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The only bad thing about this is it penalizes the poor. For the rich that charge means nothing and I am sure they love it due to less traffic. It is too bad t

• CPLX 2y ago
  It's literally the opposite of this. It takes money from the relatively well off, namely people who have cars and can afford to park them in Manhattan where a parking space costs ~$50+ a day on average, and sends it to the MTA who create rapid transit accessible to everyone and especially valuable to the poor. The arguments that this is a way to penalize poor people should be immediately seen for what they are, absolute bullshit and propaganda. The only real refinement to this is there's a large and vocal community of people in NYC who work for the city (mainly cops and firefighters) who aren't all that rich and get free parking, almost always via illegal or questionable means, through use of city placards and parking by police stations and so on. But there's literally no reason to reward those people for anything, they've been gaming the system for decades.
• Kerrick 2y ago
  Car-centric urban design penalizes the poor anyways. The total cost of ownership of a car reliable enough to get you to work on time (or an unreliable car plus the cost of alternative transportation when it fails) is quite large. I'm not one to let perfect be the enemy of good.
  • bko 2y ago
    A car is more expensive generally because it is a lot more convenient. We shouldn't aim to have everyone take a less convenient mode of transportation just so everyone is equally inconvenienced. We should try to lift the poorest among us. Try to make driving less expensive. Not sure why car insurance doubled in the last few years but that's one thing to look at, in addition to other car expenses.
    • softwaredoug 2y ago
      I would not consider a car in downtown Manhattan convenient.
      • bko 2y ago
        There are other cities other than Manhattan. This comment was about "car centric urban design". Obviously Manhattan is not car centric, so I'm not sure what your point is.
    • Taters91 2y ago
      I'd argue that cars are not more convenient in dense cities like New York. You have to find parking, you have to navigate traffic (pedestrian, car, and e-bike), and then you have to find gas stations. With public transportation, you don't need any of that. The only inconvenience is that sometimes where you're going is a bit of a walk. Car insurance is expensive, because cars cause a lot of damage and are easy to get damaged.
      • bko 2y ago
        Right, because New York is not car-centric (bike lanes, very dense, few gas stations) "Bit of a walk" is a nice way of saying it but in reality it means you are very limited with things like shopping. You're kind of stuck with the nearest walkable grocer. If you're luck enough to live by a cheap ones like Trader Joes, they are ridiculously crowded so you're paying in a different form. Or you can try your luck with Bodegas but they're often sell expired food, are overpriced and rarely have anything fresh . Then you're stuck with how much you can carry or try to use one of those granny pushers. Kids could be very difficult to wrangle as well and there are plenty of unpleasant things you have to explain to them or ignore. It's very dehumanizing My point is that having a car is nice and I want people to have nice things. They don't belong everywhere, like NY. But overall I don't understand this push to public transportation for the sake of public transportation.
        • wpm 2y ago
          > ut overall I don't understand this push to public transportation for the sake of public transportation. Then you maybe haven't spent too long thinking about it. Climate change is a big one. Microplastics from tire wear. Asthma rates in children. Obesity rates. Etc etc etc. Car centric design makes us poorer, fatter, less healthy. It makes our cities and towns poorer, less resilient, and uglier. I can go on.
  • robertlagrant 2y ago
    It also does the opposite: allows people who live in cheaper areas access to services not limited by the local area's average income. Your kid can go to a school further away or participate in a sports team or doctor or friend's house that isn't the local one.
    • trollbridge 2y ago
      It also allows low income people who live in low income areas (and thus cheaper rents) to access jobs in high income places. If transit were the same speed or faster than carpooling, it wouldn’t be nearly as significant. In NYC it is not.
    • seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      As a kid, I hated commuting 10+ miles to school everyday, and driving everywhere to get or do anything. Even when I got a car, it was a huge drag. Once I got to college, I was so happy to move to a tiny basement party near university so I could live a better life. When I lived in Beijing, everything was accessible by subway, but we also had a mall a couple of blocks away that had a grocery store in the basement. I chose this lifestyle for my kid, we walk to school in the morning, he's in 2nd grade of a K-8 but the highschool he will go to is about the same distance. He is now the opposite of me, wanting to drive places instead of walk...ugh.
