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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 differen

by nwah1 9y ago

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 to mention that congestion has other negatives, like pollution. Infrastructure needs to get paid for somehow. It is fair when it is paid for by the people benefiting from it.

bob_theslob646 9y ago
Not disagreeing with you about the economic point, but will kindly disagree with you in terms of spending. Let's just say New York does not have a great history of spending on infrastructure. A recent New York Times piece, mentioned that the price of labor on infrastructure projects is 5 times more expensive then anywhere else in the world. It just blows my mind that people in the NYC area are willing to put up with that type of congestion. Doesn't Sidewalk Labs( alphabet company) have an office in Manhattan? Where are they in terms of solving traffic problems?
- nwah1 9y ago
  I agree the costs are high. That is largely a result of the high cost of living. There's additional economically literate funding methods which account for that. For instance, when infrastructure is built, it causes surrounding land values and rents to rise. It is possible to use that rising value to pay for the infrastructure, via a special assessment. There is also an issue where the people with the worst infrastructure would be paying the most under congestion pricing, which means that it would be important to prioritize improvements to the most congested areas.
  - morley 9y ago
    I'm not sure you read the article in question. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-... The costs aren't high because of cost of living, they're high because of cushy agreements with workers unions and construction companies, among a myriad other things.
    - nwah1 9y ago
      Interesting, thank you.
  - tbihl 9y ago
    To further support your point, not only is it possible to use that added value to pay for infrastructure, but that's historically how it was done back when infrastructure projects had to be profitable (because they were private.) Today, the most similar thing might be the ski resort that is largely profitable because of the sale of slope-side condos.
- Retric 9y ago
  The NYC subway system is a great example of spending on infrastructure over it's history. NYC may not be efficient in terms of spending, but the results tend to be extremely valuable. Further, it's vastly more expensive to build a road inside a city than in the middle of nowhere. NYC's infrastructure is so extensive it's makes adding more incredibly difficult. That is then compounded by bureaucracy, corruption, and entrenched interests but not more so than most other large city's.
baldfat 9y ago
The only issue is when I had to run to Manhattan I jumped in my car and went either into a parking lot or just dropped something off. Still get charged for the Bridge Fees of $15!!! $15 to use the GWB and anything going to Long Island or NJ is ridiculous and Verrizano is $17 and that is the the highest cost for a bridge in the nation. GWB is a major interstate and you have to swing up to the Tapanzee or go further north Fishkill Bridge to get lower fees. Now add the $11 fee and my cost is $26 just to drive to one place in Manhattan.
- Simon_says 9y ago
  Is that too high? Then kindly don't drive in Manhattan.
  - yipbub 9y ago
    For clarity: perhaps emphasize the word drive.
  - baldfat 9y ago
    $100 to commute a week isn't to high? When the train cost $27 round trip (off peak) or $38.50 (peak) it is a pain. Also if you have business in NYC you are stuck with either losing the whole day or half a day just to get there. Now Chicago, Atlanta and LA have bad traffic it doesn't cost you a hundred bucks to commute for a week.
    - chimeracoder 9y ago
      > $100 to commute a week isn't to high? So move to the city and enjoy a shorter (and cheaper) commute. Of course, since you're currently living 50 miles outside the city, the increase in rent would be much more than $100, so you're still enjoying the cheaper end of the bargain. > Now Chicago, Atlanta and LA have bad traffic it doesn't cost you a hundred bucks to commute for a week. With parking, you could easily pay that much in other U.S. cities. In addition, they all have pretty terrible options for public transit compared to New York, so I'm not really keen on using them as a reference point.
turc1656 9y ago
Yes, it's not unlike surge pricing or any sort of increased pricing found for any product/service in the face of increased demand and constant supply. However, I find these types of situation to be different. These are supposed to be public roads, usable by anyone with a license as long as they obey the state laws governing the operation of a motor vehicle. Now NYC wants to add an additional charge to each and every ride through it's most populated region? Seems unfair, especially to those who make less. Some might argue that those in the lower incomes probably don't have cars in a city like NYC or even live in Manhattan at all due to it's cost. And they may be right. But it's also a matter of principle. Seems immoral to me to charge people to use what they are already taxed for multiple times (direct gas tax and some form if income/property tax is used to pay for road maintenance). It also seems especially unfair to tax them to use what is essentially a public good that is already paid for. The tax is simply to incentivize a specific activity (i.e. not driving in Manhattan). Should we also tax everyone who walks through the streets of Mid-town? Those streets are insanely crowded and I hate being there. Maybe we should tax anyone walking on sidewalks? Yes, they would be paying with time instead of fees. But many people have time and not so much money and they would probably much rather give up their time instead because it's what they have in a relatively larger amount.