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Two things I like are: * HOT lanes in the Bay Area: they allocate demand efficiently and subsidize multi-people transport. I wish there were more. * Toll road
by arjie 11mo ago
Two things I like are:
* HOT lanes in the Bay Area: they allocate demand efficiently and subsidize multi-people transport. I wish there were more.
* Toll roads in Texas: you can take the slip roads almost everywhere but they’re slow. The highways were fast but you had to pay.
Overall, I think fare at point of use is a great structure. In the past we couldn’t enforce it but now we can do this for more things.
The only problem is that we’ve decided that impounding cars that don’t have license plates or which have license plate covers is unacceptable because the poor do this most frequently. I hope we will clean up enforcement and then we will have the right incentives here.
- ninalanyon 11mo agoTolls are a regressive tax; they disproportionately affect the poor.
- everforward 11mo agoI don’t have an issue with HOT lanes, but I’m not a big fan of the toll roads in Texas. I don’t like that it creates separate classes of infrastructure for citizens based on their ability to pay. Even the non-toll highways had an HOT-like lane you paid per-use to drive on that was often significantly faster than the free lanes. It makes a system where I suspect many people won’t want to pay to upgrade the free infrastructure because they don’t use it, and people who can’t afford the daily tolls waste even more time in traffic. The fast pass lane are even worse because they cannibalize lanes that could be used to alleviate general traffic (and were typically sparsely used). The tolls were substantial for some people. $3-$8 a day on toll roads (ie no fast pass lane). At $8 a day, that’d be $40 a week, ~$160/month. That’s nearly 20% of the weekly pre-tax income of someone making Austin’s $22/hr minimum wage.
- spwa4 11mo ago> I don’t like that it creates separate classes of infrastructure for citizens based on their ability to pay. Even the non-toll highways had an HOT-like lane you paid per-use to drive on that was often significantly faster than the free lanes. But ... government income is largely dependent on the rich, and government spending largely benefits the poor. This is what is always forgotten about it. The reason debt is such a thorny issue is that debt really benefited the poor. And over time, so will these toll roads. The reason toll roads benefit the poor is that the rich don't travel anyways, and this gives extra economic options to the poor. A large portion will figure out how to use this extra economic option (because that was thoroughly checked before the bridge was even built, and it wouldn't have been built if the answer wasn't that they would) So both the building of the bridge, and the use of it almost exclusively benefit the poor.
- xboxnolifes 11mo agoThe rich may travel on the toll roads, but they certainly benefit from those who do.
- blauditore 11mo agoIf you want to disincentivize usage of certain things, money is generally the most effective option. Yes, some rich folks won't be bothered, but even fairly low amounts make most people think twice. Too many cars are a problem in many parts of the world, for a number of reasons (noise, smog, traffic jams, or parking space in cities), so nudging people towards alternative usage patterns is worthwhile in my opinion.
- h2zizzle 11mo agoAlternatives are the most effective option. Tolls just make laws the rich don't have to obey and conditions they don't have to experience. Aggregate suffering isn't lowered, just shifted to the poor. If you want cars off the road, you tax rich people and build trains and bike lanes, and shut down cynical RTO. Full stop.
- simondotau 11mo agoIt’s not that simple. For trains to be a complete solution you need walkable cities, and high density transport-oriented residential construction near stations. This is almost diametrically opposite to parking-oriented cities and sprawling suburbia.
- LexiMax 11mo agoThe best time for a city to invest in making their city walkable and public-transportation-able is decades ago. The second best time for a city to invest in making their city walkable and public-transportation-able is now.
- jobs_throwaway 11mo agoCouldn't disagree more. People should be able to pay more for use of better infrastructure. If $3-$8 a day isn't worth it for you, there's a free option that's totally acceptable.
- salawat 11mo agoSee, here's the thing. Definition of acceptable isn't up to you. It's up to the people who have no other choice but to use it.
- anon84873628 11mo agoTheoretically those people express their opinion via electing representatives. Infrastructure investment and "fixing the potholes" seems to be a common campaign theme.
- salawat 11mo agoIt really isn't followed through on as often as you think, and since Citizen's United, the typical candidate tends to chase the donations of people who think tolls are a grand idea. Not so much the rest of the working stiffs. Institutional inertia is a hell of a thing when your working demographic is keeping the retiree's and children's heads above water.
