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Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

nytimes.com

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Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#181

Post by ghaff »

alkonaut wrote: post #132
setgree wrote: post #85

Weighing in as a Manhatto who works in midtown -- I welcome this! But another fruitful option is curbing the very worst behavior attendant to driving. Blocking the box -- apparently being policed heavily in Queens! [0] -- is typically addressed (near times square) by having traffic cops in the streets guiding traffic. How about tickets that scale up by orders of magnitude for each repeat offense, i.e. $1 for the firs…

Traffic violations fees should be proportional to income to really be painful to rich people. See e.g Finland.

Probably the worst horn honkers in Manhattan are the taxi car drivers. Not the wealthy guy driving his Mercedes.

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#182

Post by moogleii »

rsync wrote: post #145
gamblor956 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the U.S., a public education is considered a right. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and so the same considerations don't apply. For example, we already charge drivers for the privilege of driving: annual license fees, mandated insurance, gasoline taxes, etc. Congestion fees/taxes are simply an extension of the costs associated with the driving privilege. With respect to schools, we already have a de facto con…

"In the U.S., a public education is considered a right. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and so the same considerations don't apply." I find this conversation very interesting - first, the thought provoking notion from your parent that supporters of congestion pricing invoke a "libertarian but only for this" exception that they wouldn't apply to other goods like schools. Then your (obvious) reply that driving is…

> I would counter that while driving is certainly a privilege, the roads themselves are a right, or a public good, comparable to schools. So regardless of what hoops you have to jump through to purchase and license your car, once jumped, the roads are analogous to the schools.

FWIW, roads were for people first, not cars.

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#183

Post by TuringK »

lazerpants wrote: post #66
yipbub wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The report says "None of those fees should be charged, the task force said, until repairs are made to the public transit system." so it wouldn't be like they'd be "surge charging" a necessity like schools.

True. Going into a little bit more detail of what I mentioned though, all of the high demand schools I know of have other nearby schools that are in low demand. Typically, the high demand school is in a wealthy neighborhood (let's say Brooklyn Heights), and the low demand school is in a bordering poorer neighborhood (Vinegar Hill). So, the city would not be surge charging for a necessity, just a preference for a high…

>> just a preference for a high demand school

Sometimes this is also a preference for safety, as I learned attending k-12 in NYC. And sometimes the safety isnt a result of bad students, but a result of the entire system just allocating more resources to some schools over others.

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#184

Post by willyt »

apendleton wrote: post #154
rsync wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In the U.S., a public education is considered a right. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and so the same considerations don't apply." I find this conversation very interesting - first, the thought provoking notion from your parent that supporters of congestion pricing invoke a "libertarian but only for this" exception that they wouldn't apply to other goods like schools. Then your (obvious) reply that driving is…

> the roads themselves are a right, or a public good Transportation is the public good. Roads are one means of providing it, but there are others, like public transit. It's up to the government to determine how best to provide that public good given existing constraints in funds, time, land area for roads and other transportation infrastructure, environmental considerations, etc. They've apparently determined that th…

Roads have only been a public good since 1888 in the UK. Before this it was common to pay a toll to be able to use a road. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll_roads_in_Great_Britain

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#185

Post by ars »

moogleii wrote: post #182
rsync wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In the U.S., a public education is considered a right. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and so the same considerations don't apply." I find this conversation very interesting - first, the thought provoking notion from your parent that supporters of congestion pricing invoke a "libertarian but only for this" exception that they wouldn't apply to other goods like schools. Then your (obvious) reply that driving is…

> I would counter that while driving is certainly a privilege, the roads themselves are a right, or a public good, comparable to schools. So regardless of what hoops you have to jump through to purchase and license your car, once jumped, the roads are analogous to the schools. FWIW, roads were for people first, not cars.

> FWIW, roads were for people first, not cars.

That isn't true. They are for people. First people in wagons, then people in cars. But always for people.

