Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

#301

Post by bumholio » Sat, Aug 11, 2018, 8:37 AM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #300

bumholio wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Car-owning households in NYC are significantly richer than zero-car households. I have no doubt that's true, as in most other places on the planet. The thing is, you are making an absolute argument: those who drive in NY are richer than those who don't. I don't deny that. I'm making a relative argument: within the driving group, the poorer ones will be priced out. You say those are not poor, but "merely wealthy". O…

OK, we agree that I'm likely correct, barring any other evidence that remains unpresented, that road congestion pricing in NYC wouldn't be "regressive" over all New Yorkers/visitors. If the congestion fees go to expenditures that broadly benefit all New Yorkers, it's far a simpler system than "tradable driving coupons" and could wind up highly progressive. (At one extreme, this "broad benefit" could be just a per-cap…

On the regresivity issue, the original discussion in this thread was why the tax is politically unpopular. And the answer is: because it's perceived as regressive by the voting public, and acts regressive within the driving segment. You point out to a widescale redistribution effect to the non-driving public that counteracts this, but I disagree that it makes a significant difference outside a very narrow intellectual public like this forum. Congestion charging will always be an uphill political struggle.

Thank you for the perspective on the voucher idea. Yeah, in a perfect world, it's equivalent with a congestion tax coupled with a tax deduction of equal amount, I've hinted to that. But you would need to dynamically change the amount of the tax to keep up with road supply and demand, and that will clearly be be an explosive political decision. Also, for cash in hand to be psychologically equivalent to public services, the voters have to have full trust in the public spending process, which seems unlikely. So in practice revenue generating vouchers could be much more palatable. The additional transaction costs and friction could be negligible compared to a traditional congestion tax: to drive more than your allotment, you load your driving wallet with cash that is deducted at prevailing market voucher prices; at the end of the year, if you generally drove less than the allotment, you will find a nice tax credit waiting for you inside the public tax internet gateway.

By the way, I'm a city councilor in my European town and that's why I might show a strong slant towards practical ways to achieve political consensus, as opposed to just going for the superior theoretical solution. Cities rarely move on theoretical optimum paths and recently, of all idiotic policies, I had to struggle for ending the public subsidy of free parking. No-brainer, but wait until a significant part of the public received if for decades and strongly believe it's some sort of natural right.

Re: Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

#302

Post by perl4ever » Sun, Aug 12, 2018, 12:26 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #291

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I do want to note that you can pay with dollars or pay with time. And it's generally far better overall to pay with money. If you pay with money, then someone gets that money - Uber drivers earn more through surge pricing, in this instance. If you pay with time, then that time is simply gone forever.

It's not raining. There's one cab. The fare costs 5 dollars. There's one rider. Everything works great. It's raining. There's one cab. The fare costs 5 dollars. There's two riders. The driver flips a coin. One rider pays $5, and gets a ride. The other has to wait, and then gets a ride. It's raining. There's one cab. There's surge pricing, so the fare costs $15. There's two riders. One rider can afford to pay $15, and…

It's not the "poorest" rider though who pays with time. It's the person who values the ride the least relative to time. That isn't totally uncorrelated, but it's significantly not the same, which is what produces more value.

Re: Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

#303

Post by wpietri » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 12:52 AM UTC

bumholio wrote: post #296

wpietri wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that "the time of rich people is more valuable" seems obviously wrong to me. In some cases the time of rich people has a higher price . E.g. a famous surgeon is rich and also charges a lot by the hour. But there are plenty of rich people that couldn't get minimum wage based on their skills and work ethic. I think value is an individual metric. E.g., I value good chocolate highly, but chocolate gives my gir…

Well, since we are talking about a common resource and public law that applies to everybody, the subjectivity of value is not really much help. A flat congestion tax is proposed, so I was clearly referring to the monetary value one places on his own time, the amount of money they are willing to give up to reclaim that time. Cost vs. speed is a fundamental trade-off in transportation, nothing groundbreaking here. It a…

If that's what you were trying to refer to, it might be better said as "rich people can pay more for their time", or "rich people can override the preferences of the poor in a market-based allocation".