3 ms·

Congestion can be solved by charging more for driving. Even a modest amount would start affecting how much people drive. The money could be used for better road

by zip1234 3mo ago

Congestion can be solved by charging more for driving. Even a modest amount would start affecting how much people drive. The money could be used for better roads and improving other transit options that aren't so space-inefficient. That said, this would likely be unpopular to implement until the effects were visible. See congestion pricing in NYC as an example.

gustavus 3mo ago
Won't that just unfairly displace the impact onto the economically disadvanteged as they are the least likely to have the flexibility in their schedule, inadvertently forcing more of the maintenance burden onto those who are int be least place to bear it?
- Gigachad 3mo ago
  You wouldn't just charge more for driving. You do it in combination with funding public transport, building safer cycling routes, and removing roadblocks from building cheap housing near PT hubs.
- ryan_lane 3mo ago
  Take the revenue generated from congestion pricing, and put it into public transportation. Make public transportation free to use. That would be far more impactful to the folks least able to bear an increase in driving fees. In most of the US, people are forced to own cars because they don't have public transit available, or the available public transit is too infrequent, or there aren't dense enough routes. The reason behind this is funding. Additionally, buses are less efficient because they need to sit in the same traffic as everyone else. Reduced traffic makes buses more efficient. Reducing car traffic is a win for basically everyone, and increasing public transit is additionally a win for basically everyone. Car infrastructure is heavily subsidized, and congestion pricing is one way to make car owners pay for part of the cost. Why is it fair for public transit riders to have to pay per ride, when car owners get to use the infrastructure for free?
  - rootusrootus 3mo ago
    > Why is it fair for public transit riders to have to pay per ride In my city public transit fares only cover something like 10% of the cost. Isn’t that fairly typical? > car owners get to use the infrastructure for free Every place I’ve lived charges a fuel tax to pay for roads.
    - koyote 3mo ago
      > In my city public transit fares only cover something like 10% of the cost. Isn’t that fairly typical? Quite a few areas have their public transit fully funded by users and some even make a substantial profit. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio) The US obviously loses out to places like Japan because you have the chicken and egg problem: to make money back you need enough people but for enough people to use public transport you need to invest in it. > Every place I’ve lived charges a fuel tax to pay for roads. Which, ironically, often only covers something like 10% of the cost :)
    - asdff 3mo ago
      Fuel tax doesn’t often cover everything. LA metro actually spends an appreciable fraction of its budget on highway and road expansion for example.
      - rootusrootus 3mo ago
        Sure, I wouldn't expect fuel tax to cover everything. Local roads are quite useful to people who do not drive at all, and major roads and interstates are disproportionately worn by commercial vehicles that also benefit many people who do not drive private vehicles.
        asdff 3mo ago
        Indeed. After all, roads predate the car by thousands of years. But still, often roads are overbuilt and their potential capacity is never close to being reached. The bog standard suburban design we see in america for example is generally severely overbuilt. Plenty of arterials nowhere close to being used to their theoretical throughput limits. If your experience of suburbia is mostly american centric, if you look at say english suburbia where major roads only offer a single lane per direction you'd wonder how society there functions at all. But it does, because those single lane per direction have enough capacity to serve a generally denser version of suburbia than what we might see on the fringes of Dallas, where giant empty roads such as this (1; note how there are barely any cars in frame) are found on standardized 1 mile square grids out of routine more than anything really. Compare with (2) which feels much more right sized for the road demand in this generally denser suburban area on smaller lots with attached housing. 1. https://www.google.com/maps/@33.1890836,-96.7504787,3a,75y,118.4h,89.84t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sCy_yY0O-8FwC5Vo69ktEDA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D0.157839321949794%26panoid%3DCy_yY0O-8FwC5Vo69ktEDA%26yaw%3D118.39606439429132!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDcxMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@33.1890836,-96.7504787,3a,75y,1... 2. https://www.google.com/maps/@51.3698269,-0.1403251,3a,89.7y,278.33h,77.97t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s5Dr2QakQyOYyTtZq03jowQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D12.026180489789212%26panoid%3D5Dr2QakQyOYyTtZq03jowQ%26yaw%3D278.3291227511232!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDcxMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@51.3698269,-0.1403251,3a,89.7y,...
balderdash 3mo ago
I think the bigger thing this making public transport a real alternative to driving - I most American metros using public transport isn’t faster, can be inconvenient (no parking, multiple transfers, etc), comfortable safe. I guess I’m saying yes you can make driving less attractive, but I think the better answer is to make public transport more attractive.
chlorion 3mo ago
Yeah I definitely need driving to be more expensive. That's a great idea!

by zip1234 3mo ago

gustavus 3mo ago

Won't that just unfairly displace the impact onto the economically disadvanteged as they are the least likely to have the flexibility in their schedule, inadvertently forcing more of the maintenance burden onto those who are int be least place to bear it?