- hopelite 11mo agoMaybe the solution is more going over to a fee based on % of one’s net worth. So since you seem to think something like $6 being an acceptable price for someone with a $500 net worth, maybe 1.2% of net worth for each traversal of a segment is appropriate, so you pay maybe $24,000 with every trip down the toll road and Elon musk pays $9.12 billion, while the bottom of the rung working class can pay $6.
- zhoujianfu 11mo agoI think the right solution is charge whatever would maximize revenue, then distribute the revenues evenly among all residents/voters/whomever.
- The_President 11mo agoThe fastest highway in the United States is the 85 mph controlled access public-private venture toll road east of Austin. State income tax is not a thing in Texas, and that road would have otherwise not been completed at the price or schedule it was built on without the backing of the private company that built it.
- lokar 11mo agoI'm not sure what your point is, can you explain?
- el_benhameen 11mo agoI think the point is that in this case, the choice is between the infrastructure being pay-to-use or just not existing, not between the infrastructure being free and being pay-to-use
- lokar 11mo agoThat was my suspicion, but I'm not sure. Obviously, they have other valid options. Raise taxes. Have the state borrow, build, and operate the road as a toll road at cost, etc.
- el_benhameen 11mo agoSure. I think the point is that in Texas, those are valid but not viable due to politics.
- amanaplanacanal 11mo agoWhy would you tax people's income to pay for a highway? Fuel taxes and license fees would normally be the way to pay for transportation infrastructure.
- anonzzzies 11mo agoIt works well in many (most I know) countries: is fuel+license more common than general (income and fuel and other) taxation ('normally' would imply most do like you say?).
- witte 11mo ago[flagged]
- jobs_throwaway 11mo ago[flagged]
- izacus 11mo agoMarking other people's posts as whining is not an appropriate human conduct.
- bob1029 11mo agoHouston would be unlivable without toll roads in 2025. The medical center would collapse overnight. The SH288 toll has probably indirectly saved more lives than any other toll project in the state. Medical professionals can reliably get between their suburban homes and their patients in ~constant time now. It's maybe not "fair" that some people can use this option indiscriminately every day, but at least it is an option that everyone has access to. There's no physical barrier stopping you from using the Texas toll roads if you really needed to in an emergency. All that will happen is a bill will appear in your mailbox about 30 days later. If you choose to not pay it, the chances something bad will happen are approximately zero.
- black_13 11mo ago[dead]
- dangus 11mo agoOf course, this project cost $2.1 billion, including $815 million to build the toll lanes in the freeway’s center. And it could be made ineffective as regional expansion continues. As soon as enough people who are willing to pay the toll saturates capacity you end up with the same issue (“just one more lane bro”). I see this all the time in the DC metro area’s toll express lanes that often save no significant time. Another effective way to control highway congestion is to get people off of highways and invest in your transit system, make it better than driving so that people don’t drive as often. But maybe Houston is too far gone for that. For comparison, the Chicago red line extension project adds 5 miles of heavy rail for about twice the cost, so 4x more per mile. But the Houston toll lane project doesn’t do anything positive for adjacent property values like new rail stations do. Chicago will get money back from more property taxes and the new stations will relieve traffic on the Dan Ryan. Transit lines get faster as ridership increases due to the ability to increase schedule frequency, the exact opposite of highways. I am not saying Houston should magically turn into 1800s-era urban fabric but maybe some decent park and ride commuter transit would be a start? There are cities in Texas with 6 figure populations that have NO public bus system.
- axiolite 11mo ago
- _yb2s 11mo agoI live in the Bay Area and hate HOV lanes. I can look over and see that more than half of the drivers are in violation, and yet it is effectively unenforced. It is a system that punishes people willing to follow the rules. Asking someone to waste maybe up to an hour of their life everyday to sit there and watch people willing to break the rules speed by and get to be home early with their families breeds massive resentment, and anger. It encourages people to abandon all sorts of social contracts.
- rayiner 11mo agoWe just need better HOV enforcement. Preferably with space lasers.
- SkyPuncher 11mo agoCan’t you pay to be in the HOV lane? Seems like a pretty ideal system. Having that extra lane wouldn’t solve any issues for most drivers. For high occupancy or those willing to pay, it does.
- SkiFire13 11mo agoI think you missed this point: > I can look over and see that more than half of the drivers are in violation, and yet it is effectively unenforced.
