8 ms·

That's the cost of having a functioning society. I don't have kids, yet I still pay school taxes because even though I'm not participating in that particular as

That's the cost of having a functioning society. I don't have kids, yet I still pay school taxes because even though I'm not participating in that particular aspect of society, I still benefit from it. Public biking infrastructure wouldn't be possible without the roads and right-aways we already have for cars and pedestrians; someone only using a mile of roadway on their daily commute is benefiting from the entirety of the transportation infrastructure that everyone has been paying into equally despite their level of use. The guy biking or even walking to work every day I'm sure orders food occasionally, buy groceries, pays for utilities, or otherwise participates in commerce, all of which require roads and vehicles. He's getting a massive benefit from something he doesn't directly use.

komali2 8y ago
I don't think your op was arguing against roads, I think they were more arguing that the cost algorithm is wonky for those roads - for some reason, people that chose the significantly more road- and space- and environmentally- damaging option of the SUV while on that road are paying the same to use it as the bicyclist.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  The cost structure of most roads is that the cost is in having them exist independent of how much they're used. Most of what causes road maintenance to be required is weather rather than traffic. Moreover, if you have an empty road that nobody is using, you can't save up the unused capacity and use it later. And as for the environmental damage, that is clearly the bailiwick of fuel taxes rather than congestion pricing. So the only thing congestion pricing could be good for is to reduce congestion, i.e. suppress demand. But you don't want to suppress demand -- you don't want people to stay home instead of patronizing local businesses etc. The problem isn't too much demand. Demand is good. The problem is insufficient supply. In some cases, particularly in suburban areas, when there isn't enough supply you can solve it by expanding the roads. In urban areas you typically end up with alternatives like increasing housing density near mass transit hubs, to shift the demand away from the roads because there isn't space to expand them. But in any case what you want isn't to eliminate the demand, it's to satisfy it somehow. Because once you have enough supply to satisfy the demand, you no longer have congestion.
  - imgabe 8y ago
    >. But you don't want to suppress demand -- you don't want people to stay home instead of patronizing local businesses etc. The problem isn't too much demand. Demand is good. The problem is insufficient supply. This is not a choice between people staying home and patronizing local businesses. People are not driving into the congestion zone in Manhattan during rush hour to patronize local businesses. They're going to work. They are going to go to work one way or another. You realize there are other options besides driving alone in a car and sitting at home, right? If people have to pay the full cost of driving by themselves, they might instead choose to carpool, take public transportation, bike, telecommute, or other options.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      > This is not a choice between people staying home and patronizing local businesses. People are not driving into the congestion zone in Manhattan during rush hour to patronize local businesses. Aren't they though? You drive to work, you stop at a coffee shop for a coffee and a muffin, you go to work, on the way home you stop somewhere and pick up dinner. The bus isn't going to stop at the coffee shop and wait there for you to get your coffee, and if you didn't drive in then you don't have your car at work to go anywhere on your lunch break either. > They're going to work. They are going to go to work one way or another. You realize there are other options besides driving alone in a car and sitting at home, right? Options that are worse, by definition, or they would already have chosen them. And one of those options is to not go to work -- you take a job closer to where you live at the cost of lower pay, because you've been priced out of the one you had before. That is not a social benefit. Compare this to improving the alternatives. Build more housing in the city, so that the density is higher, people don't have to travel such distances to begin with, and you can justify running buses and trains every ten minutes instead of every half hour. Which makes them quick and convenient enough that you can reasonably step off the bus to get a coffee and just catch the next one. Make things better instead of worse.
      - imgabe 8y ago
