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I think the strongest argument against congestion pricing is the cost of infrastructure to collect it. All the other arguments apply equally well to other cons

I think the strongest argument against congestion pricing is the cost of infrastructure to collect it. All the other arguments apply equally well to other consumables that are normally priced, like food and energy. Consumption taxes are inherently regressive, and poor people consume more of their income than their rich, but the solution is not to simply price consumables at $0. IMO, the burden should be to show why roads are such a special good that they should always be free, regardless of externalities. You're right that mass transit should be a part of the equation. Singapore is a city where this works well -- mass transit is (relatively) cheap, universal, and efficient. Car ownership is ridiculously expensive due to taxes, and congestion pricing is high (around $15 at rush hour) [1]. This prices road travel appropriately, as a luxury good in a dense and crowded metropolis, and pushes all normal transportation needs onto mass transit. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Road_Pricing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Road_Pricing

AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> IMO, the burden should be to show why roads are such a special good that they should always be free, regardless of externalities. They're special because essentially the entire cost is the construction cost. If you want another loaf of bread then the farmer has to grow more wheat. It has a unit cost. If you want to drive on the road then either the road capacity already exists or it doesn't and your choice of whether to drive doesn't change that. If you decide to stay home it doesn't save the government money. It's having the ability to drive on the road that costs money, not exercising it once the road is already there. What congestion pricing does is suppress demand, i.e. to remove the (economic) ability of some people to drive, which can reduce the need for transportation capacity. But we don't want to suppress demand. Demand is good. People going out and participating in the community and the local economy is good. It might be better that people use mass transit than drive cars, but the way to achieve that isn't to make driving worse, it's to make mass transit better -- to stimulate demand rather than suppress it. The apparent appeal of congestion pricing is that it nominally generates revenue, as opposed to improving or subsidizing mass transit which nominally consumes revenue. But in practice the result is the opposite because suppressing rather than stimulating demand for local transportation would mean there is less activity in the local economy.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

> IMO, the burden should be to show why roads are such a special good that they should always be free, regardless of externalities. They're special because essentially the entire cost is the construction cost. If you want another loaf of bread then the farmer has to grow more wheat. It has a unit cost. If you want to drive on the road then either the road capacity already exists or it doesn't and your choice of whether to drive doesn't change that. If you decide to stay home it doesn't save the government money. It's having the ability to drive on the road that costs money, not exercising it once the road is already there. What congestion pricing does is suppress demand, i.e. to remove the (economic) ability of some people to drive, which can reduce the need for transportation capacity. But we don't want to suppress demand. Demand is good. People going out and participating in the community and the local economy is good. It might be better that people use mass transit than drive cars, but the way to achieve that isn't to make driving worse, it's to make mass transit better -- to stimulate demand rather than suppress it. The apparent appeal of congestion pricing is that it nominally generates revenue, as opposed to improving or subsidizing mass transit which nominally consumes revenue. But in practice the result is the opposite because suppressing rather than stimulating demand for local transportation would mean there is less activity in the local economy.