus commute. Of those that commute, that 80% do not have equal road usage. Even within that community, there is a subsidy going on. So, yes, there is a ton of subsidization going on (and this is not always bad) > Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly. I think this is the point, notably because those 'indirect' payments are also pay…

> Only a fraction of the US population work and thus commute. The fraction that doesn't work is either too young to pay taxes anyway, or they had used road commutes before they retired. Everybody else are within the margin of error. Additionally, if you are not using a car for commute, you're likely to be in the lower tax brackets and thus not paying (much) in taxes anyway. I had a paper looking at exact numbers book…

Couple do things since I actually live in New York

> The fraction that doesn't work is either too young to pay taxes anyway, or they had used road commutes before they retired. Everybody else are within the margin of error.

If you buy anything anywhere in NY you’re paying taxes.

> Additionally, if you are not using a car for commute, you're likely to be in the lower tax brackets and thus not paying (much) in taxes anyway. I had a paper looking at exact numbers bookmarked, but I lost it somehow

In NY this wouldn’t suffice for the income level (6 figures bracket) we’re talking about. it’s infeasible for a majority chunk of residents living in Chelsea , Hell’s kitchen, Upper East Side , FIDI, etc, to own a car since the cost to have it , pay the insurance, and store it working make economical sense. Especially so since if you’re affording to live there you’re job is also on the island.

It a bell curve where the beginning are the low income residents living in Harlem and the outer boroughs that necessitate having a car (with the space to accommodate for it and wouldn’t be hit by congestion pricing), the middle curve of 6 figures+ making residents that would be in the best position to not have a car, and then the rich or dual income families that has the ability to pay this congestion tax anyway.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#558

Post by Jcowell »

ironmagma wrote: post #452
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're poor, you probably aren't driving in Manhattan in the first place. And in all honesty, if you are driving in Manhattan, you should probably stop doing that.

If you're poor, you probably aren't eating anyway. And in all honesty, if you are eating, you probably should stop doing that. If you're poor, you probably aren't getting your cancer cured anyway. And in all honesty, if you are getting chemotherapy, you probably should stop doing that. See how none of this makes sense?

in the context of the area it does make sense. the Poor are majority in the outer boroughs and uptown manhattan with the only poor community I can think of near the area is in Chinatown and you would have to question: What is someone from chinatown doing with a car in FIDI? they’re not going to brooklyn since they would’ve taken the Williamsburg bridge or even the Queens Midtown tunnel. No way they’re looking to just chill at Battery Park or the seaport since the 6 train is right there.

Someone from the Bronx or Harlem could drive there for work but both places have public transportation options that makes driving not make much sense and neither places require going through downtown in order to access south brooklyn.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#559

Post by steveBK123 »

kuschku wrote: post #517
pcurve wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MTA costs make the Boston Big Dig look like a bargain, even at $22 billion. I'm convinced, if they contract this out to first-tier construction firms from oversea that specialize in underground infrastructure (e.g. Europe, Japan, Korea), they can get the job done at 1/3rd the cost.

Even in Düsseldorf, building an entire new subway tunnel for several lines through downtown was about a billion euros. Hamburg's new Hafencity lime was in a similar price range, and the new U5 will be as well. New York for some reason is spending 10× that.

NY is spending $7B to on a Phase 2, to expand a long delayed subway line by 1.5 miles, and half the tunnel is pre-existing from abandoned project in 1970s.

The original Phase 1 was only about 1.5 miles and took something around 20 years on top of the existing half built stuff from the 1970s

There is a Phase 3 to expand the line a further 4 miles with all new tunnels, and there is a rarely talked about Phase 4 to go a final 2 miles again in all new tunnel.

I point to this project in terms of an example of those with a negative agenda "knock stuff down" without having a matching, if not pre-requisite "build better stuff" plan in place. The original 2nd Ave line was planned in the 1920s, they knocked down elevated train lines in the 1940s in anticipation, but didn't start the subway project til 1970s, which opened for service in 2017. By the time Phase 4 finishes in 2140 or so, we may have finally matched the transit removed in 1940s.

So any modern era "just knock down __" without first building transit / alternates / etc risks putting us in a net transportation deficit for a lifetime or three.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#560

Post by mastersummoner »

cyberax wrote: post #492
rfrec0n wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One average US citizen produces around 20 tons of CO2 per year. A bus needs 3 of them working full-time. This completely dwarfs the emissions due to fuel use. Are you trying to say that these people wouldn't already exist without the bus? So everytime we commission a new bus, 3 fully grown licensed drivers appear in a flash of smoke from the storage compartment of the bus?

> Are you trying to say that these people wouldn't already exist without the bus? No. They would be doing other productive things. But right now, they have to spend their productive power on driving buses. This is simply a huge waste of human potential.

Why not plan ~ten years ahead and expect these buses to be self driving then?
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