    • danny_codes 2y ago
      So there’s these things called “trains” and “subways” and “buses” that let you get around without a car. Car dependency reduces the efficacy of public transit, so it actually does the opposite of what you say. If we didn’t build around cars you’d still have farther flung residential development. It’s just be close to a train stop so you could easily get around. There’s really no benefit to car dependency outside rural areas. Entirely a mistake with no benefits at all, because the alternative design that would have arisen without car dependency is better in every way.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  • jampekka 2y ago
    How is a toll urban design? Urban design would be something like turning roads into walking streets or turning car lanes into bike lanes. Those would reduce traffic and "penalize" people equally regardless of their wealth.
• jrockway 2y ago
  There is an income threshold where driving wasn't viable before. Parking is very expensive in the CBD. Fuel prices are not low. These users were taking public transit before, and now there is money to maintain transit from people that can't be bothered and must drive. While transit infrastructure isn't perfect and many areas are underserved, this doesn't really change that calculus that much. The Staten Island Ferry remains free. There are plenty of express bus routes for people with long commutes, and the express buses now move more quickly. (New Jersey seems to benefit most from this. Commuting on NJT to the Port Authority Bus Terminal is a shockingly common, but unloved, commuting pattern.)
• 9283409232 2y ago
  You will never charge enough money that it will hurt rich people. Take their money and use it to improve the subway. The way to get rich people on the subway is to improve quality.
  • mannyv 2y ago
    You will never get rich people on the subway because they value time, convenience, comfort, and privacy, four things the subway really doesn't provide.
    • estebank 2y ago
      It can provide the first 3 of those. And conflating "privacy" with "not being around people" is IMO inaccurate. Not learning how to be around people is also I think a driver of some larger societal issues.
    • ceejayoz 2y ago
      "A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation." Celebs on the subway isn't that unusual in NYC. https://www.eonline.com/photos/6722/stars-on-the-subway https://www.eonline.com/photos/6722/stars-on-the-subway
    • giaour 2y ago
      I haven't lived in NYC for about a decade, but the subway was the quickest and most convenient way to get from my home (lower Harlem) to my place of work (Flatiron district). Taking a taxi was more comfortable and private, but it took longer and was subject to the vagaries of traffic and cab availability.
    • jakelazaroff 2y ago
      Not at all true in NYC. Rich or poor, car owner or not, basically everyone takes the subway.
    • IncreasePosts 2y ago
      Have you ever been to NY? The subway is often the best way to get around the city, especially if you're in Manhattan.
• jncfhnb 2y ago
  The article suggests this isn’t true though. Reduced congestion is improving public transit. Making cars preferentially affordable for the poor isn’t ever going to work.
• tylerflick 2y ago
  > It is too bad the rates could not be set based upon the income level of the driver. Make it hurt for everyone. I wish traffic fines worked like this as well.
  • krunck 2y ago
    All financial fines should be this way.
  • redleader55 2y ago
    They do in some places - Finland and the UK, for example.
  • barbazoo 2y ago
    Germany does this for all kinds of punishments
  • potato3732842 2y ago
    Careful what you wish for. All sorts of fines and fees and many underpinning laws would evaporate overnight if the HN and up tax brackets got hit as hard by them as the people who are usually targeted for selective enforcement get hit (and they will because there will be huge revenue potential in doing so).
    • dataflow 2y ago
      Seems fine (no pun intended) as long as it's proportional to income, no? Plus a small fixed amount (maybe proportional to minimum wage?) so that nobody gets away for free. Ultimately fines should be based on time, not money. If your time is worth 3x someone else's then it only seems reasonable that you pay at least 3x as much. If they disproportionately turn that into 300x, yeah, higher income brackets might get mad. But that doesn't have to be the case.
