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Congestion will creep back up, just like it has in London. Unless they really price it to deter people, they'll just drive. In London it's cheaper to pay the

Congestion will creep back up, just like it has in London. Unless they really price it to deter people, they'll just drive. In London it's cheaper to pay the £15 charge than to get two adults return tickets on the tube from the outer suburbs. Once you factor in comfort, convenience, reliability and practicality of your private car Vs London's public transport it's obvious why more and more people just pay the fee to drive. If they really wanted to stop congestion they'd increase the fee from £15 to something like £150-250 a day. But they won't do that because then hardly anyone would pay it and they'd lose the revenue.

bravesoul2 1y ago
Thinking the same thing. Sydney has a lot of tolls but not for congestion. More as an additional tax really. Doesn't stop people using cars. What probably does is pedestrian streets and less parking making it a PITA to drive vs get a bus.
AnthonyMouse 1y ago
> Congestion will creep back up, just like it has in London. This is actually a good point, because of the nature of what causes congestion. It's that governments don't do the things that prevent it (e.g. allowing higher density housing construction to shorten commutes or adding capacity to both mass transit and road systems), until the congestion gets really bad. So when you first introduce congestion pricing, congestion goes down, because of course it does -- increase the cost of something and you get less of it. But then, why do any of the other things that address congestion until it gets really bad again? So population grows over time or existing infrastructure decays and doesn't get replaced because it isn't "needed" yet. Until congestion is as bad as it ever was, but now people are living with a new mass surveillance apparatus and paying a regressive tax.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > governments don't do the things that prevent it (e.g. allowing higher density housing construction to shorten commutes or adding capacity to both mass transit and road systems), until the congestion gets really bad This is Manhattan. We tax the living shit out of parking, are actively converting driving space to bike lanes, and have multiple efforts to reduce or potentially even eliminate street-side parking in the congestion zone.
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> If they really wanted to stop congestion they'd increase the fee from £15 to something like £150-250 a day. But they won't do that because then hardly anyone would pay it and they'd lose the revenue This is nobody-goes-there-it’s-too-crowded logic. If there is congestion despite a charge, you can make more money by raising the price until there is less congestion.
- mattlondon 1y ago
  They don't raise the price to deter people. Because the reality is it is a money-making scheme so they price it just right so that most people will pay it. If they really cared about stopping congestion they'd raise the price. This would very very very simple for them to do. But then they lose a major source of revenue. As a result it is clear that they don't care about reducing congestion. It's basically a toll now, because it has not reduced congestion in the long term. I deeply suspect NYC will be the same once the realisation creeps in that the fee isn't really that much to pay.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > the reality is it is a money-making scheme so they price it just right so that most people will pay it Not how a Laffer curve works [1]. Demand for almost everything is non-linear and usually somewhat logistic. Increasing the tariff by 20% doesn’t reduce demand by 17%. Being congested practically guarantees one can raise revenues by raising the charge. The limit on raising charges isn’t revenue concerns. It’s the politics of raising a use fee. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
    - mattlondon 1y ago
      I think you are missing the point and holding the laffer curve wrong here. The justification for the congestion charge in London was to reduce congestion, not raise revenue. The laffer curve says that as you increase the rate, the activity of the thing you are taxing decreases and so revenue decreases with it. So therefore if they increase the fee, congestion should decrease if you believe the laffer curve applies here. If they wanted to reduce congestion, just set the fee to the far right of the laffer curve and watch as congestion decreases (even if they raise no money as a result) But actually they have not reduced congestion at all in the long term. Instead they've optimised the fee for the peak or the "sweet spot" (t* in your linked article) where they can get the most money out of it, not decrease congestion the most. They've raised the fee to the point where there has been no change in behaviour/congestion, and they make the most amount of money they can. If they raise the fee more they start to reduce their revenue as congestion drops due to shifting to the right of the curve. They could very easily increase the fee and drive down congestion based on the laffer curve if that is what they really wanted, yet they don't. From this we can make the fairly strong assumption that this is not about reducing congestion , it's about extracting the optimum amount of money. Meanwhile congestion is basically the same as it was before the congestion charge was introduced, except now TfL get £15 per car per day as a nice bonus to fund the various vanity projects.