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  The space a vehicle takes up is also essentially a public good. Your argument can probably be fairly recast as "everyone should have to pay equal costs in time if they want to use the road". And then never mind that a congestion charge is more predictable than sitting in congestion.
  - turc1656 9y ago
    When I was down in Dallas, they have two parallel roadways - one which is the paid-for express version and one which is free. You can pay to get on the less-congested highway or choose to take the more congested, but free, highway. Maybe something like that for NYC would work? But with NYC's layout, I have no idea how that would work. Dallas has plenty of space to make that possible.
lazerpants 9y ago
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 schools in order to lessen the overcrowding of those schools? There are viable alternatives to paying (less in-demand schools), most lower income people are already not able to send their kids to in-demand schools for reasons of geography, and after all, parents choose to have children, they should pay for the services and infrastructure to support them. That example seems to essentially be the same as what is proposed for congestion pricing, with many parallel arguments. Why is congestion pricing okay when applying the same philosophy to other matters of public good isn't? (by the way, I'm a reluctant supporter of congestion pricing, and not of what I proposed for schools, but I struggle with why I believe one is okay and the other is not)
- yipbub 9y ago
  The report says "None of those fees should be charged, the task force said, until repairs are made to the public transit system." so it wouldn't be like they'd be "surge charging" a necessity like schools.
  - lazerpants 9y ago
    True. Going into a little bit more detail of what I mentioned though, all of the high demand schools I know of have other nearby schools that are in low demand. Typically, the high demand school is in a wealthy neighborhood (let's say Brooklyn Heights), and the low demand school is in a bordering poorer neighborhood (Vinegar Hill). So, the city would not be surge charging for a necessity, just a preference for a high demand school. Likewise, most people would prefer to drive if they could, but the physical limitations of the system require that most people take public transport.
    - TuringK 9y ago
      >> just a preference for a high demand school Sometimes this is also a preference for safety, as I learned attending k-12 in NYC. And sometimes the safety isnt a result of bad students, but a result of the entire system just allocating more resources to some schools over others.
ben_jones 9y ago
While I agree in principle poor people are going to be hit by this the hardest and that's something that has to be taken into account in public policy.
- herbturbo 9y ago
  Poor people in NYC don't typically drive into Manhattan.
  - yorby 9y ago
    How about the middle or upper-middle class? or is that considered poor nowadays...
- berbec 9y ago
  Actually, lower income people are likely to overwhelmingly gain from this plan. Poor people don't drive to Manhattan. The cost of parking and tolls puts it out of their reach. Therefor, this is funding which will be used to upgrade the transportation system they do use - the Subway. "The median household income of those with wheels is more than double that of those without - $85,000 compared with $40,630." [1] Do you really think someone who is "poor" can afford "UP TO 12 HOURS $31.25" [2] daily parking, when an unlimited Metrocard is $32 weekly? The commute would be shorter in the car, but with $150/week for parking, add tolls and the cost of insuring/maintaining a car, I do not see congestion pricing being a poor tax. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/opinion/editorials/manhattan-congestion-pricing-traffic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/opinion/editorials/manhat... 2: grabbed from one major garage site. not the end-all pricing, but it's close http://www.rapidparknyc.com/daily-parking-nyc-garage-rates-Midtown-East.cfm http://www.rapidparknyc.com/daily-parking-nyc-garage-rates-M...
- thescriptkiddie 9y ago
  I find it hard to believe that a congestion charge is going to disproportionately affect the poor, especially in Manhattan. The majority of New Yorkers — and a supermajority of Manhattanites — do not own a car. Those who do own cars have incomes nearly twice as high as those who don't. Only 5.8% of commuters to Manhattan arrive by single-occupancy vehicle. https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/04/21/a-reminder-pricing-car-trips-to-fund-transit-is-progressive-policy/ https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/04/21/a-reminder-pricing-ca...
