4 ms·

Elasticity of demand is not magic, so yeah, making something more expensive will likely reduce demand. While I have no doubt it is a success if you consider on

• ceejayoz 1y ago
  > Literally everything we buy and use in the city gets more expensive because of this law. Significantly? Aren't those delivery trucks spending a lot less time paying drivers to idle in traffic now?
  • timr 1y ago
    I don't know, but you don't have any evidence for that argument.
    • ceejayoz 1y ago
      I'm asking for evidence of your argument. We do have concrete evidence the buses, at least, are moving around faster.
      • timr 1y ago
        [flagged]
        • ceejayoz 1y ago
          You are making the following unsupported affirmative assertion. > Literally everything we buy and use in the city gets more expensive because of this law. I'd like to see evidence of it.
          • timr 1y ago
            Every delivery truck that comes into the city is charged a tax. It's not a matter of "evidence" -- it's how the law works. This cost is passed on to consumers. I didn't say "gets more expensive on net relative to some hypothetical other universe", because I can't possibly know that. You're the one making the argument that this universe is cheaper than that one. Prove it.
            • ceejayoz 1y ago
              Again, you said this: > Literally everything we buy and use in the city gets more expensive because of this law. If I buy a cup of coffee, and the cost of the coup goes from $0.05 to $0.10, but the cost of coffee goes down from $1.00 to $0.95, the thing I buy did not get more expensive. The components of its cost changed. The hot dog delivery truck paid a few extra bucks, averaged out over tens of thousands of hot dogs, and it spent less time stuck in traffic (saving gas and labor costs). This is not a large logical leap. You are arguing that this cannot possibly be the case, which is a large logical leap.
              • timr 1y ago
                > If I buy a cup of coffee, and the cost of the coup goes from $0.05 to $0.10, but the cost of coffee goes down from $1.00 to $0.95, the thing I buy did not get more expensive. The components of its cost changed. Great, prove it! You at least agree with me on how taxes work now, so it's up to you to prove that your convoluted tax mechanism actually makes things cheaper. Maybe you're right, and I look forward your evidence. Barring affirmative evidence for that argument, we should just go with the usual models for taxation that work for everything else, and assume that they end up raising costs for consumers.
    • arolihas 1y ago
      We know there's less congestion, which means less time delivery trucks are idling...
• bryanlarsen 1y ago
  The MTA has massive waste in absolute terms, but divide its budget by 5 million passengers per day and those numbers become much more reasonable. Money spent on the MTA benefits everybody, especially the poor.
  • timr 1y ago
    "Sure, Tammany Hall was corrupt, but the corruption was only a tiny amount per capita...and what a nice courthouse!"
    • rafram 1y ago
      Pointless strawman response. If you think the MTA's waste is in any way comparable to Tammany Hall, back that up with numbers.
      • timr 1y ago
        Just for starters: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-... > An accountant discovered the discrepancy while reviewing the budget for new train platforms under Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. The budget showed that 900 workers were being paid to dig caverns for the platforms as part of a 3.5-mile tunnel connecting the historic station to the Long Island Rail Road. But the accountant could only identify about 700 jobs that needed to be done, according to three project supervisors. Officials could not find any reason for the other 200 people to be there. > For years, The Times found, public officials have stood by as a small group of politically connected labor unions, construction companies and consulting firms have amassed large profits. > Trade unions, which have closely aligned themselves with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other politicians, have secured deals requiring underground construction work to be staffed by as many as four times more laborers than elsewhere in the world, documents show. > Construction companies, which have given millions of dollars in campaign donations in recent years, have increased their projected costs by up to 50 percent when bidding for work from the M.T.A., contractors say. > Consulting firms, which have hired away scores of M.T.A. employees, have persuaded the authority to spend an unusual amount on design and management, statistics indicate. This is literally what Tammany Hall did.
• dml2135 1y ago
  > Literally everything we buy and use in the city gets more expensive because of this law. Aruguable. It’s very possible that the time saved by not sitting in traffic will outweigh the congestion charge for delivery trucks (which is what I assume you’re referring to).
