4 ms·

Operating as designed. If you have a car, you can already afford purchase/lease, insurance, registration, fuel, maintenance, etc., so affording a reasonable an

by 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/
  - kazinator 1y ago
    You're not trying to argue that random selection for a benefit is unfair, compared to selecting for people who are willing to pay? About appointments, there could be a very simple website where you punch in your license plate, hit Enter, and see a calendar with all your days highlighted, for the next 6 to 12 months. There could be some flexibility in the system. Everyone gets a small number of tokens (which expire: must be used in a year or something) that provide a free pass on any day whatsoever. You use those for those situations like getting a sudden appointment that couldn't be planned around the regular system (e.g. someone canceled and you were next on the waitlist, and the time is the time). The token system could be automatic in fact. You just drive to the city on an off day when you aren't supposed to, and your "ding count" increments by one. On the same website where you punch in your plate number to get a schedule, you can see the number of dings against your license plate. (The system wouldn't have to track all license; just ones that triggered a ding.) (Not sure about the privacy implications. Someone who enters your plate number and sees a ding count knows that your car has been to the city sometime in the past few months on an unassigned day. If that's something you need to hide from someone, then maybe just don't go by car on those days.)
    - toss1 1y ago
      I agree adding exemption tokens or 'ding count' is a good idea. But YES, I am arguing: 1) random selection creates both substantial unfairness and cost on people who through no fault of their own have schedule issues, when compared to a modest congestion toll, 2) random selection creates widespread inconvenience for everyone especially when changes are made to 'tune' the amount of traffic; everyone needs to check if the new lottery numbers match their plates, vs just increasing prices at specific which will at most cost someone a few dollars extra if they don't check in advance, instead of a costly ticket 3) The lottery system would not help anyone who wants to commute in everyday, since they would be banned on whatever days they are banned. In contrast, the cost system is trivial for one-off trips, but a significant cumulative cost to people who want to use cars in the congested zone every day. The one-off trips are not the problem, the GOAL is to reduce habitual trips. The toll system addresses that most specifically and gives no advantage to two-car households, whereas a lottery is basically a free pass to two-car households to continue congesting. Having a lottery system with ~4 free passes per month may solve some of these, but at the cost of a lot of additional tracking and overhead. Still thinking basic economics is a good solution here. More ideal in some ways would be a sliding per-visit scale (e.g., scaling by some exponent per visit per month...), but again likely not worth the overhead.

by toss1 1y ago

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/
- kazinator 1y ago
  You're not trying to argue that random selection for a benefit is unfair, compared to selecting for people who are willing to pay? About appointments, there could be a very simple website where you punch in your license plate, hit Enter, and see a calendar with all your days highlighted, for the next 6 to 12 months. There could be some flexibility in the system. Everyone gets a small number of tokens (which expire: must be used in a year or something) that provide a free pass on any day whatsoever. You use those for those situations like getting a sudden appointment that couldn't be planned around the regular system (e.g. someone canceled and you were next on the waitlist, and the time is the time). The token system could be automatic in fact. You just drive to the city on an off day when you aren't supposed to, and your "ding count" increments by one. On the same website where you punch in your plate number to get a schedule, you can see the number of dings against your license plate. (The system wouldn't have to track all license; just ones that triggered a ding.) (Not sure about the privacy implications. Someone who enters your plate number and sees a ding count knows that your car has been to the city sometime in the past few months on an unassigned day. If that's something you need to hide from someone, then maybe just don't go by car on those days.)
  - toss1 1y ago
    I agree adding exemption tokens or 'ding count' is a good idea. But YES, I am arguing: 1) random selection creates both substantial unfairness and cost on people who through no fault of their own have schedule issues, when compared to a modest congestion toll, 2) random selection creates widespread inconvenience for everyone especially when changes are made to 'tune' the amount of traffic; everyone needs to check if the new lottery numbers match their plates, vs just increasing prices at specific which will at most cost someone a few dollars extra if they don't check in advance, instead of a costly ticket 3) The lottery system would not help anyone who wants to commute in everyday, since they would be banned on whatever days they are banned. In contrast, the cost system is trivial for one-off trips, but a significant cumulative cost to people who want to use cars in the congested zone every day. The one-off trips are not the problem, the GOAL is to reduce habitual trips. The toll system addresses that most specifically and gives no advantage to two-car households, whereas a lottery is basically a free pass to two-car households to continue congesting. Having a lottery system with ~4 free passes per month may solve some of these, but at the cost of a lot of additional tracking and overhead. Still thinking basic economics is a good solution here. More ideal in some ways would be a sliding per-visit scale (e.g., scaling by some exponent per visit per month...), but again likely not worth the overhead.