Driving a Car in Manhattan Could Cost $11 Under Congestion Plan • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by lsc » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 6:52 AM UTC

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…

> 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.

so, I think you are confusing people that believe that markets are useful tools with people who believe that markets are things that decide what is most ethical (which is, I think, what you mean by 'libertarian' in this context.)

That's the thing. I (and many people) believe that markets are good tools in many (but not all) situations for organizing production and distributing goods. I don't believe that using a market to distribute goods organize production is any more or less ethical than using any other method for deciding those things, any more than I think that using a drill or a saw when building something is an ethical choice, (I mean, except to the extent that avoidable suffering is caused by using tools that are grossly mismatched to the goal)

I think markets are great for matching up workers to jobs and schedules... and that's what we're doing, largely, with congestion pricing. If it costs a lot to get a worker to place x at time y.... well, that should be factored into the cost of whatever that worker is doing; because of this, I support congestion pricing.

I think markets would be terrible for allocating public school slots, because the whole point of having public schools is to see to it that everyone has some minimum level of education... and to give those who are smart and/or ambitious a chance of climbing the ladder, even if they came from poor families. Markets would produce results that moved in the opposite of those goals, that's why we have public schools rather than relying on a private school system in the first place.

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

#262

Post by stmfreak » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 7:59 AM UTC

The article claims there are fewer cars entering the city than a year ago and yet traffic has gotten worse! Seems we can predict the outcome of additional incentives against driving: even worse traffic!

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

#263

Post by pimmen » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 11:29 AM UTC

We've been implementing these schemes across Europe for a long time. In my home country, both Stockholm and Gothenburg has them and they're unpopular but actually do a lot of good. My parents have finally started taking the train and the tram again which was something they never did before and the data shows that people are driving less in both cities now.

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

#264

Post by maxsilver » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 1:44 PM UTC

randomsearch wrote: post #195

QuarterReptile wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The immediate problems of infrastructure are two-fold: funding and the matching of supply and demand. Ignore the environmental ramifications for the moment and kick that can to your kids like everyone else does. Supply and demand solves itself. The solution is staring right back at you any time you drive around a city at 5PM local. The funding could be solved by taking more money out of general revenue from income an…

Building more roads creates more traffic i.e. more “demand”. This is the unforeseen problem with road building schemes. The solution is mass transit and city planning to reduce road commuting.

> Building more roads creates more traffic i.e. more “demand”.

That is never an acceptable reason to neglect infrastructure.

By your logic, we should never build hospitals because building hospitals 'creates' sick people. We should never build public water systems, since that would 'create' sewage. We should never roll out faster broadband internet, because people will simply 'waste' the bandwidth.

Yes, induced demand is a concept that exists. But it's a gross misunderstanding of that concept to use it as an excuse to undersupply infrastructure capacity.

> The solution is (more) mass transit

I agree, that is one way to help the problem. Notice though, that it's not congestion fees on public right of way, and that it is additional infrastructure (the kind you just claimed would not work because it would create more demand).

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

#265

Post by ec109685 » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 4:28 PM UTC

rahimnathwani wrote: post #253

romwell wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are taxis increasing congestion? One car making ten trips surely leads to less congestion than ten cars making one trip.

Um, no. Cars that aren't doing a journey don't cause congestion, as parked cars don't have cars behind them waiting to get past. A private car wanting to spend 20 mins driving through the charging zone to get from south London to north London is in the charging zone for 20 mins, and pays the full fee. A taxi wanting to spend 8 HOURS driving within the congestion zone pays nothing. EDIT: and taxis spend large amounts…

What about the time spent finding parking or the fact that taxis enable people to not have cars at all, this increasing ridership in all forms of transportation.

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

#266

Post by rahimnathwani » Sun, Jan 21, 2018, 2:42 AM UTC

ec109685 wrote: post #265

rahimnathwani wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, no. Cars that aren't doing a journey don't cause congestion, as parked cars don't have cars behind them waiting to get past. A private car wanting to spend 20 mins driving through the charging zone to get from south London to north London is in the charging zone for 20 mins, and pays the full fee. A taxi wanting to spend 8 HOURS driving within the congestion zone pays nothing. EDIT: and taxis spend large amounts…

What about the time spent finding parking or the fact that taxis enable people to not have cars at all, this increasing ridership in all forms of transportation.

Private cars driving into or through central London don't spend 50% of their time finding parking. In many cases, they are just driving through central London to get to the other side. So there's zero time spent driving aimlessly or finding parking.

Your second point about enabling people to not have cars seems pretty tenuous. Is your argument that exempting taxis from the London congestion charge increases supply or decreases price, to the extent that more people can go without cars?

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

#267

Post by ec109685 » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 2:47 AM UTC

rahimnathwani wrote: post #266

ec109685 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the time spent finding parking or the fact that taxis enable people to not have cars at all, this increasing ridership in all forms of transportation.

Private cars driving into or through central London don't spend 50% of their time finding parking. In many cases, they are just driving through central London to get to the other side. So there's zero time spent driving aimlessly or finding parking. Your second point about enabling people to not have cars seems pretty tenuous. Is your argument that exempting taxis from the London congestion charge increases supply or…

I was arguing the point about taxis causing more congestion: > taxis still cause twice as much congestion

But I see that wasn't exactly what you were trying to say.