3 ms·
Non-toll roadways are a common-pool resource with significant externalities. They invite overuse and push most of the harms of overuse on others (locals, pedes
by mlyle 3y ago
Non-toll roadways are a common-pool resource with significant externalities. They invite overuse and push most of the harms of overuse on others (locals, pedestrians, etc).
Congestion charges or tolls are a good way to put a price on the resource and make market mechanisms work.
Then the resources can be used for whatever produces the greatest benefit (and thus is willing to pay the most for use of the resource), and the tolls obtained can pay to address the externalities.
- seoulmetro 3y agoTolls are there to pay for the new roadwork(s) (and in some cases, line private company profits). Nothing more. Anything else is not effective, it's just prohibitive.
- mlyle 3y agoIt's good to have any scarce common resource be bid for, rather than giving it to whomever shows up first, is willing to wait longest, etc. If 150k people want to go, it's usually better that the 100k people who value the road the most get through quickly, instead of having a random 110k get through after a large traffic jam.
- seoulmetro 3y ago150k people wanting to go and being able to go is better than a quarter being forced to stay home, a quarter being forced to not go and another half being allowed to go. You seem to misunderstand the problem.
- mlyle 3y agoI understand basic economics just fine; but what you say seems to be orthogonal/not understanding what the common pool problem is. Market mechanisms allocate resources better than "whomever is willing to endure the worst conditions" does.
- seoulmetro 3y agoThis has nothing to do with market mechanisms. You can't look at and negotiate with the market to get to work cheaper.
- mlyle 3y agoIn many places, congestion pricing is dynamic and tries to keep roads at the highest throughput capacity. Here, it's a pseudo-static value chosen to try and push the roads to the highest throughput capacity. (There is some variation by time of day, but not by actual demand). It has a lot to do with market mechanisms. This is stuff that's within the capability of a high school student to perform a reasonable analysis about after a semester-long class.
- seoulmetro 3y agoI've never seen a toll road decrease in price because no one was using it. Wouldn't that be the easiest place to test congestion if "market played a role"? Car number go up, price go up. Bing bong. No, it might take a high schooler to read too much into it and pluck things out of thin air though. It's okay if you genuinely think prohibiting something is effective at providing people with more effective usage of that thing. You'll be wrong though.
- mlyle 3y ago> I've never seen a toll road decrease in price because no one was using it. Have you ever seen a city with congestion charge have all traffic vanish? :P > Car number go up, price go up. Bing bong As already mentioned by me, to you, above: there are lots of roads with dynamic pricing with this exact characteristic. But there's a tradeoff to be made between having a simple charge and by having fancy dynamic pricing. > It's okay if you genuinely think prohibiting something is effective at providing people with more effective usage of that thing. Charging for something != prohibiting. There's already a lot of costs driving into the city (including the opportunity cost of being stuck in traffic). Adding a charge can make driving cheaper for people who have a high value on driving (because they value their time).