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Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

nytimes.com

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Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#11

Post by bryanlarsen »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #7

Not to settle on "It's bad" but their so called "results" seems completely obvious. The congestion policy is disincentivizing/suppressing people's preferred method by making it unaffordable to some, and unappealing to some. We already know that we can use policy to push people away from their preferred to a less preferred method. The items listed in green are mostly obvious as people seek alternatives. It's like high…

They are tracking that sort of thing. One of the line items is "vistors to the zone - up". Another two are restaurants and Broadway receipts which have no data yet.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#12

Post by bryanlarsen »

philipallstar wrote: post #9

The increased speeds are excellent for those who can afford the toll. This is a universal benefit of toll roads for those people.

And the investments in public transit and bike paths are excellent for those who can't. Such unalloyed win-wins are hard to find.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#13

Post by lokar »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #12
philipallstar wrote: post #9

The increased speeds are excellent for those who can afford the toll. This is a universal benefit of toll roads for those people.

And the investments in public transit and bike paths are excellent for those who can't. Such unalloyed win-wins are hard to find.

I lived in Manhattan, and was very well paid. I did not own a car, and loved it. This would have been great for me as well.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#14

Post by Calwestjobs »

explodes wrote: post #4

Wouldn't it be nice if policy changes were accompanied by an A/B testing plan to evaluate their impact? I have always thought so. I have also seen a major pitfall of A/B testing that real humans can hand-pick and slice data to make it sound as positive or negative as wanted. Nonetheless, the more data the better.

test A - before

test B - after

what are you talking about ?

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#15

Post by lokar »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #7

Not to settle on "It's bad" but their so called "results" seems completely obvious. The congestion policy is disincentivizing/suppressing people's preferred method by making it unaffordable to some, and unappealing to some. We already know that we can use policy to push people away from their preferred to a less preferred method. The items listed in green are mostly obvious as people seek alternatives. It's like high…

There were critics who predicted that it would not reduce traffic and congestion. They argued people had no choice but to drive and would just be forced to pay.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#17

Post by shermantanktop »

Calwestjobs wrote: post #14
explodes wrote: post #4

Wouldn't it be nice if policy changes were accompanied by an A/B testing plan to evaluate their impact? I have always thought so. I have also seen a major pitfall of A/B testing that real humans can hand-pick and slice data to make it sound as positive or negative as wanted. Nonetheless, the more data the better.

test A - before test B - after what are you talking about ?

“A/B in time” suffers from inability to control for other factors that might vary over time. In this case, that could be the economy or other transit policies.

But sometimes it’s the only possible approach.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#18

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #7

Not to settle on "It's bad" but their so called "results" seems completely obvious. The congestion policy is disincentivizing/suppressing people's preferred method by making it unaffordable to some, and unappealing to some. We already know that we can use policy to push people away from their preferred to a less preferred method. The items listed in green are mostly obvious as people seek alternatives. It's like high…

> people's preferred method

You have some evidence of this?

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#19

Post by taeric »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #7

Not to settle on "It's bad" but their so called "results" seems completely obvious. The congestion policy is disincentivizing/suppressing people's preferred method by making it unaffordable to some, and unappealing to some. We already know that we can use policy to push people away from their preferred to a less preferred method. The items listed in green are mostly obvious as people seek alternatives. It's like high…

I'm a little unsure how to read you. These results look, frankly, amazing. The benefits to schools and busses alone would have been good. That traffic is faster everywhere is a cherry on top of it all.

And you did see that they had a section on restaurants, right? Those are up. They polled stores and found only 25% that report a negative impact. That looks concerning, I agree. Would love more polling on it with quantification.

Could this still be a bad policy? Of course. Could it be a good policy today that trends to bad some day in the future? I'd think so. But we have tools to monitor this stuff that flat didn't exist before. We should be in a good place to try stuff like this. And, again, these results look amazing.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#20

Post by shadowgovt »

Calwestjobs wrote: post #14
explodes wrote: post #4

Wouldn't it be nice if policy changes were accompanied by an A/B testing plan to evaluate their impact? I have always thought so. I have also seen a major pitfall of A/B testing that real humans can hand-pick and slice data to make it sound as positive or negative as wanted. Nonetheless, the more data the better.

test A - before test B - after what are you talking about ?

Generally, that's considered to introduce counfounding factors on the time axis ("did we see improvement because we changed something or because flu season hit and people stayed home") that you'd prefer to mitigate by running your A and B simultaneously.

But in the absence of the ability to run them simultaneously, "A is before and B is after" can be a fine proxy. Of course, if B is worse, it'd be nice if you could only subject, say, 5% of your population to it before you just slam the slider to 100% and hit everyone with it.

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