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NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

congestion-pricing-tracker.com

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Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#261

Post by paulgb »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #163
scarab92 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that? Congestion pricing is a way to price an externality, which is usually a good thing compared to externalities being free.

The externality is already "priced in" to the traffic. People who can wait in traffic or can't afford not to wait in traffic do so, and people who want to skip out can as well. Congestion pricing, like many fees and regulations, is a regressive tax, because the overhead seeps into all goods and services and it impacts the poor most of all and the rich not at all.

> … the overhead seeps into all goods and services…

We have always paid a congestion tax on goods and services, it’s just been in the form of paying workers to sit in traffic.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#262

Post by tuukkah »

taatof wrote: post #79
maxwellg wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make public transit better. In the last half decade we've seen the opening of the Salesforce transit center, the Chinatown subway station, the Van Ness BRT, the Caltrain Electrification Project, BART expansion to Berryessa, 800 new BART cars, and hundreds of smaller projects. You can see a full list of SFMTA projects at https://www.sfmta.com/sfmta-projects

While I'm obviously exaggerating by saying "never", the list is much smaller than it needs to be, and you have some misleading things on that list. Chinatown subway station is great. Better connects SF residents and it's exactly what I want to see more of in SF. - Van Ness BRT? That project started in 2003. It took 20 years to complete. Not exactly the poster child of solid transit improvements in SF, except if you i…

Better Caltrain means less road congestion in SF so benefits everyone.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#263

Post by paulgb »

jjav wrote: post #257
maxwellg wrote: post #11

I'm incredibly hopeful that NYC congestion pricing pays off in a big way - and that we start to see it in other cities across America. I really, really want congestion pricing in downtown SF. During rush hour, cars block the box and slow down busses, with cascading effects.

> congestion pricing pays off in a big way Define "pays off". Who benefits, who suffers?

As a New Yorker, a few things made me a proponent of congestion pricing:

- watching people have to squeeze between stopped (mostly single-occupant) cars blocking sidewalks on Broome or Canal on their own pedestrian light at rush hour, and realizing that it would be impossible for someone with a stroller or mobility aid.

- seeing packed busses miss light cycles because the intersection is blocked

- seeing ambulances or fire trucks with sirens blaring stuck in gridlock

“Pays off” to me means that transit users and pedestrians are no longer regularly inconvenienced by the fact that more people choose to drive than there is frankly room for.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#264

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tshaddox wrote: post #216
cj wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it does, if you remove price from the equation!

Sure, but that’s a dismissive interpretation. It’s a bit like saying “sure, a cinema that refuses to sell more tickets than it has seats leads to a better cinema viewing experience, but only if you remove price from the equation!”

There are two ways to not sell more tickets than you have seats. One is to jack up the price of seats, the other is to add more seats.

The latter in this context would be to e.g. build higher density housing so more people can feasibly take mass transit, as opposed to congestion pricing which is just a tax on people who can't afford the artificially scarce housing in the areas where mass transit use is feasible already.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#266

Post by tomp »

paulgb wrote: post #263
jjav wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> congestion pricing pays off in a big way Define "pays off". Who benefits, who suffers?

As a New Yorker, a few things made me a proponent of congestion pricing: - watching people have to squeeze between stopped (mostly single-occupant) cars blocking sidewalks on Broome or Canal on their own pedestrian light at rush hour, and realizing that it would be impossible for someone with a stroller or mobility aid. - seeing packed busses miss light cycles because the intersection is blocked - seeing ambulances o…

All these issues have better solutions than congestion pricing.

Cars blocking intersections and/or sidewalks can easily be solved with automated traffic fines - that's how Zurich and London does it (the former without any congestion pricing!)

Many cities also have special lanes only useable by some classes of vehicles - e.g. busses (or sometimes taxis as well) - I guess ambulances could also use those.

In fact, congestion pricing doesn't solve any of those problems, it's just an irrelevant (as in, it doesn't solve any specific problem directly) regressive tax to "drive less".

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#267

Post by oliwarner »

walterbell wrote: post #260
oliwarner wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every penny has to go back into affordable, subsidised alternatives or you're just fencing off Manhattan for the super rich.

There should be a daily quota on rideshare cars operating in Manhattan. They are a significant percentage of traffic, often with zero passengers.

Taxies in general. I know medallions already limit their numbers but if you've ever been locked in traffic surrounded by yellow cabs, count the passengers. Each one —mostly empty IME— is 120sqft of road. Cars trolling around for patrons is a bad system.

The Subway, buses, trams, etc, etc are all way better for passenger density.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#269

Post by AnthonyMouse »

taatof wrote: post #69
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make public transit better. Same happening here in my smallish (~300k peeople) capital of a small eu country... Too many cars? More expensive parking! Less parking! More expensive parking! Less parking! More pedestrian-only streets, and even more cars around that... And the buses? They suck. The city is roughly star-shaped.. want to go from one leg to anoth…

Sounds right. Here in SF, instead of police pulling over people who speed and run stop signs, we're getting rid of parking spots within 20ft of intersections so people speeding and running stop signs can see if they're about to kill a pedestrian. Could raise a fortune for public transit if we enforced traffic laws and used that money.

> Could raise a fortune for public transit if we enforced traffic laws and used that money.

If you consistently enforce the law then the fine revenue falls below even its current level because consistent enforcement reduces violations, meanwhile costs go up because the additional enforcement has to be paid for.

The existing system is the one cultivated to maximize revenue by setting speed limits below the median traffic speed so that cops can "efficiently" issue citations one after another as long as there isn't enough enforcement to induce widespread compliance. This is, of course, dumb, but the alternatives generate less net profit for the government.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#270

Post by occz »

jdkdkdkfj wrote: post #248
occz wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, it's been great for poorer people who take transit at higher rates than others, and congestion pricing funds useful transit expansions for them.

[flagged]

This comment is telling about your values when it comes to both cars and buses.

Consider some introspection.

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