• CPLX 1y ago
  > 1) It's a regressive tax on everyone living here -- even if you never use a car. Literally everything we buy and use in the city gets more expensive because of this. That's an empirical question, you're going to have to prove it. The time saved by delivery drivers or contractors, for example, has value. If they can make more deliveries, or fix more elevators in the same day those services get cheaper. If the only downside is that the assistant patrol supervisor deputy liaison that would have driven to 1 Police Plaza takes the train instead it's clearly a net savings and economic improvement and makes everything we buy and use in the city cheaper. > 2) That same regressive tax is used to provide a lifeline for an exceptionally wasteful public organization (the MTA) that needs budget discipline, not additional funding. The MTA is chronically starved for cash and unable to do large scale long term projects because of unstable funding. If this policy, which as we saw above might well have literally zero aggregate economic downside, also builds more efficient transit, it's a virtuous circle of winning. > 3) (more minor) By definition, the point of this tax is to make it so that only rich people can drive. As the article notes, of course this is great if you're rich enough to afford it...but the article doesn't quote the people who can't now. Rich people can already drive. Now those rich people give money to transit for everyone else. Working people or people who need to drive (like those with a van full of stuff that needs to be somewhere) are able to do so much more efficiently and most likely face net lower costs. The "downside" is midly affluent people who do have cars and regularly drive in the central area take fewer trips or take the train a few more times instead. And the other downside is that the tens of thousands of assholes who've been abusing the city parking placard process for decades have to find another way to get to work like the rest of us.
  • timr 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • CPLX 1y ago
      If we're talking burden of proof then the only real one that matters is the popularity of the program. It's very clearly popular and a success, so here we are.
    • rafram 1y ago
• paulgb 1y ago
  > Literally everything we buy and use in the city gets more expensive because of this law. Congestion was already priced into all goods and services in NYC, it just came in the form of a deadweight loss (paying delivery workers / tradespeople / professionals to sit in traffic) instead of a tax that at least ostensibly will fund better transit.
  • timr 1y ago
    > Congestion was already priced into all goods and services in NYC I agree! > instead of a tax that at least ostensibly will fund better transit. Telling me that the money will be set on fire by a public organization with good intent doesn't convince me. What has happened here -- and mathematically, this has to be true, or it wouldn't work -- is that the city has taken what used to be the market cost of congestion, and set an artificial floor higher than that market. They then captured the difference as revenue. That's the fundamental argument against the assertion that traffic speed increases will offset the costs. It cannot be true, or people would choose to drive.
    • paulgb 1y ago
      > That's the fundamental argument against the assertion that traffic speed increases will offset the costs. It cannot be true, or people would choose to drive. I think the mistake you're making here is assuming that the value of driving and the cost of congestion are the same to every driver. For some people, driving is an elastic decision. They mode shift, or time shift to off-peak, or carpool, or combine errands in the city into one trip instead of multiple. For other people, driving is necessary. They'll benefit from fewer of the first type of person being on the roads during peak hours.
      • timr 1y ago
        No, I don't need to make assumptions about any of that. It's a complex interplay of factors (like any economic system), and everyone has their own reward function. I'm just saying that if the marginal driver were still choosing to drive, then the system wouldn't work at all. That seems tautological? The MTA has to set the price high enough above market that the reduction in demand is X%. Whether someone is driving because of speed, or comfort, or some other factor, the cost has to exceed their personally calculated benefit.