Gigachad 3mo ago
You wouldn't just charge more for driving. You do it in combination with funding public transport, building safer cycling routes, and removing roadblocks from building cheap housing near PT hubs.
ryan_lane 3mo ago
Take the revenue generated from congestion pricing, and put it into public transportation. Make public transportation free to use. That would be far more impactful to the folks least able to bear an increase in driving fees. In most of the US, people are forced to own cars because they don't have public transit available, or the available public transit is too infrequent, or there aren't dense enough routes. The reason behind this is funding. Additionally, buses are less efficient because they need to sit in the same traffic as everyone else. Reduced traffic makes buses more efficient. Reducing car traffic is a win for basically everyone, and increasing public transit is additionally a win for basically everyone. Car infrastructure is heavily subsidized, and congestion pricing is one way to make car owners pay for part of the cost. Why is it fair for public transit riders to have to pay per ride, when car owners get to use the infrastructure for free?
- rootusrootus 3mo ago
  > Why is it fair for public transit riders to have to pay per ride In my city public transit fares only cover something like 10% of the cost. Isn’t that fairly typical? > car owners get to use the infrastructure for free Every place I’ve lived charges a fuel tax to pay for roads.
  - koyote 3mo ago
    > In my city public transit fares only cover something like 10% of the cost. Isn’t that fairly typical? Quite a few areas have their public transit fully funded by users and some even make a substantial profit. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio) The US obviously loses out to places like Japan because you have the chicken and egg problem: to make money back you need enough people but for enough people to use public transport you need to invest in it. > Every place I’ve lived charges a fuel tax to pay for roads. Which, ironically, often only covers something like 10% of the cost :)
  - asdff 3mo ago
    Fuel tax doesn’t often cover everything. LA metro actually spends an appreciable fraction of its budget on highway and road expansion for example.
    - rootusrootus 3mo ago
      Sure, I wouldn't expect fuel tax to cover everything. Local roads are quite useful to people who do not drive at all, and major roads and interstates are disproportionately worn by commercial vehicles that also benefit many people who do not drive private vehicles.
      - asdff 3mo ago
        Indeed. After all, roads predate the car by thousands of years. But still, often roads are overbuilt and their potential capacity is never close to being reached. The bog standard suburban design we see in america for example is generally severely overbuilt. Plenty of arterials nowhere close to being used to their theoretical throughput limits. If your experience of suburbia is mostly american centric, if you look at say english suburbia where major roads only offer a single lane per direction you'd wonder how society there functions at all. But it does, because those single lane per direction have enough capacity to serve a generally denser version of suburbia than what we might see on the fringes of Dallas, where giant empty roads such as this (1; note how there are barely any cars in frame) are found on standardized 1 mile square grids out of routine more than anything really. Compare with (2) which feels much more right sized for the road demand in this generally denser suburban area on smaller lots with attached housing. 1. https://www.google.com/maps/@33.1890836,-96.7504787,3a,75y,118.4h,89.84t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sCy_yY0O-8FwC5Vo69ktEDA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D0.157839321949794%26panoid%3DCy_yY0O-8FwC5Vo69ktEDA%26yaw%3D118.39606439429132!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDcxMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@33.1890836,-96.7504787,3a,75y,1... 2. https://www.google.com/maps/@51.3698269,-0.1403251,3a,89.7y,278.33h,77.97t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s5Dr2QakQyOYyTtZq03jowQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D12.026180489789212%26panoid%3D5Dr2QakQyOYyTtZq03jowQ%26yaw%3D278.3291227511232!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDcxMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@51.3698269,-0.1403251,3a,89.7y,...

balderdash 3mo ago

I think the bigger thing this making public transport a real alternative to driving - I most American metros using public transport isn’t faster, can be inconvenient (no parking, multiple transfers, etc), comfortable safe. I guess I’m saying yes you can make driving less attractive, but I think the better answer is to make public transport more attractive.

chlorion 3mo ago

Yeah I definitely need driving to be more expensive. That's a great idea!