6 ms·

If congestion pricing is not pegged on income or value of the car (both are tricky to implement), it is most likely a regressive tax. A flat low fee of 5-10 dol

by lalos 5y ago

If congestion pricing is not pegged on income or value of the car (both are tricky to implement), it is most likely a regressive tax. A flat low fee of 5-10 dollars will just remove low-income drivers from the street, making it more complicated for them to earn their necessary income to survive while having no impact on behavior of the higher income drivers.

AlexandrB 5y ago
It sounds like it's somewhat pegged to income, but not a lot of detail in the article: > There would be a base fee of $6.50 to enter the congestion pricing zone with eligible discounts based on income level. If you make more than $100,000 a year, you’d pay the full amount. Commuters who make less than $46,000 would not pay a fee.
bluGill 5y ago
Though if there is good public transit that doesn't matter, as it drives those people into the transit where they won't look back. Good is key here. Good means if you can drive there in half an hour (with traffic), then no matter when you leave your front door you can be there in 40 minutes or less. SF only has a few areas of good transit.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Even for cities with fairly good public transit, once you start making people driving into the city park on the outskirts somewhere and take one or two modes of public transit in to wherever they're going, many are just going to stop bothering if they can. (Though this mostly applies to non-commuting hours.) I do generally favor better pedestrian etc. experiences in city cores, but there is some tradeoff with making it more difficult for anyone who doesn't live near there.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    In general people are will willing commute up to half an hour each way to work. Some people do more of course, but the average person considered anything more than that unreasonable. So your point is wrong only because you are using a different definition of good public transit from me.
crowbahr 5y ago
The key to congestion pricing is to simultaneously increase your alternatives. If you're not killing off public parking, improving bus & bike lanes, or generally improving mobility citywide then you're just dinging drivers who have no choice. The goal of a congestion tax is to reduce congestion. That doesn't work if there's no other option.
- jsjsbdkj 5y ago
  Yeah I'm conflicted on the value of congestion pricing (which feels like a regressive tax on people who don't have the flexibiltiy to bike to work or live in a city center) versus pedestrianizing streets, increasing public transit, etc. to reverse induced demand. If we keep throwing money at giving more space to cars, people will keep choosing cars, and the cycle continues.
dnissley 5y ago
Aren't most low income drivers already removed from the street due to the price of parking + overhead of vehicle ownership?
- ghaff 5y ago
  Depends what the alternatives are. If the alternative to owning a clunker is not working, they'll probably find a way to manage a car somehow. (Certainly outside of a city core.)
  - dnissley 5y ago
    Aren't people taking public transit potentially low income drivers? Most people would own a car if they could afford it.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      In the US, outside of (some) fairly dense cities public transit isn't really a good option--at least not for everything--especially if you can't afford high rents.\ There certainly are US cities where I take transit rather than driving when I have the option. But not many of them.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>A flat low fee of 5-10 dollars will just remove low-income drivers from the street, making it more complicated for them to earn their necessary income to survive while having no impact on behavior of the higher income drivers.move low-income drivers from the street To most of the people making the decisions on this sort of thing the incentive you've described is a highly desirable side benefit if not directly the point.
egypturnash 5y ago
From the article: There would be a base fee of $6.50 to enter the congestion pricing zone with eligible discounts based on income level. If you make more than $100,000 a year, you’d pay the full amount. Commuters who make less than $46,000 would not pay a fee. Wish granted.
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
Why should we subsidize the food service industry so their workers can continue to live far away and drive to work - so non-poor people continue to pay more for other companies' workers? It's not like the majority of poor people driving around SF are joy-riding. They are mostly getting to and from low paying jobs (by definition of being poor, they are not driving to high paying jobs). So their companies can either pay them more and raise their prices accordingly - and the cost is paid by the people who use the service - or non-poor people can pay a higher congestion tax and we can socialize the cost on privatize the gains to the companies. Non-poor people don't take up more space, cause more noise, or pollute more.
Ericson2314 5y ago
It's OK to have individual regressive taxes as long as the result is net progressive. This doesn't incentive poorer people (including rideshare drivers??) at all from driving downtown which is fucked. NYC's congestion pricing won't have this guilty-liberal nonsense. A good example of getting this right is a Carbon Dividend. Fuck the poor over with fuel prices but shower them with cash even more. None of the poor net hurt then, and those that move near transit can come out extra ahead. As everyone does that, the payout shrinks but that's fine because the gas tax doesn't.
- orange_joe 5y ago
  I live in NYC, and lived in SF. NYC can have a congestion fee because car travel is essentially a luxury. All train lines within the affected area of the city run every 15 minutes or so overnight, and less than 10 during the day. The bus service is also extremely extensive. SF has nothing comparable. There are ~4 subway stops in downtown SF, vs 151 in manhattan (probably around 120-130 in the affected area). SF needs to right with density and transit to even begin considering something like this.
  - areyousure 5y ago
    Simply out of curiosity, I counted 91 stations in Manhattan in the proposed congestion pricing area below 60th street. (More precisely, I counted 60 stations outside the area.) More relevantly, congestion pricing has been proposed since (at least) 2007, and there are actually currently 0 stations in Manhattan in the congestion pricing area ... because there is no congestion pricing.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    Well first of all, there are busses. Congestion pricing should make the buses run absolutely better, and even more relatively better compared to cars. Maybe have some extra busses that turn around at the congestion zone border too for extra frequency. In the medium term, SF should be extending it's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtbahn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtbahn. The central subways is behind schedule as usual for bay area infra. They should dig the Geary subway cut and cover. Every time public transit improves, crank up the congestion pricing and expand the area it covers.