cobookman 9y ago
The rich aren't effected and the poor are. The poor also can't afford to live near work & public transit. As that comes in at a premium. So this ends up not impacting the rich, but drastically hurts the poor.
- ebikelaw 9y ago
  These statements have no relationship to reality. In real New York, the only 3% of households in the lowest income quintile own a car. "The poor" are overwhelmingly reliant on walking, biking, buses, subways, and trains. Car ownership rates are strongly correlated with income. The only income bracket for which the bare majority of households own a car is $500000/year or higher, a group of people who can easily afford to pay a few bucks to drive over a bridge. And still, half of those people are sensible enough to see that they don't need a car in New York.
- electricslpnsld 9y ago
  > The poor also can't afford to live near work & public transit. Transit in New York City (and the tristate area as a whole) is very robust -- I seriously doubt most blue collar workers in Manhattan are driving in and parking for work.
njarboe 9y ago
I think most people would support congestion pricing, if all the money collected went to building more road capacity. The people paying to get a fast trip now would be seen (and actually be) supporting faster trips for everyone in the future. Right now it just builds more resentment toward the 1%. Unfortunately this situation is not really possible today as places that so congested to want to use congestion pricing of roads cannot build any more (very expensive and politically impossible). If Musk's Boring company works out and congestion pricing on freeways in LA would pay for new tunnels, I think everyone would be on-board with it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dionidium 9y ago
  This is directly in opposition to the goals of congestion pricing. Traffic engineering has some not-so-intuitive principles. Adding capacity, for example, increases congestion through a mechanism known as induced demand. We don't want to create more demand for private cars in Manhattan, so your suggestion supports an anti-goal.
  - njarboe 9y ago
    Adding more capacity does not cause more congestion. That is not what the studies around induced demand state. Building more capacity allows more trips (obvious right) because, since there is less congestion or it is quicker to get somewhere, people will travel more. If you believe that people making trips by car is intrinsically immoral, then building more capacity for car trips is a bad idea. I rather think that traveling around in a car costs money and time, even if the roads are not jammed, so people won't generally just drive around for now reason. Being restricted on where and when to travel due to clogged travel paths is not a public good to strive for. People calling out "induced demand" anytime someone proposes building more capacity for on-demand point-to-point travel is just blinded by an ideology they probably don't even know they follow. Would you be against instant teleportation at low dollar, environmental and energy cost from point-to-point? I might be if used between cities or countries. The world is already pretty homogenized. But for within cities it would be great. The main benefit of cites is to have a huge number of possible people to interact with and the projects (companies, museums, clubs, etc) those groups of people create. Supporting policies of making people waste time waiting, doing nothing useful, to control where and when they move around seems like a very misanthropic and authoritarian view of how the world should work.
dabbledash 9y ago
The objection to this line of thinking has to do with fairness. Time is much more evenly distributed than money.
- nwah1 9y ago
  But not all hours are equally valuable. Some people are able to be flexible. If people know that they will have to pay more for recreational activities during rush hour, they'll be more likely to plan those activities at other times, freeing up the road for people who need to commute.
rahimnathwani 9y ago
"Congestion pricing is one of the most economically literate ways to improve traffic" It depends how it's implemented. In London, it is a flat fee for the entire day, rather than based on time spent driving within the charging zone, or on distance. More importantly, taxis, which drive around _all_ _day_ _long_ and thereby cause more congestion than private cars (which might be on the road for 1-2 hours) are exempt from the charge. Rich people benefit from London taxis, but neither the taxi drivers nor the passengers pay the congestion fee.
- romwell 9y ago
  How are taxis increasing congestion? One car making ten trips surely leads to less congestion than ten cars making one trip.
  - rahimnathwani 9y ago
    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 of time driving around in circles without any passengers, and without any destination. Private cars don't do that. So even if every taxi passenger journey is replacing a private car journey with the same start and end points, taxis still cause twice as much congestion.
    - ec109685 9y ago
      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.
      - rahimnathwani 9y ago
        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?

