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> Traffic in Manhattan is largely caused by drivers from other states and the state of New York has exactly one means to tax that behavior. Both of the suggest

> Traffic in Manhattan is largely caused by drivers from other states and the state of New York has exactly one means to tax that behavior. Both of the suggestions would actually address this. If you stop constraining housing construction in New York then more housing is created in New York and the people who work in New York could actually live there instead of commuting in from other states, which would consequently increase New York's tax base. If you eliminate fares for mass transit, they're equally removed for people commuting from out of state, who are meanwhile still doing business in New York as that's why they commute in, and are then subject to its other taxes the same as anyone else working there. Meanwhile disproportionately taxing people from outside of the jurisdiction is another disadvantage of congestion pricing, because it's taxation without representation and thereby creates a perverse incentive for the local government to use an inefficient system specifically because it taxes people without a voice in the relevant government. Notice that it gets passed first in New York (a city directly adjacent to state borders) and not e.g. Los Angeles or Houston. > many non-solutions to housing costs are predicated on the workers' glorious revolution happening first. There is still only one solution to housing scarcity even in the presence of the workers' glorious revolution. Those solutions tend to be something like "have the government build a lot of new housing" which, although not necessary (the market would do it if you'd just stop restricting people from building in most places), is fundamentally just a different proposal for doing the same thing the opponents don't want to be done in any way whatsoever. The problem with the housing market is high housing prices, which is the thing the opponents of building want to preserve. The problem with transit is congestion, which nobody wants and then it's a debate over how to solve the problem rather than a fight against people whose actual goal is for it not to be solved.