• rafram 1y ago
  It's a max of $21 for a truckload of goods, and that's if they deliver during the day. It probably costs the shipper more than that when the driver stops at a gas station to use the bathroom. Obviously the numbers will vary significantly depending on what the vehicle is carrying, but a truckload of groceries might go for around $100,000 retail [1]. The congestion charge is 0.02% of that. > By definition, the point of this tax is to make it so that only rich people can drive. That's not true. There's a tax credit for low-income residents and a full waiver for disabled people. The average person who drives in Manhattan makes $130,000, 40% more than the average income in the city as a whole [2], so letting them do it for free (while creating negative externalities that we all bear) is just a handout to people who don't need it. [1]: https://selectliquidation.com/collections/grocery-liquidation/products/mixed-grocery https://selectliquidation.com/collections/grocery-liquidatio... [2]: https://fiscalpolicy.org/impact-of-payroll-mobility-tax-on-new-york-city-workers https://fiscalpolicy.org/impact-of-payroll-mobility-tax-on-n...
  • timr 1y ago
    > That's not true. There's a tax credit for low-income residents and a full waiver for disabled people. That's a fig-leaf argument. Yes, there's some theoretical tax credit that may or may not offset the costs for particular groups of people -- and it would be insane if they didn't exempt the disabled. But if the tax weren't causing the marginal driver to stop driving, it wouldn't work, by definition.
    • rafram 1y ago
      It's not a "theoretical" tax credit. Here's the application form: https://lidp.mta.info/ https://lidp.mta.info/ Congesting pricing has dual goals of reducing congestion and funding the MTA. Low-income drivers get a break on the charge, so they fund the MTA a little less than other drivers, but they're still less likely to drive than they were before, because it costs more now.
      • timr 1y ago
        It's theoretical in the sense that it requires that you apply for it, and hopefully you'll get your money back someday. (...poor people being notorious for having lots of time for precise accounting and follow through on government bureaucracy.)
• arolihas 1y ago
  Buddy if you are going to make an argument where you make statements, people are going to ask for evidence. You are making statements in the affirmative. So you also have to give proof as well. You are arguing the tax should be removed. Do you have proof that literally everything will become cheaper without this tax?
• maybelsyrup 1y ago
  > I'm just going to respond to the single point that everyone is making in one place, instead of repeating it: you don't just get to assert that the hypothesized "reduction in transit time" offsets the costs. You have to prove that argument. > You're the one arguing in favor of a new tax. It's not my job to prove the negative. You ok man? Like, respect for your passion on this issue but you’re also seething pretty hard about New York City having cleaner air and less traffic.
  • timr 1y ago
    I'm not seething, and I can assure you from the disgusting piles of city dust that accumulate in my apartment that the air is not cleaner in any way that matters to me.
    • ceejayoz 1y ago
      The difference might matter to your asthmatic neighbor. It's early to assess, but: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/11/upshot/congestion-pricing.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/11/upshot/conges... > The New York City health department’s readings of PM2.5, one air quality measure, improved citywide the first three months of this year compared with the same period in 2024. The improvement was more pronounced within the congestion zone, but it’s too early to attribute that to the program, or to know if that’s a lasting pattern, experts said. "My apartment still gets dusty" seems like a pretty desperate anti-congestion charge argument.
      • timr 1y ago
        I was not being serious, but as you've repeatedly said, there's no evidence for the argument you're making. A three-month change at the beginning of the year in PM2.5 is noise.
        • ceejayoz 1y ago
          I provided clear, reliably sourced evidence for it, while noting it's too early for that evidence to be conclusive yet. You've yet to provide any for your assertions. Just feels.
• 8note 1y ago
  as far as i can read, your argument is that traffic jams are impossible, because congestion acts as a dynamic cost function to keep the road at its highest utility, when the throughput is highest. unless you disagree with the that definition of the utility of the road? how do you explain phenomena like shockwave traffic jams, where otherwise high utility roads get sections of nearly stopped traffic. eg. https://youtu.be/Suugn-p5C1M?feature=shared https://youtu.be/Suugn-p5C1M?feature=shared in a closed system (30s of video) can you spend some time showing your work, and both propose and prove what the cost function of congestion is? then, it should be clear whether the government set cost is higher or lower, and under what conditions. id especially want to see the limiting behaviour - standstill traffic. my gur sense is that the cost of congestion should be going towards infinity, but im interested in how the constant value from the government is still higher.