by nwah1 9y ago

bob_theslob646 9y ago

Not disagreeing with you about the economic point, but will kindly disagree with you in terms of spending. Let's just say New York does not have a great history of spending on infrastructure. A recent New York Times piece, mentioned that the price of labor on infrastructure projects is 5 times more expensive then anywhere else in the world. It just blows my mind that people in the NYC area are willing to put up with that type of congestion. Doesn't Sidewalk Labs( alphabet company) have an office in Manhattan? Where are they in terms of solving traffic problems?

nwah1 9y ago
I agree the costs are high. That is largely a result of the high cost of living. There's additional economically literate funding methods which account for that. For instance, when infrastructure is built, it causes surrounding land values and rents to rise. It is possible to use that rising value to pay for the infrastructure, via a special assessment. There is also an issue where the people with the worst infrastructure would be paying the most under congestion pricing, which means that it would be important to prioritize improvements to the most congested areas.
- morley 9y ago
  I'm not sure you read the article in question. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-... The costs aren't high because of cost of living, they're high because of cushy agreements with workers unions and construction companies, among a myriad other things.
  - nwah1 9y ago
    Interesting, thank you.
- tbihl 9y ago
  To further support your point, not only is it possible to use that added value to pay for infrastructure, but that's historically how it was done back when infrastructure projects had to be profitable (because they were private.) Today, the most similar thing might be the ski resort that is largely profitable because of the sale of slope-side condos.
Retric 9y ago
The NYC subway system is a great example of spending on infrastructure over it's history. NYC may not be efficient in terms of spending, but the results tend to be extremely valuable. Further, it's vastly more expensive to build a road inside a city than in the middle of nowhere. NYC's infrastructure is so extensive it's makes adding more incredibly difficult. That is then compounded by bureaucracy, corruption, and entrenched interests but not more so than most other large city's.

baldfat 9y ago

The only issue is when I had to run to Manhattan I jumped in my car and went either into a parking lot or just dropped something off. Still get charged for the Bridge Fees of $15!!! $15 to use the GWB and anything going to Long Island or NJ is ridiculous and Verrizano is $17 and that is the the highest cost for a bridge in the nation. GWB is a major interstate and you have to swing up to the Tapanzee or go further north Fishkill Bridge to get lower fees. Now add the $11 fee and my cost is $26 just to drive to one place in Manhattan.

Simon_says 9y ago
Is that too high? Then kindly don't drive in Manhattan.
- yipbub 9y ago
  For clarity: perhaps emphasize the word drive.
- baldfat 9y ago
  $100 to commute a week isn't to high? When the train cost $27 round trip (off peak) or $38.50 (peak) it is a pain. Also if you have business in NYC you are stuck with either losing the whole day or half a day just to get there. Now Chicago, Atlanta and LA have bad traffic it doesn't cost you a hundred bucks to commute for a week.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > $100 to commute a week isn't to high? So move to the city and enjoy a shorter (and cheaper) commute. Of course, since you're currently living 50 miles outside the city, the increase in rent would be much more than $100, so you're still enjoying the cheaper end of the bargain. > Now Chicago, Atlanta and LA have bad traffic it doesn't cost you a hundred bucks to commute for a week. With parking, you could easily pay that much in other U.S. cities. In addition, they all have pretty terrible options for public transit compared to New York, so I'm not really keen on using them as a reference point.

turc1656 9y ago

Yes, it's not unlike surge pricing or any sort of increased pricing found for any product/service in the face of increased demand and constant supply. However, I find these types of situation to be different. These are supposed to be public roads, usable by anyone with a license as long as they obey the state laws governing the operation of a motor vehicle. Now NYC wants to add an additional charge to each and every ride through it's most populated region? Seems unfair, especially to those who make less. Some might argue that those in the lower incomes probably don't have cars in a city like NYC or even live in Manhattan at all due to it's cost. And they may be right. But it's also a matter of principle. Seems immoral to me to charge people to use what they are already taxed for multiple times (direct gas tax and some form if income/property tax is used to pay for road maintenance). It also seems especially unfair to tax them to use what is essentially a public good that is already paid for. The tax is simply to incentivize a specific activity (i.e. not driving in Manhattan). Should we also tax everyone who walks through the streets of Mid-town? Those streets are insanely crowded and I hate being there. Maybe we should tax anyone walking on sidewalks? Yes, they would be paying with time instead of fees. But many people have time and not so much money and they would probably much rather give up their time instead because it's what they have in a relatively larger amount.

