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I don't know about other cities, but to understand the strong political push back against congestion pricing in NYC requires a bunch of local context. Neither

I don't know about other cities, but to understand the strong political push back against congestion pricing in NYC requires a bunch of local context. Neither the rich+, nor the poor, nor the vast majority of the middle class regularly commute into Manhattan by car. The poor and the lower/middle middle class because parking is prohibitively expensive. The upper middle class and the rich because they either live in Manhattan or they'd rather take commuter rail than sit in traffic. To the extent the latter take ubers or similar such services already pay congestion charges and there isn't too much fuss (except from the drives who don't have much political muscle). The bulk of car commuters into Manhattan are instead those with de jure or de facto free parking. That's largely government workers (e.g. teachers, cops, firefighters) and members of the trades (i.e. construction workers). For those with de jure free parking congestion pricing isn't a big deal, whatever authority is setting aside parking will either pay the congestion charge or get it waived. It's the beneficiaries of police and traffic control refusal to enforce the law with respect to certain favored populations that are up in arms about congestion charges. Because a congestion charge is likely to be enforced by an automated mechanism which, unlike parking control, will not engage in public corruption on their behalf. And these groups, unlike the uber drivers, do have a great deal of political muscle. +At least the ordinary rich, hecto-millionaires and billionaires might be a different story

airstrike 8y ago
"Nobody drives a car in Manhattan cause traffic is just terrible!"
- gthaman 8y ago
  All kinds of excuses will be made to increase the taxes in this system where NO amount of money will add up to enough for this government. New York City in particular has a MEDICAL ONLY section of its pension benefits for city employees that adds up to $100 Billion. Medical, only. Not including pension payouts. Puerto Rico defaulted on $71 Billion worth of debt, which was all of it, just recently. This reckoning that is on its way is going to be epic. Nothing in NYC government makes a profit or operates properly without gigantic losses and pathetic performance in every metric when compared to the past city performance. This will be the Olympics of Mental Gymnastics.
  - cerebellum42 8y ago
    You might be entirely right for all I know, but your points don't actually support your claims... Why _would_ a city government make a profit? It's a government after all, not a business. Comparing Puerto Rico with a city with multiple times its inhabitants and many many times its economic power isn't exactly saying much either
  - gizmo686 8y ago
    NYC population: 8.6 million Puerto Rico population: 3.3 million NYC per capita GDP: 64000 Puero rico per capita GDP: 31000 Not to mention the brain drain from Puerto Rico, or there special status as an unicorporated territory (and resulting lack of political power)
curiousmiro 8y ago
> traffic control refusal to enforce the law with respect to certain favored populations Elaborate?
- jacques_chester 8y ago
  Other police, mostly, but also NYFD, teachers, pretty much anyone who puts an official-ish looking placard on their car. Or sometimes just some stickers from the various police quasi-unions in the tristate area.
- seibelj 8y ago
  The commenter didn’t spell it out for some reason, but he or she means family members and friends of city employees. They use various tricks to get free parking even though they shouldn’t, and as they aren’t official city employees they won’t get reimbursed for congestion fees and their scam will become more expensive.
jacques_chester 8y ago
For those outside NYC, it can be difficult to understand the sheer scale of this phenomenon ("placard abuse"). https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2018/12/28/streetsies-2018-placard-abuse-of-the-year/ https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2018/12/28/streetsies-2018-placa... https://twitter.com/placardabuse https://twitter.com/placardabuse
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Outside NYC, they probably never even heard of "placard abuse".
  - jacques_chester 8y ago
    Until I moved here, I hadn't heard of it. The lawlessness of law enforcement is striking. It's doubly galling when it's "courtesy" extended to non-police. A lot of officers can argue that they need to get to work and they need to park somewhere. Police cars also have to be parked somewhere. The City will need a carrot as well as a stick. But when it's stuff like "NYPD Family Member", I think only of collecting and sharing new four-letter expletives. That's just flat-out corruption.
    - devereaux 8y ago
      You should read about the "walk out of jail" cards that are made for each member, to be distributed to family members. There's a thriving secondary market for that.
- dmix 8y ago
  That top tweet of the police just casually harassing the placard guy for filming an officer’s car is very interesting. Particularly how the officer is using carefully chosen words “I’m giving you an order to show me your ID” to skirt the fact he had no legal right to demand his ID. So much of law enforcement abuse of power depends on intimidation and (most) people’s default reaction to trust their authority in all situations (which is also essential to their abuse of placards). I had a similar experience where police straight up lied about tenant laws during an eviction process of the, protecting the most awful and abusive tenant (who was a cocaine dealer) a family friend had to deal with. The family member was immediately willing to believe the police, and had another family friend not been a lawyer who was familiar with tenant law and knows very well from professional experience never to trust police outright. The result was saving the family over a thousand dollars (out of multiple thousand owed), as the timing of them leaving the property, which the police was attempting to mess with, was very important in the legal process of a later claim. The officer essentially conceded on the spot he had no legal grounds for what he had previously claimed with such confident authority, with plenty of weasel words, and just left.
cimmanom 8y ago
And the other people who drive into Manhattan are those who live outside the 5 boroughs. And since the MTA is controlled by the state rather than the city, their votes on the issue (and those of people who live nowhere near the city and never visit but can't conceive of using anything but a personal car for transportation) outnumber those of the city dwellers who are most impacted by the noise, pollution, and transit slowdowns caused by congestion.
nihonde 8y ago
I live in lower Manhattan. My feeling is that every vehicle other than delivery trucks should be banned from the city. There is no compelling reason for anyone to drive in Manhattan. If people are commuting into Manhattan, they should take public transit to and from parking lots in Brooklyn/Queens/New Jersey. You will never convince me that there are low income workers who need to drive in the city as an essential part of their livelihood. That’s just not a real thing here.
- miketery 8y ago
  Couln't agree more. Better for walk ability, can increase number of dedicated bus lanes, have express lines, and local van lines. With the density in new york, you could have these buses and vans running all day, it would give much better access to subways and importantly can alleviate subway needs at night (why run a train every 30 minutes with 8 nearly empty cars, if you can instead run 2 buses every 30 minutes, or a bus every 15 min). for buses Otherwise there will be clear roads to have a good bus system that can run express and local lines better, can start shutting down the subway for a few hours a day, and the bus should work just as well
- treis 8y ago
  >I live in lower Manhattan. My feeling is that every vehicle other than delivery trucks should be banned from the city. How do you expect to get your plumbing fixed?
  - nihonde 8y ago
    Expand my original post from “delivery trucks” to “small trucks/vans on demonstrable business”. Also, other than for major construction, no more semi-trucks in the city. And electric buses ASAP. They’re the loudest and dirtiest vehicles out here. And definitely no more tour buses. That would make this city soar in terms of places people want to live and visit.
    - jedberg 8y ago
      > And definitely no more tour buses. You do realize tourism accounts for a great deal of income for NYC, yes?
hopler 8y ago
If everyone who drives is opposed to congestion control, why is it even on the table?
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Eh? When has that been how we make laws? “If everyone who uses drugs is opposed to drug laws why are they on the table?” “If everyone who steals is against theft laws why do we have them?”
Spooky23 8y ago
There are also people who want to visit or do business in a particular part of Manhattan where the cost or other constraints of the train are a deterrent. NYC traffic really isn’t that bad anyway. Congestion pricing is all about revenue.