jakelazaroff 2y ago
> Meanwhile disproportionately taxing people from outside of the jurisdiction is another disadvantage of congestion pricing, because it's taxation without representation and thereby creates a perverse incentive for the local government to use an inefficient system specifically because it taxes people without a voice in the relevant government. Is it also “taxation without representation” when NJ Transit charges me a fare to go to New Jersey or to drive on the Turnpike? Infrastructure costs money and the people who use it should help pay for its upkeep and externalities.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > Is it also “taxation without representation” when NJ Transit charges me a fare to go to New Jersey or to drive on the Turnpike? Is it a tax, i.e. a fee charged by a government? Yes. Do you have a vote in that government, as a non-resident of New Jersey? No. It's taxation. Without representation. This why roads used in interstate travel are one of the few specifically enumerated powers of the federal government (the constitution calls them "post roads"), and funding them from general federal revenue rather than tolls is completely appropriate. > Infrastructure costs money and the people who use it should help pay for its upkeep and externalities. Infrastructure is dominated by fixed costs. Amortizing fixed costs per-use is economically inefficient because it deters productive uses whose value exceeds the (negligible) incremental cost but not the (sunk) amortized fixed cost. This operates to the extreme in the case of mass transit because the incremental cost of mass transit use is negative, since its use remove congestion from the roads. Paying people to use it would be an obvious perverse incentive, but paying for a collections infrastructure in order to deter people from using it instead of just making it free is an obvious own-goal.
  - evanelias 2y ago
    > Is it a tax, i.e. a fee charged by a government? Yes. That isn't the commonly-held definition of a tax. The key thing about taxes is that they are compulsory. Transit fares are purely usage-based, and therefore optional, as you aren't forced to use transit. Fares are not commonly considered to be "taxes" in anything I've ever read.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      They're taxes. Notice how your definition would also exclude all other taxes. Property taxes aren't taxes, just don't own property. Sales taxes aren't taxes, just don't buy anything subject to them.
      - evanelias 2y ago
        > your definition I'm literally repeating what it says in the Oxford English Dictionary. What are you citing that equates transit fares with taxes?
evanelias 2y ago
> If you stop constraining housing construction in New York Given that NYC's population density is already nearly double that of London, how exactly is housing construction being constrained in NYC? Housing is expensive in NYC because it's a popular place to live. > If you eliminate fares for mass transit, they're equally removed for people commuting from out of state If you make the subway free, that only helps for travel within NYC, but not for the portion of travel from out-of-state e.g. NJ Transit rail, NJ Transit bus, Port Authority's PATH subway. These are completely separate from the MTA. > Meanwhile disproportionately taxing people from outside of the jurisdiction is another disadvantage of congestion pricing, because it's taxation without representation Nonsense, this line of thinking assumes that everyone coming from out-of-state drives. I live in NJ, and am strongly in favor of congestion pricing, because I take public transit into NYC, and use public transit within NYC.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > how exactly is housing construction being constrained in NYC? Most of the existing tall buildings in NYC would be illegal to build today under the current zoning. You also can't build buildings in the other boroughs of the sort currently in Manhattan. The supply needed is relative to local demand, not relative to other cities. > Housing is expensive in NYC because it's a popular place to live. Housing is expensive because there is more demand than supply. This happens when there is high demand and increases in supply are constrained. Otherwise supply would respond to increased demand. > If you make the subway free, that only helps for travel within NYC, but not for the portion of travel from out-of-state e.g. NJ Transit rail, NJ Transit bus, Port Authority's PATH subway. These are completely separate from the MTA. If you make the subway free, you remove the fare associated with taking the subway, which is part of the cost of using mass transit. You could also remove the cost of the other mass transit. That might require you to do things at the federal level or in partnership with other states, but that doesn't mean it's something you can't do, it's just something you'd be doing in a different way. > I live in NJ, and am strongly in favor of congestion pricing, because I take public transit into NYC, and use public transit within NYC. You're in favor of congestion pricing because you don't pay it. This is unsurprising, right? It's the people who do pay it who are opposed, and that appears to be a majority of the people of NJ since the governor elected by the people of NJ is opposed, but then those people don't get a vote, which is the issue.
bobthepanda 2y ago
Removing fares does not actually move people out of cars into public transport because it is already cheaper than driving in most cases. This has been proven time and time again; where free transit is implemented, car usage does not decline, and surveys of people who switch indicate they mostly come from people walking and cycling. https://www.fastcompany.com/90968891/estonias-capital-made-mass-transit-free-a-decade-ago-car-traffic-went-up https://www.fastcompany.com/90968891/estonias-capital-made-m...
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > Removing fares does not actually move people out of cars into public transport because it is already cheaper than driving in most cases. Cheaper is relative. If transit costs $130/month and driving a car you already own costs an incremental $150/month but is $50 more convenient then you value the $50 in convenience over the $20 savings. If you eliminate the fares then the difference is $150 which is more than $50. Collecting the money via taxes rather than fares also allows the transit budget to be increased relative to the same cost burden on the local population because you don't have to pay for the collections infrastructure, which goes to the article's point about increasing service contributing to the solution as another alternative to congestion pricing. > This has been proven time and time again; where free transit is implemented, car usage does not decline, and surveys of people who switch indicate they mostly come from people walking and cycling. You're citing a study where the existing mass transit cost was only ~$20/month to begin with. Meanwhile their GDP increased by 50% over the period in question and the area underwent a shift in the location of employment away from the city. Having only a modest increase in car use against that context is evidence that it does work.
  - stouset 2y ago
    People are not frictionless utilitarian spheres that perfectly obey the laws of economics. We have data, and removing public transit fares is not an effective lever to move people out of cars and onto buses, trams, trolleys, and trains.
    - 2y ago

jakelazaroff 2y ago

> Meanwhile disproportionately taxing people from outside of the jurisdiction is another disadvantage of congestion pricing, because it's taxation without representation and thereby creates a perverse incentive for the local government to use an inefficient system specifically because it taxes people without a voice in the relevant government. Is it also “taxation without representation” when NJ Transit charges me a fare to go to New Jersey or to drive on the Turnpike? Infrastructure costs money and the people who use it should help pay for its upkeep and externalities.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> Is it also “taxation without representation” when NJ Transit charges me a fare to go to New Jersey or to drive on the Turnpike? Is it a tax, i.e. a fee charged by a government? Yes. Do you have a vote in that government, as a non-resident of New Jersey? No. It's taxation. Without representation. This why roads used in interstate travel are one of the few specifically enumerated powers of the federal government (the constitution calls them "post roads"), and funding them from general federal revenue rather than tolls is completely appropriate. > Infrastructure costs money and the people who use it should help pay for its upkeep and externalities. Infrastructure is dominated by fixed costs. Amortizing fixed costs per-use is economically inefficient because it deters productive uses whose value exceeds the (negligible) incremental cost but not the (sunk) amortized fixed cost. This operates to the extreme in the case of mass transit because the incremental cost of mass transit use is negative, since its use remove congestion from the roads. Paying people to use it would be an obvious perverse incentive, but paying for a collections infrastructure in order to deter people from using it instead of just making it free is an obvious own-goal.
- evanelias 2y ago
  > Is it a tax, i.e. a fee charged by a government? Yes. That isn't the commonly-held definition of a tax. The key thing about taxes is that they are compulsory. Transit fares are purely usage-based, and therefore optional, as you aren't forced to use transit. Fares are not commonly considered to be "taxes" in anything I've ever read.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    They're taxes. Notice how your definition would also exclude all other taxes. Property taxes aren't taxes, just don't own property. Sales taxes aren't taxes, just don't buy anything subject to them.
    - evanelias 2y ago
      > your definition I'm literally repeating what it says in the Oxford English Dictionary. What are you citing that equates transit fares with taxes?