      • potato3732842 2y ago
        I agree. But a heck of a lot of people are gonna be pissed off when petty stuff like rolling a stop or smoking where you shouldn't, fishing without a license, or being loudly drunk or other stuff that's on the order of low hundreds now stays low hundreds at the high end and just gets discounted for the poors. Sure, some things might get more expensive, bug a great many of the petty things will get a lot cheaper.
• brianvan 2y ago
  New York uses a graduated rate too.
• estebank 2y ago
  Poor people are not driving into Manhattan. Tradespeople who do, enjoy either more paying work during the day or faster commutes. As you point out, extremely wealthy people won't notice. The only people negatively affected are those moderately wealthy who are unwilling to pay the charge for improved times and highly dislike using public transport. It's the same people that will circle around a block for 20 minutes to get a free parking spot instead of going to a garage. Moving away from car centric urban spaces makes it better for everyone, including the poor. Owning a car shouldn't be a precondition to live in a society.
  • trollbridge 2y ago
    Public transit is difficult to use for eg tradespeople who bring a lot of tools on to the job and work at differing locations. Some such workers are not wealthy at all and are also carpooling to make it affordable to get into the city. (Yes, I know you could haul all your stuff on public transit; I’m simply observing that many workers choose not to and they probably have a good reason. Those of us whose tools are limited to a MacBook Air in a designer bag should hesitate to dictate how other people live.)
    • estebank 2y ago
      I explicitly call out how the reduced traffic benefits tradespeople driving their van: every minute they are not stuck in gridlock is a minute they can either bill for or a minute they can get home earlier. We're talking about the price of a sandwich here, at most.
      • trollbridge 2y ago
        Tradespeople don’t get to bill more just because their commute got shorter, and the people I’m talking about are common labourers who commute in a car to the job site and work for a foreman. I am simply pointing out that _many_ common labourers do indeed drive into the city.
  • CPLX 2y ago
    > The only people negatively affected are those moderately wealthy who are unwilling to pay the charge for improved times and highly dislike using public transport. The people really negatively affected and the ones screaming their heads off are city employees who scam free parking via dubious placards and parking illegally. It’s a whole NYC subculture which is hard to miss if you live here. That’s what Hochul was scared of, it’s what everyone is scared of since they’re often somewhat connected. But fuck those people.
• idbehold 2y ago
  How could the authority determine what rate to charge? How could they know your net-worth? What if you're rich but someone not rich is driving (a chauffeur)? I support not wanting a regressive tax, but there are just so many complications in trying to do that.
• RhysU 2y ago
  It is more expensive for the better off, due to the magic of progressive marginal tax rates. All post-tax expenses are.
• potato3732842 2y ago
  >It is too bad the rates could not be set based upon the income level of the driver. Make it hurt for everyone. Sitting in gridlock already does this. The more valuable your time the harder it hits.
  • autoexec 2y ago
    The time you spend with your loved ones is no more valuable than the time others spend with theirs.
• snarf21 2y ago
  I think Finland does this for speeding tickets and other fines. People pay based on their wages for days/hours of work.
• JohnTHaller 2y ago
  Unlike other areas of the US, the vast majority of poor NYC residents do not own a car. The majority of NYC households don't own a car. Car owners have about double the income of non-car owners. Of those that do own a car, the majority do not use it for commuting. If you haven't lived in NYC it's a bit weird to wrap your head around vehicle ownership vs public transportation here. The subways run 24/7. Manhattan, the borough with the highest income, has the lowest vehicle ownership at about 22%. Staten Island, the second richest borough, has the highest vehicle ownership at about 84%.
  • trollbridge 2y ago
    Low income workers in NYC don’t generally live in NYC at all, though. They commute in, and often via car with several other people, from places like New Jersey, and share costs like a parking spot. A typical parking spot is $500-$800. Spread amongst 4 workers, that’s “only” $125 a month, plus the tolls, fuel etc., and then is a significantly higher quality of life (mostly due to a shorter commute time) than trying to take public transit, particularly from places poor people live. (They could obviously use high occupancy vehicle lanes which makes a big difference going from NJ->NYC.) I used to park alongside quite a few people doing this. Everything from construction workers to people working in restaurants. Rents were much cheaper if they were willing to drive an hour.