airstrike 8y ago

"Nobody drives a car in Manhattan cause traffic is just terrible!"

gthaman 8y ago
All kinds of excuses will be made to increase the taxes in this system where NO amount of money will add up to enough for this government. New York City in particular has a MEDICAL ONLY section of its pension benefits for city employees that adds up to $100 Billion. Medical, only. Not including pension payouts. Puerto Rico defaulted on $71 Billion worth of debt, which was all of it, just recently. This reckoning that is on its way is going to be epic. Nothing in NYC government makes a profit or operates properly without gigantic losses and pathetic performance in every metric when compared to the past city performance. This will be the Olympics of Mental Gymnastics.
- cerebellum42 8y ago
  You might be entirely right for all I know, but your points don't actually support your claims... Why _would_ a city government make a profit? It's a government after all, not a business. Comparing Puerto Rico with a city with multiple times its inhabitants and many many times its economic power isn't exactly saying much either
- gizmo686 8y ago
  NYC population: 8.6 million Puerto Rico population: 3.3 million NYC per capita GDP: 64000 Puero rico per capita GDP: 31000 Not to mention the brain drain from Puerto Rico, or there special status as an unicorporated territory (and resulting lack of political power)

curiousmiro 8y ago

> traffic control refusal to enforce the law with respect to certain favored populations Elaborate?

jacques_chester 8y ago
Other police, mostly, but also NYFD, teachers, pretty much anyone who puts an official-ish looking placard on their car. Or sometimes just some stickers from the various police quasi-unions in the tristate area.
seibelj 8y ago
The commenter didn’t spell it out for some reason, but he or she means family members and friends of city employees. They use various tricks to get free parking even though they shouldn’t, and as they aren’t official city employees they won’t get reimbursed for congestion fees and their scam will become more expensive.

