111–120 of 375 posts
I am impressed with the good title. Article speaks to unspoken history of purposefully hidden transportation costs that promote car sales and urban sprawl to this day. Bring back the electric streetcar
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.…
I live in Madrid, which has a metropolitan population of 6.5 million (compared to Sydney's 5.2m). I can get pretty much everywhere from anywhere in about 1 hour, combining metro and buses.
So when I want to visit a friend, I just go out the door, and walk to the metro station. If I had to drive a car just to do that I would feel I have less freedom of movement than I have now.
I wonder if we (as a society) in the not too distant future can make driving embarrassing? My hope is that if someone sits alone in their big SUV stuck in traffic, pedestrians, cyclists and others will look at that person disparagingly. Like how people look at dog owners not picking up their dogs feces, cigarette smokers or how they look at obese people buying ice cream... Or how hypochondriacs who go to the doctor w…
More likely it's old people living alone and with nothing better to do who sit in the health centers before opening.
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OK, how about "it's a way to make sure people who need the road most are the ones who get to use it" Kind of how parking meters are FANTASTIC because they mean I can finally get a damn space for the rare occasion when I rent a van or car and need to park in front of my flat. I just wish they'd raise prices on my street because it's still tough sometimes.
If I’m wealthy and want my SUV motorcade to drive through NYC all day I can trivially afford it, even if my need asymptotically approaches zero. If I’m a desperate person working three jobs to support my family, I have a great need, and yet the tax is a hardship.
If this congestion charge reduces traffic and makes buses run faster, it's possible that it would actually massively benefit poorer individuals.
When I worked in a major city I would go on a half-joke rant anytime someone brought up traffic, parking,or obesity. If I were somehow the king of a major city, I would have a giant parking lot on the outside, and ban all cars. You could buy day passes if you need access to the roads to move or something, but it would be discouraged. People would walk more, and be healthier, The air would be higher quality, and most…
I post something like this every time the congestion pricing subject comes up. We have congestion pricing in Minneapolis / St Paul and it just works. If I'm in a hurry, I have the option to choose to use the priced lane. We're rolling it out to all of the major highways (it's on 3 of them so far). I wish we had it on more lanes on all highways already, because what is the point of having a 60mph road if most of the t…
The best reason for a ceiling IMO is to avoid tainting public perception. If the signboards are showing a price of $65 when it's usually $2, people might feel like they are being gouged and sour on the toll (& vote it out). Like what happened with Uber's surge pricing.
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It’s well established that Uber and lyft INCREASE the amount of cars on the road (and thus congestion) because they incentivize non-car-owners to take car trips they wouldn’t normally take. Uber and Lyft lead to a net INCREASE in cars on the road, not a decrease.
> It’s well established that Uber and lyft INCREASE the amount of cars >> Our findings provide evidence that after entering an urban area, ride-sharing services such as Uber significantly decrease traffic congestion time, congestion costs, and excessive fuel consumption. To further assess the robustness of the main results, we perform additional analyses including the use of alternative measures, instrumental variabl…
When I worked in a major city I would go on a half-joke rant anytime someone brought up traffic, parking,or obesity. If I were somehow the king of a major city, I would have a giant parking lot on the outside, and ban all cars. You could buy day passes if you need access to the roads to move or something, but it would be discouraged. People would walk more, and be healthier, The air would be higher quality, and most…
About a decade ago I remember being in some city in France (Bordeaux maybe? Bayonne maybe?) while studying there and the city center was demo'ing a car free plan. There were parking lots for delivery trucks outside delivery hours (when they had street access, 0200-0400 or something) then bikes would come and ferry things in. I remember being shocked at how great it all worked. Not sure if it's still in place, but I'd love to see more of that here in the States. The noise reduction alone was worth it.
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If you ever order something online or get food delivery or take a taxi or uber you do use the roads, and the number of people who do those things somewhat regularly is a lot closer to 100%. But you might still be using the roads a lot less than someone who drives to and from work every day. So some combination of tax money and tolls/congestion pricing seems to make the most sense from this usage based angle.
Absolutely! And as long as those delivery trucks, taxis, etc. pay the congestion pricing, it'll get priced into their services too.
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> It’s well established that Uber and lyft INCREASE the amount of cars >> Our findings provide evidence that after entering an urban area, ride-sharing services such as Uber significantly decrease traffic congestion time, congestion costs, and excessive fuel consumption. To further assess the robustness of the main results, we perform additional analyses including the use of alternative measures, instrumental variabl…
A quick google gave me this: https://uber.asu.edu/ . I would be more confident if the paper was issued by an entity with no economic ties with Uber.
[0] https://asunow.asu.edu/20181031-asu-news-uber-and-asu-partne...