4 ms·
The fact that tolls are now directly useful to the entire public must not be underappreciated. This is good news for everyone.
by 1970-01-01 11mo ago
The fact that tolls are now directly useful to the entire public must not be underappreciated. This is good news for everyone.
- RhysU 11mo ago[flagged]
- ch4s3 11mo agoIt’s a tariff on DRIVING in Manhattan, the place in America you least need to drive.
- RhysU 11mo agoYou have never tried to leave the city for the suburbs after 9 pm. Driving is still immensely useful, as I sit in my Uber on the way home.
- jonesetc 11mo agoThe $9 toll made it worth your money to Uber instead? Seems like your suburb isn't very far. Maybe a train could help you out.
- _bohm 11mo agoHow are you crashing out over a $9 toll while using a mode of transport that's (conservatively) 3x more expensive to commute just one way? Good grief lmao
- ch4s3 11mo agoIt sounds like the problem is living in the suburbs.
- anonymars 11mo agoShouldn't there be less traffic now?
- eutropia 11mo agoBuses got significantly more reliable as a result of reduced traffic, more ridership on subways allowed for more police presence at stations, reducing crime. Public transit got better.
- RhysU 11mo ago[flagged]
- afavour 11mo ago> Remember kids: congestion pricing is nothing but a tariff on transportation. On driving. And it actually makes driving more appealing, there’s much less traffic so you can get where you’re going much quicker. > Instead of making public transport more appealing through competition Like having multiple subway systems? NYC did that already.
- RhysU 11mo agoIt makes driving more appealing if one discounts the best alternative use of the funds, which humans are irrationally likely to do. That driving seems better is because people suck at thinking about what else they might do with the money given compound returns on its investment.
- itissid 11mo agoThis is also quantitatively correct because for two people coming in from afar you might change two trains or a bus and train and each ticket is at least 3.00$(bus/path from NJ) which is 24$ minimum both ways, with more than two it would make even more sense to take the car. Congestion pricing brings in a toll above the 16$ you pay throu the tunnel. I think it's 18, So 34$ total? So you are incentivized to get more than 2 people by car. Less traffic.
- jeffbee 11mo agoIn American English, tariff always means a fee that applies to international imports and exports. It doesn't apply here.
- scubbo 11mo ago> why isn't congestion pricing a tariff? Because tariffs are imposed on trade between countries. That was easy!
- Dylan16807 11mo ago"There is no such thing as a free lunch" is a very strong argument for tolls, I hope you realize. > everyone paying the tolls who now needs to engage in additional pollution-causing economic activity merely to offset the costs of government-mandated congestion pricing I don't think that's how economics work. People are already doing their best to generate money. Also even if that did happen, the thing you're describing as "pollution-causing" is GDP growth, which is overall desirable. > tariffs Whether a tariff is good depends on what the goal is (and whether it works toward that goal).
- RhysU 11mo agoIf people aren't working harder to offset the tolls then they're strictly poorer as a consequence of the toll.
- Dylan16807 11mo agoYou can say that about any tax. Which makes it extremely unconvincing as an argument against any particular tax, since in the long term money not collected from tax A will be collected from tax B. (And they have the option of not driving, too.)
- 8note 11mo agonot strictly. the pollution has gone down, for instance, reducing future health costs, and improving quality of life.
- Hammershaft 11mo agoPigouvian taxes are genuinely one of the few policies that really are nearly a free lunch in economics.
- RhysU 11mo ago[flagged]
- fwip 11mo agoA tariff is a tax on imports. Driving is not an import.
- smileysteve 11mo agoIronic that with a headline measuring a negative externality of driving that wasn't being priced in and you think transit got the artificial leg up.
- tomhow 11mo agoPlease don't fulminate or engage in ideological battle here. The topic is fine to discuss and disagree about, but HN is for curious conversation not indignation, and the guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. You've posted several ragey comments in a short space of time, and that's not the way HN is meant to be used. Please have a read of the guidelines and make an effort to observe them when participating here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- 8note 11mo agoits not a tariff because tariffs are taxes on imports. you arent paying a tax related to the value of the goods being brought over, and to the extent that new car buyers are importing cars, its neglible compared to what youre trying to draw equivalence to, trump's 30% or so tariffs. instead, its a toll or a usage tax. but also, you want the economic activity of having people in the city, not the cost of supporting their light trucks. people coming from outside of new york are very costly in terms of pollution, road maintenance, and losing real estate to parking spaces.
- afavour 11mo agoThe run up to their implementation was so deeply frustrating. The sheer number of disingenuous objections. And they’ve all been proven false.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> sheer number of disingenuous objections This is unfair. Nobody wants to pay more for anything. And many of the objections resulted in policy adjustments that made the programme better.
- afavour 11mo agoI didn’t say every objection was disingenuous, just that there was an incredible number of objections that were.
- tux1968 11mo agoI'm sure you're being honest about your intent, but a glancing read of your previous comment sounded categorical, to my ear at least, "And they've all been proven false."
- GreymanTheGrey 11mo agoAll of the disingenuous objections. The intent of the OP is very clear, imo.
- 5kh 11mo agoIt’s hard from reading what is written how it is intended. Written communication is hard since it doesn’t encapsulate tone, emphasis, and other cues. I read “all” in this case to mean: “most of the commonly espoused objections”.
- Hammershaft 11mo agoWhich objections lead to better policy?
- hammock 11mo agoThey better be. No one’s rooting for the smog, but a congestion tax is pretty regressive (hurts poorer people more)
- ashleyn 11mo agoWell, Mamdani wants to make transit free. Car taxes can probably help a lot to pay for that.
- jkaplowitz 11mo agoPartial correction: he wants to make buses free, but not subways.
- lmm 11mo agoNot in NYC where less than half the population has access to a car.
- knollimar 11mo ago2.90 is pretty accessible
- jkaplowitz 11mo agoThe 2.90 is even capped at $34 per week. Then there's the 50% discount for low-income NYC residents who qualify and apply for the Fair Fares NYC program, or for anyone regadless of residence who qualifies for reduced fares through age or a qualifying disability. Both of these numbers are changing in early January to $3 and $35 respectively, but same idea. Still, some European countries like Germany offer far cheaper than this, while others like the UK are probably pricer. NYC public transit gives very good value for the US at least.
- seanmcdirmid 11mo agoThis mostly commuters and tradesmen. You aren’t going to get your tools on the train, snd you are driving into the city from white plains or somewhere similar.
- csomar 11mo agoNo it’s not. NYC transit is already one of the most expensive in the world and quality is suspect. Pushing money into a dysfunctional structure doesn’t make it functional and might make it worse. A money grab from the public that goes through a maze of expenses. The solution was to re-structure the MTA. But that’s hard work. Politicians would rather blame the other side and just raise taxes. The people like it because they are grabbing money from what they consider it to be their oppressors.
- jpalawaga 11mo agoThe quality is not suspect. It is one of the world’s few 24/7 systems, and there are many capital improvements happening constantly. For example, making more stations accessible and improving switching equipment to improve reliability and volume. This comment is typical HN “government bad can do no right” fodder. The MTA is truly a marvel in the service it provides. The only advantage it has is age, which is why it is so expansive.
- Invictus0 11mo agoThe MTA is billions in the red because it overpays the union workers and fails to commercialize the stations
- jjj123 11mo agoI simply do not care if my public services are “in the red”. Let’s make them entirely in the red, please.
- rayiner 11mo agoThe point is that the MTA is deeply in the red even though it still charges significant fares. Meanwhile, systems like the London Tube manage to recover at least their operating costs without charging fares that are much if at all higher.
- 11mo ago