- thayne 11mo agoHow do you know that those people aren't paying? OTOH, I don't know how you could effectively enforce that single occupant vehicles are paying.
- kluikens 11mo agoThe FasTrak scanners above the lane flash the occupancy setting (1, 2, or 3+) on the driver's transponder. It's easy to observe cheating single-occupant vehicles because the flashed number is 3 (a toll-free rate). For automated enforcement, there's prior art in red light camera systems that mail tickets/violations to the registered vehicle owner.
- mschuster91 11mo ago> you can take the slip roads almost everywhere but they’re slow. We have that problem here in Germany. The roads aren't just slow - the people living in the towns these roads run through are going through hell because they are affected massively. Can't safely cross the road, emergency response vehicles take ages, an insane amount of noise and emissions (because vehicles near idle make much more toxic exhaust when at low load and thus temperature), more brake and tire dust... Austria was fed up years ago, Bavaria recently followed suit [1]. [1] https://www.adac.de/der-adac/regionalclubs/suedbayern/news/abfahrtsverbot-a8/ https://www.adac.de/der-adac/regionalclubs/suedbayern/news/a...
- mrgoldenbrown 11mo agoIn NYC it's the police that have been obfuscating their plate number for a long time, not just poor people. https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/04/19/if-nypd-is-cracking-down-on-license-plate-obscuring-officers-its-sure-hard-to-tell https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/04/19/if-nypd-is-cracking-d...
- ProllyInfamous 11mo agoIn Tennessee (other states, too), it is not illegal to have a trailer hitch ball in front of your license plate. They're recently begun erecting ALPRs everywhere... ...so I have a trailer hitch ball hung entirely across my plate — not considered "obstructing view" de jure, but YMMV (depending on officer). Tennessee does not issue license plates for most trailers, either, so you can easily & even more legally conceal your license plate when towing. Anything else that obstructs the view is illegal (including bicycle racks, leaves, dirt, lenses). But not trailers & hitch balls.
- The_President 11mo agoThese are not commonly called slip roads in Texas - the term is feeder road. Most feeder roads in the metro areas are lined with business or multifamily residential frontage.
- ProllyInfamous 11mo agoThese are not commonly called "slip roads" nor "feeder roads" — they're actually called frontage roads.
- The_President 11mo agoYes, they are called both frontage roads and feeder roads by Texans interchangeably. Frontage roads is the official term but feeder is the lingo. Obvious to anyone who knows real Texans.
- fuzzfactor 11mo agoPeople from small Texas towns (Louisiana too) and no big city driving experience still know what "feeder" roads are. You can still throw them way off giving directions if you tell them to get off the freeway at Frontage Road, especially with a French Cajun accent ;) Loads of exits in all locations and directions have a lone sign at the ramp simply saying "Frontage Rd." pointing at the exit. You have to look at a sign miles earlier to know what exit it really is.
- The_President 11mo agoOr in the case of one particular long causeway on I-10 through Louisiana... Might need to drive by the sign three times to learn the pronunciation and spelling.
- FireBeyond 11mo ago> or which have license plate covers is unacceptable because the poor do this most frequently There's a YT channel where a guy exposes these. He found that one of the most common group of offenders in NYC was ... cops and their personal vehicles.
- zbrozek 11mo agoI dislike them not so much in my home area but everywhere else where I have no idea what I'm doing and worry that I'm going to come home to a ton of envelopes full of enormous fines. This is made worse as cash payment disappears.
- magicalhippo 11mo agoHere in Norway we have funded the vast majority of new highways and similar by turing them into toll roads. The government might chip in but some fraction is covered by toll. An issue is that it's set up as a regular loan, which the collected toll repays. So over the lifetime of the loan, often more than half is interest. Add administration costs and in some cases the actual money spent on the road is a small fraction of the total toll paid. That said, in principle I think it's fair to have some use-based pricing. Same goes for public transportation. Studies have shown it's not ideal to have free public transportation, but rather a low fare.
- Waterluvian 10mo agoOnce paid off do the toll roads in Norway become non-toll? That’s the only idea that makes sense to me.
- magicalhippo 10mo agoThat's the general idea, and typically followed. I've experienced several transitioning to non-toll. The ones in the cities have a tendency to stay though, as they find new infrastructure projects to finance.