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#186

Post by TuringK »

ben_jones wrote: post #70
nwah1 wrote: post #7

Congestion pricing is one of the most economically literate ways to improve traffic, and those funds can be used to improve infrastructure. It isn't so different from surge pricing in ridesharing apps. There is a narrowmindedness on the part of opponents of both congestion pricing and surge pricing, because they are ignoring the obvious point that if they weren't paying the fees they'd be paying in terms of time. Not…

While I agree in principle poor people are going to be hit by this the hardest and that's something that has to be taken into account in public policy.

Might high middle class people too -- those not wealthy enough to live in posh Manhattan townhouses and go over the river to more affordable areas at the expense of lower/no subway coverage.

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#187

Post by moogleii »

lazerpants wrote: post #58
nwah1 wrote: post #7

Congestion pricing is one of the most economically literate ways to improve traffic, and those funds can be used to improve infrastructure. It isn't so different from surge pricing in ridesharing apps. There is a narrowmindedness on the part of opponents of both congestion pricing and surge pricing, because they are ignoring the obvious point that if they weren't paying the fees they'd be paying in terms of time. Not…

I'm always surprised by the only-in-this-circumstance libertarian philosophy of people who support congestion pricing. I think if you took the exact same logic and applied it to say, schools, supporters would feel completely differently about it. Example: It's really hard to get your child into certain public schools in NYC. Why not start charging $3k a year per child (much less than private schools) at high demand s…

The biggest difference is there are cheap alternatives to driving in your own car (foot, bus, subway, taxi depending on distance, etc). Public schools are akin to walking on foot, charter schools are the cars using public school land, which I learned is fairly common on NYC under some kind of timeshare arrangement (but I also mainly say this in jest).

As someone who moved from the Los Angeles area and enjoys driving (sans gridlock), it personally seems bananas to me to be driving in the city unless it's a cab/bus/freight/handicap vehicle.

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#188

Post by [deleted] »

lazerpants wrote: post #58
nwah1 wrote: post #7

Congestion pricing is one of the most economically literate ways to improve traffic, and those funds can be used to improve infrastructure. It isn't so different from surge pricing in ridesharing apps. There is a narrowmindedness on the part of opponents of both congestion pricing and surge pricing, because they are ignoring the obvious point that if they weren't paying the fees they'd be paying in terms of time. Not…

I'm always surprised by the only-in-this-circumstance libertarian philosophy of people who support congestion pricing. I think if you took the exact same logic and applied it to say, schools, supporters would feel completely differently about it. Example: It's really hard to get your child into certain public schools in NYC. Why not start charging $3k a year per child (much less than private schools) at high demand s…

[deleted]

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#189

Post by QuarterReptile »

baldfat wrote: post #158
chimeracoder wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Time for me to get on the train and go to NYC one way is 2 hours plus, so over 4 hours round trip. It is 50 miles away from my old home. Cost is $27 round trip (off peak) or $38.50 (peak) for the ticket. So taking the train is convenient and I love it but it ruins the rest of my day. Put another way, with congestion pricing, you have two options: * Pay $27-$38.50 (total) for a four hour round-trip on public transit…

My WHOLE point is the cost is ridiculous. People paying $5000 to $12000 a year to commute to work in NYC. It also makes it more difficult to get around. I grew up in Danbury, CT and probably 20% of the city works in NYC and I now live in Allentown, PA and know several that work there full time and it takes 30 minutes to get to a train station to NYC. I had one full time job in Manhattan when I was 18 and commuted eve…

So don't you think some of those people would rearrange their lives if they had to face $12k of added annual commuting costs?

You'd probably see some increasing density in nearby areas that are still full of 2-3 story buildings. You'd see some parking lots reconsidered. And you'd see people moving to other cities. You'd probably see a whole lot of other creative solutions, too, to the fact that NYC is now allowing its problem of too many cars to be felt by those driving the cars.

Re: Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan

#190

Post by rayiner »

dnautics wrote: post #144
walshemj wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And gerrymandering of catchment areas id assume as happens in the UK.

That doesn't really happen in the us.

Sure as hell does. Here's the boundaries for the elementary school in my area: https://imgur.com/M1bAKEh. People are flipping out right now in part of one of the adjacent school districts, because they might be redistricted into the Annapolis elementary schools, instead of the Edgewater school on the other side of the river. I'll let you guess why.
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