        Do you honestly believe people who take public transportation don't go to coffee shops? This is Manhattan we are talking about. You walk out of the subway...there's a coffee shop. You actually see it because it's on the walk from the subway to your office. You're not parking in an underground garage and getting directly into an elevator. You get your coffee before or after you get on the transportation. Obviously you don't stop in the middle for it. That is a ridiculous strawman. > you don't have your car at work to go anywhere on your lunch break either. Dude. Again. We are talking about downtown Manhattan, not some suburban office park. Nobody needs to drive anywhere for lunch. There are hundreds of places to get lunch within walking distance. > Options that are worse, by definition, or they would already have chosen them. They are worse because you are currently able to offload the negative externalities of your driving onto everyone else. Now that you have to pay for those, you can weigh the true cost of driving vs. the cost of other options. > And one of those options is to not go to work -- you take a job closer to where you live at the cost of lower pay, because you've been priced out of the one you had before. That is not a social benefit. That's fine. How is that not a social benefit? If it encourages people to find work closer to home, that means less transportation, less pollution. Everyone wins. On the other hand, maybe it encourages employers in the city to pay more to offset the costs. That's good too. >Compare this to improving the alternatives. Build more housing in the city, This is not mutually exclusive. We can have congestion pricing and build more housing in the city. With fewer cars running around thanks to congestion pricing, that means we don't need as much parking, so there's more space to build housing. There you go.
- carapace 8y ago
  > I think they were more arguing that the cost algorithm is wonky for those roads The cost algorithm is wonky because the value algorithm is wonky. Actually, there IS no value algorithm. Even if the data were available (and it wasn't Big Brotherly for the gov to collect and keep it) there's no way to calculate the individual value extracted per person, it's NP-ish yeah?
  - entropicdrifter 8y ago
    All motor vehicles are already registered with the state. The dimensions of unmodified vehicles are already a matter of public record, easily looked up based on make and model. Seems to me that all you'd have to do is a simple cross-check of the person's vehicle size before charging them. Bikes and motorcycles would only need a separate fixed cost for each. Honestly, it seems like a pretty simple matter to look up a car's make and model from its license plate/EZ-Pass registration. You could do it on the spot before charging the toll. You could even just base it on the class of license you need to operate the vehicle, if you wanted to keep it very efficient.
    - carapace 8y ago
      All I'm saying is that it's not so easy to figure out how much value a person gets from the road system based on what vehicle they drive. For example, I ride a bike and don't own a car. Should I pay taxes to maintain a freeway I never use? What about the day that I get hit by a car and the ambulance takes that freeway to and from the hospital? Traffic is a problem, I agree. But to me congestion pricing seems like economic segregation. (In the example, should I be able to, say, pay an extra $100 and get priority lane scheduling?)
    - robocat 8y ago
      And that creates the social incentive to have a very large vehicle, because it indicates social status, because it costs more!
drstewart 8y ago
Your logic, as usual in the US, is predicated on cars being a de facto unassailable guarantee from God, and all other modes of transport being simply blessed to use them. You don't need a road for public biking infrastructure. The BEST public biking infrastructure doesn't come anywhere near a road.
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bparsons 8y ago
Subsidizing harmful and stupid behavior is the cost of living in a non-functioning society. There is nothing wrong with having road infrastructure to move people and goods between urban centres. There is however, a lot wrong with designing cities around the use of the most inefficient form of transportation, which increasingly looks like one person in a giant gas powered SUV or pickup truck going to work or the grocery store. There is a reason that cities with functioning political systems are tearing down urban freeways and moving toward narrower, human centred street design. These are highly desirable places to live, and people are clamoring to move to these communities. If you ever have the pleasure of riding on a properly funded and maintained rapid transit system (of which there are very few in the US), you will know that it is preferable to being stuck in traffic in a private vehicle.