maxerickson 9y ago
The space a vehicle takes up is also essentially a public good. Your argument can probably be fairly recast as "everyone should have to pay equal costs in time if they want to use the road". And then never mind that a congestion charge is more predictable than sitting in congestion.
- turc1656 9y ago
  When I was down in Dallas, they have two parallel roadways - one which is the paid-for express version and one which is free. You can pay to get on the less-congested highway or choose to take the more congested, but free, highway. Maybe something like that for NYC would work? But with NYC's layout, I have no idea how that would work. Dallas has plenty of space to make that possible.

lazerpants 9y ago

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 schools in order to lessen the overcrowding of those schools? There are viable alternatives to paying (less in-demand schools), most lower income people are already not able to send their kids to in-demand schools for reasons of geography, and after all, parents choose to have children, they should pay for the services and infrastructure to support them. That example seems to essentially be the same as what is proposed for congestion pricing, with many parallel arguments. Why is congestion pricing okay when applying the same philosophy to other matters of public good isn't? (by the way, I'm a reluctant supporter of congestion pricing, and not of what I proposed for schools, but I struggle with why I believe one is okay and the other is not)

yipbub 9y ago
The report says "None of those fees should be charged, the task force said, until repairs are made to the public transit system." so it wouldn't be like they'd be "surge charging" a necessity like schools.
- lazerpants 9y ago
  True. Going into a little bit more detail of what I mentioned though, all of the high demand schools I know of have other nearby schools that are in low demand. Typically, the high demand school is in a wealthy neighborhood (let's say Brooklyn Heights), and the low demand school is in a bordering poorer neighborhood (Vinegar Hill). So, the city would not be surge charging for a necessity, just a preference for a high demand school. Likewise, most people would prefer to drive if they could, but the physical limitations of the system require that most people take public transport.
  - TuringK 9y ago
    >> just a preference for a high demand school Sometimes this is also a preference for safety, as I learned attending k-12 in NYC. And sometimes the safety isnt a result of bad students, but a result of the entire system just allocating more resources to some schools over others.

ben_jones 9y ago

While I agree in principle poor people are going to be hit by this the hardest and that's something that has to be taken into account in public policy.

herbturbo 9y ago
Poor people in NYC don't typically drive into Manhattan.
- yorby 9y ago
  How about the middle or upper-middle class? or is that considered poor nowadays...
berbec 9y ago
Actually, lower income people are likely to overwhelmingly gain from this plan. Poor people don't drive to Manhattan. The cost of parking and tolls puts it out of their reach. Therefor, this is funding which will be used to upgrade the transportation system they do use - the Subway. "The median household income of those with wheels is more than double that of those without - $85,000 compared with $40,630." [1] Do you really think someone who is "poor" can afford "UP TO 12 HOURS $31.25" [2] daily parking, when an unlimited Metrocard is $32 weekly? The commute would be shorter in the car, but with $150/week for parking, add tolls and the cost of insuring/maintaining a car, I do not see congestion pricing being a poor tax. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/opinion/editorials/manhattan-congestion-pricing-traffic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/opinion/editorials/manhat... 2: grabbed from one major garage site. not the end-all pricing, but it's close http://www.rapidparknyc.com/daily-parking-nyc-garage-rates-Midtown-East.cfm http://www.rapidparknyc.com/daily-parking-nyc-garage-rates-M...
thescriptkiddie 9y ago
I find it hard to believe that a congestion charge is going to disproportionately affect the poor, especially in Manhattan. The majority of New Yorkers — and a supermajority of Manhattanites — do not own a car. Those who do own cars have incomes nearly twice as high as those who don't. Only 5.8% of commuters to Manhattan arrive by single-occupancy vehicle. https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/04/21/a-reminder-pricing-car-trips-to-fund-transit-is-progressive-policy/ https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/04/21/a-reminder-pricing-ca...

