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The problem is that congestion pricing has always gotten _much_ more popular after implementation. Riding the wave of decisions made in the past would let curre

The problem is that congestion pricing has always gotten _much_ more popular after implementation. Riding the wave of decisions made in the past would let current politicians decide whether they wanted to blame others or take credit closer to the election. Now we just see a probably illegal power grab by an executive which kills a bunch of popular and needed projects while very publicly demonstrating that Democrats can’t fucking deliver.

PaulHoule 2y ago
In 2019 it split down the middle in NY state voters: https://scri.siena.edu/2019/03/18/2-3-of-voters-say-amazon-cancelling-queens-hq-bad-for-ny/ https://scri.siena.edu/2019/03/18/2-3-of-voters-say-amazon-c... More recently https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/poll-congestion-pricing-is-unpopular-but-so-is-hochul.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/poll-congestion-pric... they found 23% of people opposed the decision to suspend, and about 45% of voters supported it and that support was not very different for D's, R's and I's.
- kgermino 2y ago
  Notably all of those polls are before it's implemented (by definition, since has not and likely will not be implemented). But it's not a new concept, and it turns out that people like being able to drive easily, having quieter streets, and tax money for other services. Once you go from fear of the unknown to seeing the results a lot of policies get more popular and in every other example we have that absolutely applies to congestion pricing.
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    My RSS reader just showed me this: https://phys.org/news/2024-06-unpopular-political-affect-electoral-outcomes.html https://phys.org/news/2024-06-unpopular-political-affect-ele...
    - kgermino 2y ago
      Which seems to indicate that Democrats will face the heat for congestion pricing as long as it remains unpopular, right? And again, my point is that it will remain unpopular until it’s implemented, but it will almost certainly become popular once it’s put in place. All you’re saying is that they turned what would probably be a non-issue by the election into something that people will remember and be upset about. That seems like a horrible political strategy. I know I for one am much more likely to vote for a democracy supporting Republican (if they exist at this point) because of shit like this, and you’re articles says they won’t even get benefit from cancelling it
  - developerDan 2y ago
    This is what frustrates me so much about American politics. Fear is the primary driver and prevents so much from happening. If it causes problems we can, gasp, undo the changes. If the tolls actually cause more harm there is a dead simple solution of: stop charging them. Instead NYC wasted hundreds of millions of dollars for literally nothing because of fear.
    - PaulHoule 2y ago
      Not just the US. Look at how Germany took a generation to fulfill its promise to end nuclear power, waffled so many times, and came across as not taking its climate change and security commitments seriously in the end. It is not so much that I think they should have banned or not banned nuclear energy but that the process they went through to do it was damaging to legitimacy.
- dwallin 2y ago
  I don’t put much value in polling claims that don’t disclose how their question was phrased. The difference between slight differences in wording can be transformational. What this also doesn’t capture is how strongly people feel about these policies. It’s very easy for people to casually support the status quo.

PaulHoule 2y ago

In 2019 it split down the middle in NY state voters: https://scri.siena.edu/2019/03/18/2-3-of-voters-say-amazon-cancelling-queens-hq-bad-for-ny/ https://scri.siena.edu/2019/03/18/2-3-of-voters-say-amazon-c... More recently https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/poll-congestion-pricing-is-unpopular-but-so-is-hochul.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/poll-congestion-pric... they found 23% of people opposed the decision to suspend, and about 45% of voters supported it and that support was not very different for D's, R's and I's.

kgermino 2y ago
Notably all of those polls are before it's implemented (by definition, since has not and likely will not be implemented). But it's not a new concept, and it turns out that people like being able to drive easily, having quieter streets, and tax money for other services. Once you go from fear of the unknown to seeing the results a lot of policies get more popular and in every other example we have that absolutely applies to congestion pricing.
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  My RSS reader just showed me this: https://phys.org/news/2024-06-unpopular-political-affect-electoral-outcomes.html https://phys.org/news/2024-06-unpopular-political-affect-ele...
  - kgermino 2y ago
    Which seems to indicate that Democrats will face the heat for congestion pricing as long as it remains unpopular, right? And again, my point is that it will remain unpopular until it’s implemented, but it will almost certainly become popular once it’s put in place. All you’re saying is that they turned what would probably be a non-issue by the election into something that people will remember and be upset about. That seems like a horrible political strategy. I know I for one am much more likely to vote for a democracy supporting Republican (if they exist at this point) because of shit like this, and you’re articles says they won’t even get benefit from cancelling it
- developerDan 2y ago
  This is what frustrates me so much about American politics. Fear is the primary driver and prevents so much from happening. If it causes problems we can, gasp, undo the changes. If the tolls actually cause more harm there is a dead simple solution of: stop charging them. Instead NYC wasted hundreds of millions of dollars for literally nothing because of fear.
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    Not just the US. Look at how Germany took a generation to fulfill its promise to end nuclear power, waffled so many times, and came across as not taking its climate change and security commitments seriously in the end. It is not so much that I think they should have banned or not banned nuclear energy but that the process they went through to do it was damaging to legitimacy.
dwallin 2y ago
I don’t put much value in polling claims that don’t disclose how their question was phrased. The difference between slight differences in wording can be transformational. What this also doesn’t capture is how strongly people feel about these policies. It’s very easy for people to casually support the status quo.