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I said “Getting rid of most of the cars and putting people on trains does wonders for peak throughput.” That is clearly an entirely different proposal than “con

I said “Getting rid of most of the cars and putting people on trains does wonders for peak throughput.” That is clearly an entirely different proposal than “congestion pricing”. The context was another comment criticizing congestion pricing as more or less a band-aid and advocating for increasing transportation throughput instead of trying to shift demand. I was agreeing with that comment and proposing radical changes to the transportation system as a way to increase throughput. Your nonsensical response was that replacing roads by trains wouldn’t actually increase throughput because people like car trips better. While it went without saying that this claim is wrong on its face (throughput of the transportation system is a property largely unrelated to passenger preferences), I furthermore disputed your claim that car trips are inherently better. Your follow-up here is a non sequitur. It is obvious that congestion pricing doesn’t get rid of most of the cars and switch them to trains, and that cities could remove cars from roads without anything to do with congestion pricing.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> I said “Getting rid of most of the cars and putting people on trains does wonders for peak throughput.” That is clearly an entirely different proposal than “congestion pricing”. That is not clearly an entirely different proposal than "congestion pricing". "Getting rid of most of the cars and putting people on trains" is exactly what congestion pricing proponents argue that it does. But doing it that way can't increase throughput because there is at most at one to one relationship between people deterred from driving and people who take the train. And in the context of a response to a comment criticizing congestion pricing, yours sounds like a comment defending it. > Your nonsensical response was that replacing roads by trains wouldn’t actually increase throughput because people like car trips better. My actual response was this: Getting people on trains by forcing them out of cars can't actually do that. If you make it more expensive/inconvenient/impossible to drive, at most the same number of people will take the train. In practice fewer will, because some of them will find jobs somewhere else or do their shopping somewhere else etc. So the combined throughput inherently goes down. The only way to get it to go up is to make something better instead of making something worse. All of which is still entirely true. If you want to increase throughput, don't make driving worse, make alternatives to driving better.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> I said “Getting rid of most of the cars and putting people on trains does wonders for peak throughput.” That is clearly an entirely different proposal than “congestion pricing”. That is not clearly an entirely different proposal than "congestion pricing". "Getting rid of most of the cars and putting people on trains" is exactly what congestion pricing proponents argue that it does. But doing it that way can't increase throughput because there is at most at one to one relationship between people deterred from driving and people who take the train. And in the context of a response to a comment criticizing congestion pricing, yours sounds like a comment defending it. > Your nonsensical response was that replacing roads by trains wouldn’t actually increase throughput because people like car trips better. My actual response was this: Getting people on trains by forcing them out of cars can't actually do that. If you make it more expensive/inconvenient/impossible to drive, at most the same number of people will take the train. In practice fewer will, because some of them will find jobs somewhere else or do their shopping somewhere else etc. So the combined throughput inherently goes down. The only way to get it to go up is to make something better instead of making something worse. All of which is still entirely true. If you want to increase throughput, don't make driving worse, make alternatives to driving better.