komali2 8y ago

I don't think your op was arguing against roads, I think they were more arguing that the cost algorithm is wonky for those roads - for some reason, people that chose the significantly more road- and space- and environmentally- damaging option of the SUV while on that road are paying the same to use it as the bicyclist.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
The cost structure of most roads is that the cost is in having them exist independent of how much they're used. Most of what causes road maintenance to be required is weather rather than traffic. Moreover, if you have an empty road that nobody is using, you can't save up the unused capacity and use it later. And as for the environmental damage, that is clearly the bailiwick of fuel taxes rather than congestion pricing. So the only thing congestion pricing could be good for is to reduce congestion, i.e. suppress demand. But you don't want to suppress demand -- you don't want people to stay home instead of patronizing local businesses etc. The problem isn't too much demand. Demand is good. The problem is insufficient supply. In some cases, particularly in suburban areas, when there isn't enough supply you can solve it by expanding the roads. In urban areas you typically end up with alternatives like increasing housing density near mass transit hubs, to shift the demand away from the roads because there isn't space to expand them. But in any case what you want isn't to eliminate the demand, it's to satisfy it somehow. Because once you have enough supply to satisfy the demand, you no longer have congestion.
- imgabe 8y ago
  >. But you don't want to suppress demand -- you don't want people to stay home instead of patronizing local businesses etc. The problem isn't too much demand. Demand is good. The problem is insufficient supply. This is not a choice between people staying home and patronizing local businesses. People are not driving into the congestion zone in Manhattan during rush hour to patronize local businesses. They're going to work. They are going to go to work one way or another. You realize there are other options besides driving alone in a car and sitting at home, right? If people have to pay the full cost of driving by themselves, they might instead choose to carpool, take public transportation, bike, telecommute, or other options.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > This is not a choice between people staying home and patronizing local businesses. People are not driving into the congestion zone in Manhattan during rush hour to patronize local businesses. Aren't they though? You drive to work, you stop at a coffee shop for a coffee and a muffin, you go to work, on the way home you stop somewhere and pick up dinner. The bus isn't going to stop at the coffee shop and wait there for you to get your coffee, and if you didn't drive in then you don't have your car at work to go anywhere on your lunch break either. > They're going to work. They are going to go to work one way or another. You realize there are other options besides driving alone in a car and sitting at home, right? Options that are worse, by definition, or they would already have chosen them. And one of those options is to not go to work -- you take a job closer to where you live at the cost of lower pay, because you've been priced out of the one you had before. That is not a social benefit. Compare this to improving the alternatives. Build more housing in the city, so that the density is higher, people don't have to travel such distances to begin with, and you can justify running buses and trains every ten minutes instead of every half hour. Which makes them quick and convenient enough that you can reasonably step off the bus to get a coffee and just catch the next one. Make things better instead of worse.
    - imgabe 8y ago
      Do you honestly believe people who take public transportation don't go to coffee shops? This is Manhattan we are talking about. You walk out of the subway...there's a coffee shop. You actually see it because it's on the walk from the subway to your office. You're not parking in an underground garage and getting directly into an elevator. You get your coffee before or after you get on the transportation. Obviously you don't stop in the middle for it. That is a ridiculous strawman. > you don't have your car at work to go anywhere on your lunch break either. Dude. Again. We are talking about downtown Manhattan, not some suburban office park. Nobody needs to drive anywhere for lunch. There are hundreds of places to get lunch within walking distance. > Options that are worse, by definition, or they would already have chosen them. They are worse because you are currently able to offload the negative externalities of your driving onto everyone else. Now that you have to pay for those, you can weigh the true cost of driving vs. the cost of other options. > And one of those options is to not go to work -- you take a job closer to where you live at the cost of lower pay, because you've been priced out of the one you had before. That is not a social benefit. That's fine. How is that not a social benefit? If it encourages people to find work closer to home, that means less transportation, less pollution. Everyone wins. On the other hand, maybe it encourages employers in the city to pay more to offset the costs. That's good too. >Compare this to improving the alternatives. Build more housing in the city, This is not mutually exclusive. We can have congestion pricing and build more housing in the city. With fewer cars running around thanks to congestion pricing, that means we don't need as much parking, so there's more space to build housing. There you go.
carapace 8y ago
> I think they were more arguing that the cost algorithm is wonky for those roads The cost algorithm is wonky because the value algorithm is wonky. Actually, there IS no value algorithm. Even if the data were available (and it wasn't Big Brotherly for the gov to collect and keep it) there's no way to calculate the individual value extracted per person, it's NP-ish yeah?
- entropicdrifter 8y ago
  All motor vehicles are already registered with the state. The dimensions of unmodified vehicles are already a matter of public record, easily looked up based on make and model. Seems to me that all you'd have to do is a simple cross-check of the person's vehicle size before charging them. Bikes and motorcycles would only need a separate fixed cost for each. Honestly, it seems like a pretty simple matter to look up a car's make and model from its license plate/EZ-Pass registration. You could do it on the spot before charging the toll. You could even just base it on the class of license you need to operate the vehicle, if you wanted to keep it very efficient.
  - carapace 8y ago
    All I'm saying is that it's not so easy to figure out how much value a person gets from the road system based on what vehicle they drive. For example, I ride a bike and don't own a car. Should I pay taxes to maintain a freeway I never use? What about the day that I get hit by a car and the ambulance takes that freeway to and from the hospital? Traffic is a problem, I agree. But to me congestion pricing seems like economic segregation. (In the example, should I be able to, say, pay an extra $100 and get priority lane scheduling?)
  - robocat 8y ago
    And that creates the social incentive to have a very large vehicle, because it indicates social status, because it costs more!

drstewart 8y ago

Your logic, as usual in the US, is predicated on cars being a de facto unassailable guarantee from God, and all other modes of transport being simply blessed to use them. You don't need a road for public biking infrastructure. The BEST public biking infrastructure doesn't come anywhere near a road.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

bparsons 8y ago

Subsidizing harmful and stupid behavior is the cost of living in a non-functioning society. There is nothing wrong with having road infrastructure to move people and goods between urban centres. There is however, a lot wrong with designing cities around the use of the most inefficient form of transportation, which increasingly looks like one person in a giant gas powered SUV or pickup truck going to work or the grocery store. There is a reason that cities with functioning political systems are tearing down urban freeways and moving toward narrower, human centred street design. These are highly desirable places to live, and people are clamoring to move to these communities. If you ever have the pleasure of riding on a properly funded and maintained rapid transit system (of which there are very few in the US), you will know that it is preferable to being stuck in traffic in a private vehicle.