The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain

One of the (many) reasons the Civil War was fought was because the north believed in taxpayer-paid free-to-use roads in order to boost commerce and general welfare.

The south wanted almost all roads to be privately-owned toll roads.

Although I understand the need for congestion mitigation, in a lot of ways the nation's road system is regressing.

Right now, you have no clue where your taxes go, nor do you get a cent by cent breakdown of how much went to each cost.

There is an enormous amount of economic waste in state and federal budgets before considering 10yr government contracts where incumbents almost always win because of the exorbitant amount of one off acomodations made during the previous decade, but most u.s. government contract bids by law require to entertain 3 bidders before most of the time choosing the same one.

Also, by the way, uber works this way. The price will go up for 5 drivers when 100 people need the same 5 drivers as opposed to if 3 or 5 people need them. Alot of economic incentives are made here:

1. More drivers will come to the space because the pay is good.

2. People who can't afford it arent going to pay this congestion price making it possible for drivers to even attempt to prioritise etc. It also helps drivers prioritise. Do they really need to drive. It also helps competition come in and make up this economic gap if there is one.

Also, NY energy pricing market, as well as California, Texas and MISO region all operate on real time energy markets using "congestion costs" as one of the frameworks to expose pricing based on demand.

The only difference is:

1. You actually get to see an objective algorithmic breakdown of WHY the cost is what is. Try asking the government for that now for street costs....ha

2. The transparent pricing exposes market signals for competition to come compete, for a lower price, making a more economic system

both which over time

1. lower prices for consumers (in this case people who use the streets)

2. Create a more efficient system (if a road system is inefficient, and that is the root cause) as a result of 1.

In the long run, this is a positive move in the right direction towards governments being more transparent about where costs are allocated. It's a far cry from being able to vote by knowing where your tax money actually goes, but it's a step in the right direction and it doesnt completely divorce government from competition to keep exorbitant costs in check on the government side.

The comparison isn't between coffee shops in Manhattan and coffee shops in the suburbs, it's between coffee shops within ten minutes of your office in Manhattan as measured at a walking pace compared to the speed of a motorized vehicle.

> Nobody. I mean, not one single person, who works in Manhattan below Central Park is currently traveling 3 miles anywhere, by any means for lunch. Nobody.

Because the transit situation is such a mess. You can get away with it because of the density, but that doesn't make it good that it's so inconvenient to get from one end of the island to the other. You have a huge relative advantage and then give half of it back because the MTA sucks.

> What? Congestion pricing is going to force people to give up $10000 rather than spend $5000? It's somehow going to make people forget how to do math? That seems unlikely. The state and federal taxes already exist and have to be paid regardless of whether there's congestion pricing, so those are a non-issue.

Apparently some people have already forgotten how to do math.

If you make $50,000, the various governments take $5000 or more of the top $10,000 in taxes and benefits phase outs. So if you made $40,000 instead, you wouldn't have $10,000 less money, you would have $5000 less money because you would also pay $5000 less in taxes. If keeping the $50,000 job also costs you $5000 in congestion charges, the job that "pays more" no longer does.

The taxes on the extra $10,000 don't have to be paid regardless, if you make $40,000 instead of $50,000. There is $10,000 in total being lost, but $5000 is being lost by the employee (which is equal to the congestion charge) and the other $5000 is being lost by the government (who doesn't get to choose which job the employee takes).

> For those that aren't, there will be subsidies.

Which makes no sense at all, because then they won't be deterred from driving at those times even though they're the most price sensitive and that's how congestion pricing operates. Is converting it from a tax on the poor to benefit the rich to a tax on the middle class to benefit the rich supposed to be some great advantage? And that requires you to raise the congestion charge even higher to achieve the same level of deterrence.

> The congestion isn't coming from the people who live there. They can already walk or take the subway. The congestion is people driving in from elsewhere.

That's the point. So you build more housing in the city and then more people can live there and take the subway.

Would such a policy work well if brought over to the states? Given the amount of tangentially connected regulations and special interests such a strict ban may just increase prices and make things worse.

> The taxes on the extra $10,000 don't have to be paid regardless, if you make $40,000 instead of $50,000. There is $10,000 in total being lost, but $5000 is being lost by the employee (which is equal to the congestion charge) and the other $5000 is being lost by the government (who doesn't get to choose which job the employee takes).

My friend, you are seriously, seriously confused about taxes. People making $50k per year are not in the 50% marginal tax bracket. If you want to work this out with real numbers, you'll see it's nowhere near as dire as you're pretending.

I would be willing to wager there is almost nobody making $50k who drives to work in lower Manhattan by themselves. They would already be priced out by the current tolls and parking. People at that wage are going to be taking the subway. You're arguing for a figment of your imagination.