14 ms·

> Evidence has mounted that the program so far is achieving its two main goals — reducing congestion It's reducing congestion by removing the people who don't

> Evidence has mounted that the program so far is achieving its two main goals — reducing congestion It's reducing congestion by removing the people who don't want to pay $9 to drive to town. Paying to be there: what a lovely concept! It works wonders for reducing density, too. Fewer people live in a desirable area, and they are richer and more pleasant, what are the downsides? Maybe it should not be linked to affordability; it should be a lottery, for fairness. For instance, if your license plate ends with certain numbers or letters (changing daily, and known months in advance for any given day), you don't get to drive into town. Knowing well in advance the days when your car is admissible into the city allows you to plan. E.g. reschedule certain appointments so they occur on an allowed day, or else make alternative transportation plans. Imperfections in lottery systems: - Not fair toward people who often have to drive to town for whatever reason: they drive everyday or many days out of the week or month. Still translates to an extra cost, like driving to some parking lot outside of the city core, paying for parking there, and then paying for transit into the city. This could be people who are not well off: they work some job in the city that is not well paid, and have to live far away. In America "have car" != "affluent". - Unfair advantage enjoyed by people who own multiple vehicles; we have not entirely eliminated pay-to-drive-here.

windowshopping 1y ago
Obviously we would like to have high quality public transportation that makes the city easily accessible to people of all economic classes. See European cities for examples. Our infrastructure isn't there yet. We are doing poorly. This is a first step. Yes, it will favor the wealthy for now. But its longterm effects will be to favor everyone. Stop being shortsighted. I don't believe that the ends always justify the means, but this is not a particularly horrible short-term sacrifice to make.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- kazinator 1y ago
  You're not explaining why my idea doesn't have long-term effects compared to the currently implemented idea, only arbitrarily calling it short-sighted. Or do you mean that declining any opportunity for a rent-seeking cash-grab is categorically short-sighted? I can accept that.
toss1 1y ago
Operating as designed. If you have a car, you can already afford purchase/lease, insurance, registration, fuel, maintenance, etc., so affording a reasonable and variable toll is not an issue. If your need to take that vehicle into that zone at that specific time is so great, a $9 toll will not be a deterrent, and if it is just convenience, then rearrange your schedule or transport mode to a time/mode that balances the cost and convenience. Sure it sounds nice to have it done by lottery system (e.g., plates with the rightmost numeral = "3" are banned next Tuesday), but that is much harder to tune and could present a far more serious impediment. Far easier to tune it with price: Tuesday mornings have an extra-high traffic spike, ok, "Fee increases to $11 Tuesdays 0:830-13:30". We want to get to 15% less traffic instead of 10%, now we need to say "plates with the rightmost numerals in the range '00'-'15' banned Tuesdays", etc. etc.. Every time they make a change, everyone must check... what a mess. And for people who MUST be there at a specific time, e.g., your cancer treatment center has only a Tuesday 10:20 AM slot for you, being banned because of a license plate is a real hardship, whereas an extra $2 toll is a trivial inconvenience compared to the reason for the trip.
- kazinator 1y ago
  > If you have a car, ... Sounds vaguely like, why are you begging, and why should I give you anything, if you can afford cigarettes? A lot of low-income Americans drive cars, and would be way more fucked without them, because of the way things are. > that is much harder to tune and could present a far more serious impediment. What impediment, and how is it harder to tune? In principle, you can tune the system to such a fine granularity that, for instance, one specific license plate is permitted to enter the city, every four years on February 29th. And that is no easier to declare than any other tuning, like alternating daily between two halves of the license plate space.
  - toss1 1y ago
    >>why are you begging, and why should I give you anything, if you can afford cigarettes? The expense profile of a motor vehicle in the USA in 2025 is quite different than cigarettes. And yes, if you are buying two packs per day of cigarettes, at $11.96 NY State average [0] you can skip one to drive into the congestion zone in congestion time. >> A lot of low-income Americans drive cars Yup. It is near-absolutely critical to have a car in rural America. But that is a long drive from Manhattan. How many of them NEED to drive cars into Manhattan during congestion periods? When I lived in Manhattan long before congestion pricing, I sold my car because it was such a hassle to have while living there. >>What impediment, and how is it harder to tune? In principle, you can tune the system to such a fine granularity that... I already provided such an example. There are many types of appointments that are very difficult to get, and adding the hassle of being ILLEGAL to drive your car on that particular day will be a real hardship, not a mere inconvenience. Sure, the city planners could tune any license plate scheme down to an individual vehicle, but only at the cost of a massive hassle to everyone involved. The general algo of "ya, it'll cost me to go during congestion times; oh woah, they just added $2 to the 11h-14h time slot" is waaay different from "I have a doctor appointment Tuesday, is the third character of my plate 4, 5, M, or N?...[runs out to look at plate]...damnit, I've got to change to... oh, no appointments for another seventeen weeks?... (real example from my own doctor)" The person who could have taken care of it for a $9 fee is now either seriously delayed or needs to pay $80 for an Uber. Meanwhile, you want to add all that burden to everyone to accommodate a population of low income people, near Manhattan, who want to drive their cars into the city on a regular basis. But they will NOT be able to do this to get to their job daily, so will still need to make other arrangements initially every other day anyway. This convinces me there is even less of a case for lottery allocation than even the first post. edit: add LF for formatting [0] https://boxprintify.com/how-much-do-cigarettes-cost/ https://boxprintify.com/how-much-do-cigarettes-cost/

