4 ms·

>An ideal (or, a better) system would be responsive. Like a situation of economic freedom where millions of individual actors and entrepreneurs can dynamically

• pkulak 11y ago
  Well, that would work in a perfect system. In our current system, however, roads are "free". So, if you make driving a cab free and unlimited on those free roads, you just end up with a tragedy of the commons. Medallions solve that, but so would an appropriate gas tax (hint, many times higher than it is now) or some other kind of per-mile payment for road use.
  • nmrm2 11y ago
    One reason to prefer the Medallion system is that both of the latter two options end up disproportionately impacting low-income people. The goal is to limit the number of cabs on the road without creating unreasonable barriers to other economic activity using the roadways. This can be done without Medallions, though. Cities could just require a license for taxis, like they do for many other businesses. If that license cheap enough that anyone can afford it (perhaps with a small business loan) but expensive enough to slightly deter entry, then it solves the commons problem without leading to cronyism.
  • jsprogrammer 11y ago
    A gas tax effectively exempts vehicles that don't use gasoline (eg. fuel-cell or battery backed electric vehicles). A daily "vehicle fee" to have a vehicle within the city might solve your problem.
    • twic 11y ago
      In London, we call it a 'congestion charge': https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge Although, as a matter of policy, ultra-low emission vehicles like electric cars didn't have to pay it.
  • nerd_stuff 11y ago
    In addition we live on a (mostly) 2-dimensional plane so we can't scale transportation capacity indefinitely, which means even if the roads were owned privately it's nearly impossible for a market to form that would force them to compete with each other. Why? You can't build a close competitor to 9th Avenue (making up a street name) because A) there are buildings in the way beside it and B) building above it is prohibitively expensive. If these are one-way streets as is common in urban areas 9th Avenue's closest competitors are 11th and 7th and after that competition falls off quickly. Five competitors doesn't make a healthy market - it makes an oligopoly.
  • JoshTriplett 11y ago
    If too many cabs start running because it seems lucrative, it'll very rapidly become less lucrative. There are only so many people who want a ride, and taxis are only profitable if they handle a certain number of those rides per day, so there's already a natural limit on the number of taxis.
    • pkulak 11y ago
      Yeah, but that limit doesn't take into account the full costs to the system. Your argument is like saying that common grazing land is okay because there's a natural limit to how many cows can be on it; the number of cows that can fit, or that can be watched by the available farmers, or any other limit that doesn't take into account how many cows the field can actually handle.
  • yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Roads are not free, they are paid for via gas taxes. To support your claim that an appropriate gas tax would be large, do you have numbers suggesting how much road spending costs compared to revenue raised from gas taxes? Medallions don't come close to solving the issue of people free-riding on roads - most of the cars on NYC roads are neither taxis nor ubers.
    • pkulak 11y ago
      > do you have numbers suggesting how much road spending costs compared to revenue raised from gas taxes? http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/05/debunking-the-myth-that-only-drivers-pay-for-roads/393134/ http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/05/debunking-the-myth-th...
  • monort 11y ago
    By this logic private cars should be issued medallions too. There are much more private cars on the road, than taxis. And private cars use more resources per drive, because they are taking parking space, unlike taxis.
    • pkulak 11y ago
      Private cars don't make money when they drive more.
      • monort 11y ago
        And how is it relevant? If taxis drive more, they move more people too (who would use a private car otherwise).
• rayiner 11y ago
  As long as we didn't subsidize those individual actors by building public roads, that would be fine.
  • joeblow99 11y ago
    why should that matter?
  • yummyfajitas 11y ago
    A great way to avoid subsidizing these actors would be for NY to impose a $0.6439/gallon gas tax to pay for roads. If only someone already thought of that and passed it into law...
    • rayiner 11y ago
      Does that cover the cost of the underlying property and negotiating with individual landowners?
      • yummyfajitas 11y ago
        If you want to claim the price of driving is wrong, by all means crunch some numbers and show us. But acting as if there is a clear subsidy is incorrect.
        • rayiner 11y ago
          That there is a huge subsidy is fact: http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/01/23/drivers-cover-just-51-percent-of-u-s-road-spending http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/01/23/drivers-cover-just-51-.... And that analysis understates the subsidy. In fact it would be far more expensive for private organizations to build those roads due to the need to negotiate with individual landowners. I.e. drivers don't pay for the benefit of the government exercising eminent domain to build roads.
          • yummyfajitas 11y ago
• Trombone12 11y ago
  You didn't pay attention: the totally unregulated market was the source of much violence in the 1930ies. History has clearly demonstrated the need for taxi regulation in New York, and the problem is that at some point the regulatory body stopped caring about the public need (and presumably the public never started trying to get more drivers on the streets)