bravesoul2 1y ago

Thinking the same thing. Sydney has a lot of tolls but not for congestion. More as an additional tax really. Doesn't stop people using cars. What probably does is pedestrian streets and less parking making it a PITA to drive vs get a bus.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago

> Congestion will creep back up, just like it has in London. This is actually a good point, because of the nature of what causes congestion. It's that governments don't do the things that prevent it (e.g. allowing higher density housing construction to shorten commutes or adding capacity to both mass transit and road systems), until the congestion gets really bad. So when you first introduce congestion pricing, congestion goes down, because of course it does -- increase the cost of something and you get less of it. But then, why do any of the other things that address congestion until it gets really bad again? So population grows over time or existing infrastructure decays and doesn't get replaced because it isn't "needed" yet. Until congestion is as bad as it ever was, but now people are living with a new mass surveillance apparatus and paying a regressive tax.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> governments don't do the things that prevent it (e.g. allowing higher density housing construction to shorten commutes or adding capacity to both mass transit and road systems), until the congestion gets really bad This is Manhattan. We tax the living shit out of parking, are actively converting driving space to bike lanes, and have multiple efforts to reduce or potentially even eliminate street-side parking in the congestion zone.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> If they really wanted to stop congestion they'd increase the fee from £15 to something like £150-250 a day. But they won't do that because then hardly anyone would pay it and they'd lose the revenue This is nobody-goes-there-it’s-too-crowded logic. If there is congestion despite a charge, you can make more money by raising the price until there is less congestion.

mattlondon 1y ago
They don't raise the price to deter people. Because the reality is it is a money-making scheme so they price it just right so that most people will pay it. If they really cared about stopping congestion they'd raise the price. This would very very very simple for them to do. But then they lose a major source of revenue. As a result it is clear that they don't care about reducing congestion. It's basically a toll now, because it has not reduced congestion in the long term. I deeply suspect NYC will be the same once the realisation creeps in that the fee isn't really that much to pay.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > the reality is it is a money-making scheme so they price it just right so that most people will pay it Not how a Laffer curve works [1]. Demand for almost everything is non-linear and usually somewhat logistic. Increasing the tariff by 20% doesn’t reduce demand by 17%. Being congested practically guarantees one can raise revenues by raising the charge. The limit on raising charges isn’t revenue concerns. It’s the politics of raising a use fee. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
  - mattlondon 1y ago
    I think you are missing the point and holding the laffer curve wrong here. The justification for the congestion charge in London was to reduce congestion, not raise revenue. The laffer curve says that as you increase the rate, the activity of the thing you are taxing decreases and so revenue decreases with it. So therefore if they increase the fee, congestion should decrease if you believe the laffer curve applies here. If they wanted to reduce congestion, just set the fee to the far right of the laffer curve and watch as congestion decreases (even if they raise no money as a result) But actually they have not reduced congestion at all in the long term. Instead they've optimised the fee for the peak or the "sweet spot" (t* in your linked article) where they can get the most money out of it, not decrease congestion the most. They've raised the fee to the point where there has been no change in behaviour/congestion, and they make the most amount of money they can. If they raise the fee more they start to reduce their revenue as congestion drops due to shifting to the right of the curve. They could very easily increase the fee and drive down congestion based on the laffer curve if that is what they really wanted, yet they don't. From this we can make the fairly strong assumption that this is not about reducing congestion , it's about extracting the optimum amount of money. Meanwhile congestion is basically the same as it was before the congestion charge was introduced, except now TfL get £15 per car per day as a nice bonus to fund the various vanity projects.