- direwolf20 11mo agoAnything the poor do more frequently should be punished more severely.
- jollyllama 11mo agoPersonally I just hate that I have to go on the roads with the poors to avoid the surveilance that powers the toll roads.
- estearum 11mo agoA real conservative! A rare find these days ;)
- rationalist 11mo agoI take the toll roads because I am less likely to encounter uninsured heaps of trash on four wheels that have even less disregard of others.
- jollyllama 10mo agoIndeed, I just wish one didn't have to submit to relative increased surveillance to do it.
- bsder 11mo ago> Overall, I think fare at point of use is a great structure. In the past we couldn’t enforce it but now we can do this for more things. I don't agree. Price "discrimination" for government services is not acceptable. The perverse incentives that sets up are far too strong and the profits too juicy to avoid corruption. We have historical analogs (paying for fire service and the corruption that caused in Rome). We have modern analogs (money from marijuana funding police forces that then arrest marijuana offenders and fight legalization efforts). Letting price discrimination enter government services is simply a road to corruption and disaster.
- whimsicalism 11mo agoi think we have far more examples of things working fine than the reverse. there are plenty of government assisted things (water, electricity, transit, etc etc etc) that we pay for at point of use. you can’t just hand wave at “corruption” and claim that resolves everything.
- bsder 10mo agoI would actually argue that your examples prove my point. The best transit systems are the ones that are almost fully subsidized with a token payment that doesn't price discriminate. We have strong examples of the problems with price discrimination in water (the entire American Southwest). Electricity "markets" gave us Enron and semi-privatized electric companies are currently giving us shutdowns because they are liable for causing fires--neither of these would be an issue if electricity is a flat market based on usage without price discrimination. Everything you mentioned used to be what we called a "utility" and was the job of government to provide, oversee and generally subsidize. It was only since about 1980 that governments started trying to "privatize" these kinds of things with the magical thinking that somehow "profit incentive" would magically make them cheaper to run. Yes, usage above and beyond basic levels was generally paid for at "point of use"--especially if the resource was limited (see: water). However, that payment needs to be somehow "metered" and with pricing that rises significantly as usage moves further from baseline in order to disincentivize over-consumption. In the case of tolls (which started this discussion), that means the baseline price should be set to "damage incurred" which is "fourth power of weight" (if I remember correctly). Cars should be a low price; brodozers should pay significantly more than cars; loaded semis should pay a lot more. Adjust as necessary based upon time and load in order to manage traffic. By linking to something directly meterable, you avoid the perverse incentives where the poor get disproportionately hit and the rich simply ignore everything (see: Nestle pumping water out of aquifers).
- eweise 11mo agoHOV lanes in the bay area are terrible. We pay to build these lanes and then the government makes us pay to use them? Seems terribly unfair. Its also unfair to make the poorer people spend more of their time commuting than the wealthy.
- zeroonetwothree 11mo agoYou don’t have to be wealthy to pay to use them, you just have to value the time savings more than others. Imagine a “poor” person late for their job where they will get fired, they might value the lane more than a “rich” person just cruising around for fun. Whereas if it weren’t an option at all the poor person in this scenario loses their job and is strictly worse off.
- aprilthird2021 11mo agoI feel like you dont live in the bay area. In peak traffic time, those lanes cost like $20+ to drive in.
- saghm 11mo agoYour assumption that rich people spend less for fun than poor people can afford to spend to survive is not something I think I'm confident enough in to trust it as the basis for policy like this.
- zeroonetwothree 11mo agoAlso isn’t it more fair to charge people using the roads than everyone? What if someone doesn’t even drive should they have to pay taxes for roads? And in the absence of these congestion fees we’d likely have to take taxes overall. That would probably be even worse for poor people.
- eweise 10mo agoWho doesn't use the roads? How would you get anywhere without taking a road? Even if you didn't drive, whatever transport you're using except maybe a helicopter, would use the road.
- idiotsecant 11mo agoToll roads are corrosive to the American spirit. They are low-trust, f-u-i-got-mine, and they breed resentment both between economic classes and between people who follow the rules and people who don't care about them. They are the HOA of traffic management schemes. Toll roads are the worst. The fact that there are increasing numbers of them is as much a bellwether of the death of the American experiment experiment as anything else.
- jmount 11mo agoThey are no longer HOV lanes. They are toll lanes with a minor HOV discount beard.