    • danny_codes 2y ago
      So reducing car dependency is a huge boon then. Incentivizing investment in public transit would safe the save these commuters a lot of cash. You’re conflating short term change with long term change. In the long term reducing car dependency is hugely beneficial
      • autoexec 2y ago
        charging people more money to drive doesn't reduce car dependency, it just punishes the people who are forced to deal with the fact that they are dependent on cars.
• rco8786 2y ago
  Doing anything based on income adds a huge layer of complexity to the system. I think that's a bit of perfect being the enemy of good, personally. And while you're right about the charge itself being regressive in nature, the reality of NYC is that the vast, vast majority of poor people (and middle class people) are already taking public transit.
• rcpt 2y ago
  Poor people are riding the bus."congestion pricing is regressive" is the most tired bad faith argument out there. Here's a list of things that are worse: https://cityobservatory.org/ten-things-more-inequitable-that-road-pricing/ https://cityobservatory.org/ten-things-more-inequitable-that...
• giaour 2y ago
  By that logic, any policy that assigns a fixed price to a good or service penalizes the poor. Which is true but is just a roundabout way of saying that poverty penalizes the poor. Roads and signaling infrastructure are an expensive public good whose value is enjoyed unevenly. Attaching usage fees to public goods is never popular but makes sense when they are not limitless.
  • zouhair 2y ago
    Yes it is. For example a $100 parking ticket for someone surviving on minimum wage will wreck their finances for months (if they're lucky) but a rich person will take it like just a meaningless fee to park.
• zouhair 2y ago
  > The only bad thing about this is it penalizes the poor. That's the point of policies like this. It's always about penalizing the poor.
• EGreg 2y ago
  If you don't want to penalize the poor, then give a UBI funded by it. Alaska does that with its Permanent fund. Even Elon and Trump caught on, wanting to give 20% of the DOGE to people. That makes the program popular, and people say "more taxes, please!" In fact, maybe if they do it enough, they'll realize that funding a UBI with pigovian taxes is an economic and environmental policy miracle!
• sundaeofshock 2y ago
  The people pushing back the most in this are commuters from NJ who can afford the high cost of parking.
• tshaddox 2y ago
  I feel like we need better solutions for poor people than resisting congestion pricing. The problem with congestion is that zero people get to use congestion-free roads (including all the poor people who have little choice but to use the congested roads). It’s analogous to a movie theater that is free to enter, but with no capacity limits, so zero people have a good movie viewing experience. When you start charging for tickets, and only sell one ticket per seat, it’s true that the poorest people may get priced out. But I do still recommend that movie theaters sell tickets and limit capacity to prevent congestion.
  • amluto 2y ago
    Like this? https://www.nyc.gov/site/fairfares/index.page https://www.nyc.gov/site/fairfares/index.page I could even imagine a more program that allows a certain number of free rides per day.
• IncreasePosts 2y ago
  How many poor people do you think are driving into Manhattan frequently? What about the poor people who live in Manhattan, who are negatively affected by increased pollution from increased traffic in their neighborhoods? What about the poor people that will have better access to public transit, with the funding derived from the congestion zones?
• solatic 2y ago
  > it penalizes the poor I hate to break it to you, but congestion is primarily caused by "the poor", which is to say, the middle class, because the poor in cities are usually taking public transportation anyway. If a city is 50% poor, 40% middle class, and 10% wealthy (to pick arbitrary numbers), then the wealthy only comprise ~20% of the traffic on the road. You need significant reductions in traffic from the 80% of middle class drivers in order to significantly reduce congestion. If you reduce the congestion tax to make it easier for the middle class to afford, so that they can get on the road, then you haven't achieved anything.
• rsoto2 2y ago
  You're so off balance on here. How is safer public transit a penalty on the poor? If you're so concerned with the poor I hope you are pro making public transit free for low income residents. I doubt you are though.