evanelias 2y ago

> If you stop constraining housing construction in New York Given that NYC's population density is already nearly double that of London, how exactly is housing construction being constrained in NYC? Housing is expensive in NYC because it's a popular place to live. > If you eliminate fares for mass transit, they're equally removed for people commuting from out of state If you make the subway free, that only helps for travel within NYC, but not for the portion of travel from out-of-state e.g. NJ Transit rail, NJ Transit bus, Port Authority's PATH subway. These are completely separate from the MTA. > Meanwhile disproportionately taxing people from outside of the jurisdiction is another disadvantage of congestion pricing, because it's taxation without representation Nonsense, this line of thinking assumes that everyone coming from out-of-state drives. I live in NJ, and am strongly in favor of congestion pricing, because I take public transit into NYC, and use public transit within NYC.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> how exactly is housing construction being constrained in NYC? Most of the existing tall buildings in NYC would be illegal to build today under the current zoning. You also can't build buildings in the other boroughs of the sort currently in Manhattan. The supply needed is relative to local demand, not relative to other cities. > Housing is expensive in NYC because it's a popular place to live. Housing is expensive because there is more demand than supply. This happens when there is high demand and increases in supply are constrained. Otherwise supply would respond to increased demand. > If you make the subway free, that only helps for travel within NYC, but not for the portion of travel from out-of-state e.g. NJ Transit rail, NJ Transit bus, Port Authority's PATH subway. These are completely separate from the MTA. If you make the subway free, you remove the fare associated with taking the subway, which is part of the cost of using mass transit. You could also remove the cost of the other mass transit. That might require you to do things at the federal level or in partnership with other states, but that doesn't mean it's something you can't do, it's just something you'd be doing in a different way. > I live in NJ, and am strongly in favor of congestion pricing, because I take public transit into NYC, and use public transit within NYC. You're in favor of congestion pricing because you don't pay it. This is unsurprising, right? It's the people who do pay it who are opposed, and that appears to be a majority of the people of NJ since the governor elected by the people of NJ is opposed, but then those people don't get a vote, which is the issue.

bobthepanda 2y ago

Removing fares does not actually move people out of cars into public transport because it is already cheaper than driving in most cases. This has been proven time and time again; where free transit is implemented, car usage does not decline, and surveys of people who switch indicate they mostly come from people walking and cycling. https://www.fastcompany.com/90968891/estonias-capital-made-mass-transit-free-a-decade-ago-car-traffic-went-up https://www.fastcompany.com/90968891/estonias-capital-made-m...

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> Removing fares does not actually move people out of cars into public transport because it is already cheaper than driving in most cases. Cheaper is relative. If transit costs $130/month and driving a car you already own costs an incremental $150/month but is $50 more convenient then you value the $50 in convenience over the $20 savings. If you eliminate the fares then the difference is $150 which is more than $50. Collecting the money via taxes rather than fares also allows the transit budget to be increased relative to the same cost burden on the local population because you don't have to pay for the collections infrastructure, which goes to the article's point about increasing service contributing to the solution as another alternative to congestion pricing. > This has been proven time and time again; where free transit is implemented, car usage does not decline, and surveys of people who switch indicate they mostly come from people walking and cycling. You're citing a study where the existing mass transit cost was only ~$20/month to begin with. Meanwhile their GDP increased by 50% over the period in question and the area underwent a shift in the location of employment away from the city. Having only a modest increase in car use against that context is evidence that it does work.
- stouset 2y ago
  People are not frictionless utilitarian spheres that perfectly obey the laws of economics. We have data, and removing public transit fares is not an effective lever to move people out of cars and onto buses, trams, trolleys, and trains.
  - 2y ago