windowshopping 1y ago

Obviously we would like to have high quality public transportation that makes the city easily accessible to people of all economic classes. See European cities for examples. Our infrastructure isn't there yet. We are doing poorly. This is a first step. Yes, it will favor the wealthy for now. But its longterm effects will be to favor everyone. Stop being shortsighted. I don't believe that the ends always justify the means, but this is not a particularly horrible short-term sacrifice to make.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
kazinator 1y ago
You're not explaining why my idea doesn't have long-term effects compared to the currently implemented idea, only arbitrarily calling it short-sighted. Or do you mean that declining any opportunity for a rent-seeking cash-grab is categorically short-sighted? I can accept that.

toss1 1y ago

Operating as designed. If you have a car, you can already afford purchase/lease, insurance, registration, fuel, maintenance, etc., so affording a reasonable and variable toll is not an issue. If your need to take that vehicle into that zone at that specific time is so great, a $9 toll will not be a deterrent, and if it is just convenience, then rearrange your schedule or transport mode to a time/mode that balances the cost and convenience. Sure it sounds nice to have it done by lottery system (e.g., plates with the rightmost numeral = "3" are banned next Tuesday), but that is much harder to tune and could present a far more serious impediment. Far easier to tune it with price: Tuesday mornings have an extra-high traffic spike, ok, "Fee increases to $11 Tuesdays 0:830-13:30". We want to get to 15% less traffic instead of 10%, now we need to say "plates with the rightmost numerals in the range '00'-'15' banned Tuesdays", etc. etc.. Every time they make a change, everyone must check... what a mess. And for people who MUST be there at a specific time, e.g., your cancer treatment center has only a Tuesday 10:20 AM slot for you, being banned because of a license plate is a real hardship, whereas an extra $2 toll is a trivial inconvenience compared to the reason for the trip.

kazinator 1y ago
> If you have a car, ... Sounds vaguely like, why are you begging, and why should I give you anything, if you can afford cigarettes? A lot of low-income Americans drive cars, and would be way more fucked without them, because of the way things are. > that is much harder to tune and could present a far more serious impediment. What impediment, and how is it harder to tune? In principle, you can tune the system to such a fine granularity that, for instance, one specific license plate is permitted to enter the city, every four years on February 29th. And that is no easier to declare than any other tuning, like alternating daily between two halves of the license plate space.
- toss1 1y ago
  >>why are you begging, and why should I give you anything, if you can afford cigarettes? The expense profile of a motor vehicle in the USA in 2025 is quite different than cigarettes. And yes, if you are buying two packs per day of cigarettes, at $11.96 NY State average [0] you can skip one to drive into the congestion zone in congestion time. >> A lot of low-income Americans drive cars Yup. It is near-absolutely critical to have a car in rural America. But that is a long drive from Manhattan. How many of them NEED to drive cars into Manhattan during congestion periods? When I lived in Manhattan long before congestion pricing, I sold my car because it was such a hassle to have while living there. >>What impediment, and how is it harder to tune? In principle, you can tune the system to such a fine granularity that... I already provided such an example. There are many types of appointments that are very difficult to get, and adding the hassle of being ILLEGAL to drive your car on that particular day will be a real hardship, not a mere inconvenience. Sure, the city planners could tune any license plate scheme down to an individual vehicle, but only at the cost of a massive hassle to everyone involved. The general algo of "ya, it'll cost me to go during congestion times; oh woah, they just added $2 to the 11h-14h time slot" is waaay different from "I have a doctor appointment Tuesday, is the third character of my plate 4, 5, M, or N?...[runs out to look at plate]...damnit, I've got to change to... oh, no appointments for another seventeen weeks?... (real example from my own doctor)" The person who could have taken care of it for a $9 fee is now either seriously delayed or needs to pay $80 for an Uber. Meanwhile, you want to add all that burden to everyone to accommodate a population of low income people, near Manhattan, who want to drive their cars into the city on a regular basis. But they will NOT be able to do this to get to their job daily, so will still need to make other arrangements initially every other day anyway. This convinces me there is even less of a case for lottery allocation than even the first post. edit: add LF for formatting [0] https://boxprintify.com/how-much-do-cigarettes-cost/ https://boxprintify.com/how-much-do-cigarettes-cost/