by lalos 5y ago

AlexandrB 5y ago

It sounds like it's somewhat pegged to income, but not a lot of detail in the article: > There would be a base fee of $6.50 to enter the congestion pricing zone with eligible discounts based on income level. If you make more than $100,000 a year, you’d pay the full amount. Commuters who make less than $46,000 would not pay a fee.

bluGill 5y ago

Though if there is good public transit that doesn't matter, as it drives those people into the transit where they won't look back. Good is key here. Good means if you can drive there in half an hour (with traffic), then no matter when you leave your front door you can be there in 40 minutes or less. SF only has a few areas of good transit.

ghaff 5y ago
Even for cities with fairly good public transit, once you start making people driving into the city park on the outskirts somewhere and take one or two modes of public transit in to wherever they're going, many are just going to stop bothering if they can. (Though this mostly applies to non-commuting hours.) I do generally favor better pedestrian etc. experiences in city cores, but there is some tradeoff with making it more difficult for anyone who doesn't live near there.
- bluGill 5y ago
  In general people are will willing commute up to half an hour each way to work. Some people do more of course, but the average person considered anything more than that unreasonable. So your point is wrong only because you are using a different definition of good public transit from me.

crowbahr 5y ago

The key to congestion pricing is to simultaneously increase your alternatives. If you're not killing off public parking, improving bus & bike lanes, or generally improving mobility citywide then you're just dinging drivers who have no choice. The goal of a congestion tax is to reduce congestion. That doesn't work if there's no other option.

jsjsbdkj 5y ago
Yeah I'm conflicted on the value of congestion pricing (which feels like a regressive tax on people who don't have the flexibiltiy to bike to work or live in a city center) versus pedestrianizing streets, increasing public transit, etc. to reverse induced demand. If we keep throwing money at giving more space to cars, people will keep choosing cars, and the cycle continues.

dnissley 5y ago

Aren't most low income drivers already removed from the street due to the price of parking + overhead of vehicle ownership?

ghaff 5y ago
Depends what the alternatives are. If the alternative to owning a clunker is not working, they'll probably find a way to manage a car somehow. (Certainly outside of a city core.)
- dnissley 5y ago
  Aren't people taking public transit potentially low income drivers? Most people would own a car if they could afford it.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    In the US, outside of (some) fairly dense cities public transit isn't really a good option--at least not for everything--especially if you can't afford high rents.\ There certainly are US cities where I take transit rather than driving when I have the option. But not many of them.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

>A flat low fee of 5-10 dollars will just remove low-income drivers from the street, making it more complicated for them to earn their necessary income to survive while having no impact on behavior of the higher income drivers.move low-income drivers from the street To most of the people making the decisions on this sort of thing the incentive you've described is a highly desirable side benefit if not directly the point.

egypturnash 5y ago

From the article: There would be a base fee of $6.50 to enter the congestion pricing zone with eligible discounts based on income level. If you make more than $100,000 a year, you’d pay the full amount. Commuters who make less than $46,000 would not pay a fee. Wish granted.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

Why should we subsidize the food service industry so their workers can continue to live far away and drive to work - so non-poor people continue to pay more for other companies' workers? It's not like the majority of poor people driving around SF are joy-riding. They are mostly getting to and from low paying jobs (by definition of being poor, they are not driving to high paying jobs). So their companies can either pay them more and raise their prices accordingly - and the cost is paid by the people who use the service - or non-poor people can pay a higher congestion tax and we can socialize the cost on privatize the gains to the companies. Non-poor people don't take up more space, cause more noise, or pollute more.

Ericson2314 5y ago

It's OK to have individual regressive taxes as long as the result is net progressive. This doesn't incentive poorer people (including rideshare drivers??) at all from driving downtown which is fucked. NYC's congestion pricing won't have this guilty-liberal nonsense. A good example of getting this right is a Carbon Dividend. Fuck the poor over with fuel prices but shower them with cash even more. None of the poor net hurt then, and those that move near transit can come out extra ahead. As everyone does that, the payout shrinks but that's fine because the gas tax doesn't.

orange_joe 5y ago
I live in NYC, and lived in SF. NYC can have a congestion fee because car travel is essentially a luxury. All train lines within the affected area of the city run every 15 minutes or so overnight, and less than 10 during the day. The bus service is also extremely extensive. SF has nothing comparable. There are ~4 subway stops in downtown SF, vs 151 in manhattan (probably around 120-130 in the affected area). SF needs to right with density and transit to even begin considering something like this.
- areyousure 5y ago
  Simply out of curiosity, I counted 91 stations in Manhattan in the proposed congestion pricing area below 60th street. (More precisely, I counted 60 stations outside the area.) More relevantly, congestion pricing has been proposed since (at least) 2007, and there are actually currently 0 stations in Manhattan in the congestion pricing area ... because there is no congestion pricing.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  Well first of all, there are busses. Congestion pricing should make the buses run absolutely better, and even more relatively better compared to cars. Maybe have some extra busses that turn around at the congestion zone border too for extra frequency. In the medium term, SF should be extending it's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtbahn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtbahn. The central subways is behind schedule as usual for bay area infra. They should dig the Geary subway cut and cover. Every time public transit improves, crank up the congestion pricing and expand the area it covers.