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"suburbanites in Buffalo and Albany are not affected by the tax in any meaningful way, and should not have a disproportionate say in a policy that benefits mill
by dccoolgai 2y ago
"suburbanites in Buffalo and Albany are not affected by the tax in any meaningful way, and should not have a disproportionate say in a policy that benefits millions of city residents."
But it says in the article itself and pretty much everything about this that "they want to try it in other places next". Are they not supposed to read or react to that part? Can you really blame them for trying to stop this at the point they have the most leverage?
- afavour 2y ago> Can you really blame them for trying to stop this at the point they have the most leverage? Absolutely I can, yes. They can vote against it when it applies where they live, when it doesn’t it shouldn’t be any of their business. But hey, New York politics is extremely dumb.
- cool_dude85 2y agoSorry. First, congestion tax in Manhattan, one of the most densely populated areas in the US. Up next, congestion tax in downtown Syracuse? Come on.
- Auracle 2y agoTo be fair that’s pretty much how every tax starts and expands. A lot of us have a pretty big gut reaction to new taxes for something that used to be free for that reason. I live in Minnesota where we basically don’t have toll roads and I’ve been incredulous about how people aren’t more upset about the ones they have in other states/countries when I’ve travelled, as one example.
- shiroiushi 2y agoWhy should they be upset? Roads cost money to build, the land they're on has value, and the users should pay for all of that. Free roads are basically communism.
- Auracle 2y agoBecause you already pay a gas tax (granted, not for electric vehicles) - and because those tolls are almost always way more than required for the building and maintenance of the road.
- woodruffw 2y agoThis is, by definition, not a tax: if you don't want to pay a congestion toll for entering Manhattan's CBD by car, then don't enter the CBD by car. In a car dependent city, this could be fairly argued to be a regressive or punitive toll, but NYC (and especially Manhattan) is not car dependent. (And note: the "free" status quo exists only because the cost is hidden from you, i.e. the potential car driver into the CBD: you don't pay for the air and noise pollution, emergency service delays, deferred maintenance on mass transit, etc. that residents do. Factor those in, and free transit through one of the densest and most expensive cities in the world is a pretty gross subsidy.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- woodruffw 2y agoI don’t think “other places” means Buffalo or Albany, probably ever (unless either develops a transit network as mature as NYC’s). More realistically, suburbanites outside of Chicago, Philadelphia, etc. would have more to fear. But those people aren’t being polled.