cobookman 9y ago

The rich aren't effected and the poor are. The poor also can't afford to live near work & public transit. As that comes in at a premium. So this ends up not impacting the rich, but drastically hurts the poor.

ebikelaw 9y ago
These statements have no relationship to reality. In real New York, the only 3% of households in the lowest income quintile own a car. "The poor" are overwhelmingly reliant on walking, biking, buses, subways, and trains. Car ownership rates are strongly correlated with income. The only income bracket for which the bare majority of households own a car is $500000/year or higher, a group of people who can easily afford to pay a few bucks to drive over a bridge. And still, half of those people are sensible enough to see that they don't need a car in New York.
electricslpnsld 9y ago
> The poor also can't afford to live near work & public transit. Transit in New York City (and the tristate area as a whole) is very robust -- I seriously doubt most blue collar workers in Manhattan are driving in and parking for work.

njarboe 9y ago

I think most people would support congestion pricing, if all the money collected went to building more road capacity. The people paying to get a fast trip now would be seen (and actually be) supporting faster trips for everyone in the future. Right now it just builds more resentment toward the 1%. Unfortunately this situation is not really possible today as places that so congested to want to use congestion pricing of roads cannot build any more (very expensive and politically impossible). If Musk's Boring company works out and congestion pricing on freeways in LA would pay for new tunnels, I think everyone would be on-board with it.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dionidium 9y ago
This is directly in opposition to the goals of congestion pricing. Traffic engineering has some not-so-intuitive principles. Adding capacity, for example, increases congestion through a mechanism known as induced demand. We don't want to create more demand for private cars in Manhattan, so your suggestion supports an anti-goal.
- njarboe 9y ago
  Adding more capacity does not cause more congestion. That is not what the studies around induced demand state. Building more capacity allows more trips (obvious right) because, since there is less congestion or it is quicker to get somewhere, people will travel more. If you believe that people making trips by car is intrinsically immoral, then building more capacity for car trips is a bad idea. I rather think that traveling around in a car costs money and time, even if the roads are not jammed, so people won't generally just drive around for now reason. Being restricted on where and when to travel due to clogged travel paths is not a public good to strive for. People calling out "induced demand" anytime someone proposes building more capacity for on-demand point-to-point travel is just blinded by an ideology they probably don't even know they follow. Would you be against instant teleportation at low dollar, environmental and energy cost from point-to-point? I might be if used between cities or countries. The world is already pretty homogenized. But for within cities it would be great. The main benefit of cites is to have a huge number of possible people to interact with and the projects (companies, museums, clubs, etc) those groups of people create. Supporting policies of making people waste time waiting, doing nothing useful, to control where and when they move around seems like a very misanthropic and authoritarian view of how the world should work.

dabbledash 9y ago

The objection to this line of thinking has to do with fairness. Time is much more evenly distributed than money.

nwah1 9y ago
But not all hours are equally valuable. Some people are able to be flexible. If people know that they will have to pay more for recreational activities during rush hour, they'll be more likely to plan those activities at other times, freeing up the road for people who need to commute.

rahimnathwani 9y ago

"Congestion pricing is one of the most economically literate ways to improve traffic" It depends how it's implemented. In London, it is a flat fee for the entire day, rather than based on time spent driving within the charging zone, or on distance. More importantly, taxis, which drive around _all_ _day_ _long_ and thereby cause more congestion than private cars (which might be on the road for 1-2 hours) are exempt from the charge. Rich people benefit from London taxis, but neither the taxi drivers nor the passengers pay the congestion fee.

romwell 9y ago
How are taxis increasing congestion? One car making ten trips surely leads to less congestion than ten cars making one trip.
- rahimnathwani 9y ago
  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 of time driving around in circles without any passengers, and without any destination. Private cars don't do that. So even if every taxi passenger journey is replacing a private car journey with the same start and end points, taxis still cause twice as much congestion.
  - ec109685 9y ago
    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.
    - rahimnathwani 9y ago
      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?