201–210 of 284 posts
The shock comes from people thinking, you've just opened a road for the rich, not for the every man. Roads have not, historically in the US, been excluded to a certain group of people. Of course people will react harshly.
Some economists need to get their heads out of their asses and live in the real world for a bit.
I live in Northern Virginia, and the statement "People who were totally banned from a road now could now use it at its busiest time" is false. People were already driving on I-66 solo during HOV-only hours, they were just counting on super lax enforcement and the law of probability falling in their favor for not getting caught. When riding in the metro in the mornings (which runs parallel to I-66 into DC for a time)…
There are plenty of government policies or state run services that prevent or completely avoid this dynamic in the name of pseudo 'fairness'. When usually it more often restricts options for more people rather than makes it more fair.
It's easy to see why from a populist perspective, look at the outrage on Twitter:
>> I don't have to use it, but it's effing outrageous. Armed robbery. $34.50 for 10 miles? New tolls on I-66 kick off with some high rates. https://twitter.com/andreas_adriano/status/93772317073970790...
... he admits he never even uses it but he still finds it unfair 'highway robbery' regardless.
And it's not just a policy helping the wealthy as it would be using the service to maximal efficacy rather than below capacity. It's a net gain for average users. As there will never be a high number of people willing to pay that fee, not slowing down existing traffic. Plus the additional revenue gained could otherwise be used to improve the operation, go back into the economy via employee income or spending, etc. It's a net gain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ride sharing surge pricing gets nasty when it's a national disaster or other major unpredicted event and the rates are sexdecoupling, because it begins to look like profiteering off human misery. But moderate surge pricing is already a fact of life on ride sharing services.
Alas, in exactly those unpredicted disaster events the surge pricing would be useful.
My main concern is that with tolls that high that only people with a lot of money can afford them (I make six figures but I doubt I would ever pay $40 for a toll. I would need much more money). These are also often the most influential people so they may think that everything is OK because they can afford the toll and never suffer in traffic. I think the same is happening with health care. Most people in Congress hav…
...No one is being excluded when a service is being underutilized and a small group of people pay extra to reach optimal capacity. There is no way for them to fill this small extra space without flooding it (ie, hybrid only, or Dulles airport cars as they already tried was obviously too much traffic), so why not use it to capacity and earn the city more money from these wealthy people?
Would you rather the government make less money from the wealthy?
Do you really think the small group of people willing to pay $40 is going to slow down the existing traffic?
Would you rather no one uses it, even though the highway can support a small amount of other cars, just for some abstract satisfaction at 'hurting' wealthy people?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would like to see some less idealistic economists take over on these issues. One interesting option is creating a fake "currency" for fast lanes. If poor people don't have enough money, then we should give them money instead of fake currency. Giving them fake currency reduces utility. If we give them money they can buy whatever they want/need the most. If we give them scrip that can only be used on one thing then t…
The problem in this case is not really "not enough money" in an absolute sense. To use the fast lane in a floating price system, you need to outbid the rest of the people. IE it's a function of income distribution. You'd need to solve inequality. That's a great thing to do, but meanwhile we can just fix fast lanes separately. ...just in case inequality still exists in 10 years.
They might rather spend that money on housing, or education or chewing gum or who the hell knows what.
The utility maximizing choice it to let them make their own decision as they know more about their preferences than you do. You making that decision for them destroys utility.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do this in the SF Bay area, it's called casual carpool. Very popular in the East Bay. I used to do it for many years, both as a driver and passenger. It's all about getting past the Bay Bridge toll plaza, and the carpool lane goes way faster than the (sometimes horribly) backed up traffic. The FastTrac lanes aren't any good when it gets so backed up. Yes there are myriad unspoken rules, and hilarious stories abo…
Can't you have that experience every day using BART?
Regarding the mixing with humanity point, I think you'd agree sharing a car is a tad more intimate than sharing a sardine-packed train car.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) If your roads are being overused you can easily ration that by raising the dollar price. 2) What is wrong with wealth accumulation? If credit recipients would rather do that than drive on roads they should be able to do so. They's how they get less poor! 3) If they credits are transferable then you are effectively giving people money. Just in an ass-backwards and overly confusing way.
Setting up a traffic-ration system fairly is probably a lot simpler than giving poor people money.
Creating a whole new kind of currency with its own special rules is a huge undertaking. Not to mention the ongoing pain-in-the ass cost to every citizen when they have to carry around and think about a new special kind of money that can only be used for one thing.
I guess I'm at a loss here because I've lived in DC almost 6 years now and it never occurred to me that I-66 was HOV only during certain portions of the day. I know I am not alone in this because I see similar conversations happening elsewhere. Additionally, many comments say that single traveler HOV use is forbidden however I frequently see single drivers in the HOV lanes on 66 and elsewhere un-restricted. As a comp…
The other day I was driving along 50 to Annapolis, where the left lane is always HOV for 8 miles after 495, and was passed by a dozen cars in the HOV lane, all single riders. This sort of behavior is a cancer that will destroy America, mark my words. As to enforcement, in my experience the I-66 HOV is pretty aggressively enforced. They’ll park cop cars in major exits during the toll period pulling people over. I’ve g…
This is exactly the point. If you can accidentally take a road without impedance that is supposed to be "off limits" then it's not really "off limits."