jacques_chester 8y ago

For those outside NYC, it can be difficult to understand the sheer scale of this phenomenon ("placard abuse"). https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2018/12/28/streetsies-2018-placard-abuse-of-the-year/ https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2018/12/28/streetsies-2018-placa... https://twitter.com/placardabuse https://twitter.com/placardabuse

bilbo0s 8y ago
Outside NYC, they probably never even heard of "placard abuse".
- jacques_chester 8y ago
  Until I moved here, I hadn't heard of it. The lawlessness of law enforcement is striking. It's doubly galling when it's "courtesy" extended to non-police. A lot of officers can argue that they need to get to work and they need to park somewhere. Police cars also have to be parked somewhere. The City will need a carrot as well as a stick. But when it's stuff like "NYPD Family Member", I think only of collecting and sharing new four-letter expletives. That's just flat-out corruption.
  - devereaux 8y ago
    You should read about the "walk out of jail" cards that are made for each member, to be distributed to family members. There's a thriving secondary market for that.
dmix 8y ago
That top tweet of the police just casually harassing the placard guy for filming an officer’s car is very interesting. Particularly how the officer is using carefully chosen words “I’m giving you an order to show me your ID” to skirt the fact he had no legal right to demand his ID. So much of law enforcement abuse of power depends on intimidation and (most) people’s default reaction to trust their authority in all situations (which is also essential to their abuse of placards). I had a similar experience where police straight up lied about tenant laws during an eviction process of the, protecting the most awful and abusive tenant (who was a cocaine dealer) a family friend had to deal with. The family member was immediately willing to believe the police, and had another family friend not been a lawyer who was familiar with tenant law and knows very well from professional experience never to trust police outright. The result was saving the family over a thousand dollars (out of multiple thousand owed), as the timing of them leaving the property, which the police was attempting to mess with, was very important in the legal process of a later claim. The officer essentially conceded on the spot he had no legal grounds for what he had previously claimed with such confident authority, with plenty of weasel words, and just left.

cimmanom 8y ago

And the other people who drive into Manhattan are those who live outside the 5 boroughs. And since the MTA is controlled by the state rather than the city, their votes on the issue (and those of people who live nowhere near the city and never visit but can't conceive of using anything but a personal car for transportation) outnumber those of the city dwellers who are most impacted by the noise, pollution, and transit slowdowns caused by congestion.

nihonde 8y ago

I live in lower Manhattan. My feeling is that every vehicle other than delivery trucks should be banned from the city. There is no compelling reason for anyone to drive in Manhattan. If people are commuting into Manhattan, they should take public transit to and from parking lots in Brooklyn/Queens/New Jersey. You will never convince me that there are low income workers who need to drive in the city as an essential part of their livelihood. That’s just not a real thing here.

miketery 8y ago
Couln't agree more. Better for walk ability, can increase number of dedicated bus lanes, have express lines, and local van lines. With the density in new york, you could have these buses and vans running all day, it would give much better access to subways and importantly can alleviate subway needs at night (why run a train every 30 minutes with 8 nearly empty cars, if you can instead run 2 buses every 30 minutes, or a bus every 15 min). for buses Otherwise there will be clear roads to have a good bus system that can run express and local lines better, can start shutting down the subway for a few hours a day, and the bus should work just as well
treis 8y ago
>I live in lower Manhattan. My feeling is that every vehicle other than delivery trucks should be banned from the city. How do you expect to get your plumbing fixed?
- nihonde 8y ago
  Expand my original post from “delivery trucks” to “small trucks/vans on demonstrable business”. Also, other than for major construction, no more semi-trucks in the city. And electric buses ASAP. They’re the loudest and dirtiest vehicles out here. And definitely no more tour buses. That would make this city soar in terms of places people want to live and visit.
  - jedberg 8y ago
    > And definitely no more tour buses. You do realize tourism accounts for a great deal of income for NYC, yes?

hopler 8y ago

If everyone who drives is opposed to congestion control, why is it even on the table?

scarejunba 8y ago
Eh? When has that been how we make laws? “If everyone who uses drugs is opposed to drug laws why are they on the table?” “If everyone who steals is against theft laws why do we have them?”

Spooky23 8y ago

There are also people who want to visit or do business in a particular part of Manhattan where the cost or other constraints of the train are a deterrent. NYC traffic really isn’t that bad anyway. Congestion pricing is all about revenue.