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>. 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. D

by 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.
  - AnthonyMouse 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. And then you pay more for lower quality, because if you have to buy it in a specific location there is less competition and they know it. And paying more for lower quality is how you reduce overall transaction volume. You have to use the coffee shop next to your office, not the one you actually prefer, so either it's somewhat worse for you or it's sufficiently worse the transaction doesn't even happen. > Obviously you don't stop in the middle for it. That is a ridiculous strawman. It's the exact thing that people in cars actually do, to their advantage. > 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. This is all about marginal costs and competition. There is a place you love to go for lunch, but it's three miles from where you work and you don't have a long enough lunch break to walk there and back. There are six places right across the street that aren't as good. No car and no frequent mass transit and your choice becomes patronizing the worse closer place or brown bagging it. Either of those is worse, and at scale they cause the better place to go out of business because they had been better by leveraging volume into a cost advantage that paid for higher quality at the same price. And the reduction in competition allows the worse place to get even worse or more expensive. > 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. The infrastructure is a sunk cost and the environmental impact should be handled with fuel taxes, so the only remaining externality is congestion. Which you're already paying for with your time. Congestion pricing is just the rich taxing the poor off of the publicly funded roads so that they can express their strong preference for time over money, without making the changes necessary to make people choose alternatives voluntarily. > 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. If everyone wins then why wouldn't people have chosen it to begin with? Because it's a regressive tax that generates perverse incentives. Today you make $50,000 working in the city. Introduce congestion pricing and you would have to pay $5,000 in congestion fees a year, so you take a $40,000/year job somewhere else because all the extra $10,000 would now be going to state and federal taxes and congestion charges. But finding a new job is a cost for you just to break even, and a cost for your employer to replace you and potentially have to move out of the city due to the cost, and a cost for the government which has just lost tax revenue on the extra $10,000 in income. And there is no guarantee the result is even less transportation. You could have to take a job which is twice as far in the other direction but avoids the congestion zone and then burn twice as much fuel and spend twice as long commuting. > On the other hand, maybe it encourages employers in the city to pay more to offset the costs. That's good too. On the other hand, maybe it encourages employers in the city to lay off their employees and close up shop, because the employees can't afford the congestion charge and the employer can't afford to pay them more. And if they do pay more, then they may have to raise prices. > 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. Or you can build more housing without parking and there are fewer cars running around, and then you don't need congestion pricing.

by imgabe 8y ago

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.
- AnthonyMouse 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. And then you pay more for lower quality, because if you have to buy it in a specific location there is less competition and they know it. And paying more for lower quality is how you reduce overall transaction volume. You have to use the coffee shop next to your office, not the one you actually prefer, so either it's somewhat worse for you or it's sufficiently worse the transaction doesn't even happen. > Obviously you don't stop in the middle for it. That is a ridiculous strawman. It's the exact thing that people in cars actually do, to their advantage. > 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. This is all about marginal costs and competition. There is a place you love to go for lunch, but it's three miles from where you work and you don't have a long enough lunch break to walk there and back. There are six places right across the street that aren't as good. No car and no frequent mass transit and your choice becomes patronizing the worse closer place or brown bagging it. Either of those is worse, and at scale they cause the better place to go out of business because they had been better by leveraging volume into a cost advantage that paid for higher quality at the same price. And the reduction in competition allows the worse place to get even worse or more expensive. > 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. The infrastructure is a sunk cost and the environmental impact should be handled with fuel taxes, so the only remaining externality is congestion. Which you're already paying for with your time. Congestion pricing is just the rich taxing the poor off of the publicly funded roads so that they can express their strong preference for time over money, without making the changes necessary to make people choose alternatives voluntarily. > 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. If everyone wins then why wouldn't people have chosen it to begin with? Because it's a regressive tax that generates perverse incentives. Today you make $50,000 working in the city. Introduce congestion pricing and you would have to pay $5,000 in congestion fees a year, so you take a $40,000/year job somewhere else because all the extra $10,000 would now be going to state and federal taxes and congestion charges. But finding a new job is a cost for you just to break even, and a cost for your employer to replace you and potentially have to move out of the city due to the cost, and a cost for the government which has just lost tax revenue on the extra $10,000 in income. And there is no guarantee the result is even less transportation. You could have to take a job which is twice as far in the other direction but avoids the congestion zone and then burn twice as much fuel and spend twice as long commuting. > On the other hand, maybe it encourages employers in the city to pay more to offset the costs. That's good too. On the other hand, maybe it encourages employers in the city to lay off their employees and close up shop, because the employees can't afford the congestion charge and the employer can't afford to pay them more. And if they do pay more, then they may have to raise prices. > 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. Or you can build more housing without parking and there are fewer cars running around, and then you don't need congestion pricing.