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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   29523 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025

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Here's something we haven't talked about yet: congestion pricing.

Recently, New York's congestion pricing scheme went live. Drivers who wish to enter lower Manhattan must pay a toll of $9. Almost immediately after the toll went live, traffic congestion got a lot better.

From an economics standpoint, the toll has been a big success. Consider, for a minute, the perspective of a person who is willing to wait an hour in traffic, but is not willing to wait 15 minutes plus pay $9. In a world of rational actors, this person should not exist. But in the real world, this person in fact does exist in great numbers. Not only that, but their irrational choice is also clogging up traffic for everyone else, as well as increasing pollution. From a standpoint of utility, there is no question that this program increases the overall utility of the city's transportation system.

There's also the money aspect. This toll raises money for a city that is chronically short of it – despite having some of the highest per-capita taxation in the world. In an ideal world, the additional funds would be used to build out more transportation infrastructure. In reality, the new taxes will end up in the bottomless pit of graft that grips the city.

A few takes I've seen:

  1. This will increase traffic outside the zone as much as it decreases it in the zone. Personally, I doubt this. Near me, when the 520 bridge was tolled, it reduced traffic on the bridge without increasing it too much elsewhere.

  2. This is unfair because it prices out the working class people who drive into Manhattan.

  3. This is unfair because it forces people to take the subways and the subways are full of murderous lunatics.

  4. The city has substituted new taxes for actually, you know, building stuff. The fact that city planning geeks are celebrating this shows how small our ambitions have become. The biggest infrastructure projects now are just... more taxes?

One take I haven't seen but is relevant:

Will people cheat? Here in Seattle, people drive without license plates, have fake temporary ones, register in different states, and put covers over their plates which make them invisible to cameras. You cannot be pulled over for this, so it's basically an honor system. I assume NYC will be similar.

What do people think about these new taxes? Good or bad?

This is unfair because it prices out the working class people who drive into Manhattan.

Of all the complaints, this is the stupidest. Someone that is engaged in productive economic activity would easily pay $9 to get there faster. A plumber in Manhattan charges $120-150/hr.

I think there are other valid complaints. The fact that Uber & Lyft pitched in to support it certainly means they feel they will benefit from substituting ride shares for driving.

This is unfair because it forces people to take the subways and the subways are full of murderous lunatics.

What I find rather odd is that when it gets pointed out that objectively public transit is safer than driving the usual response is to say that the subway feels less safe/salubrious and is therefore a qualitatively worse experience than a car. This is a reasonable line of argument, and I am all in favour of stronger law enforcement in public transit, precisely because I so believe in it, but so often the people making that argument are those who would never tolerate such wishy-washy lived experience arguments in any other setting.

For some people, being killed in a car wreck is a less upsetting worry than being sexually assaulted on the subway, even though being killed in a car wreck is more probable.

I don't think people are wrong to feel this way.

While America obviously has a particularly unique relationship with cars, I think like every other congestion pricing system people will moan for a while but very quickly the outrage will die down and no-one will care. It's nice for once for politicians to ignore the whiners who shout the loudest and have the foresight to realise that you should just do good things and not worry a great deal about transitory unpopularity.

The only reason I am skeptical is because I am skeptical of giving the MTA any more money. I have no clue exactly why that organization is so incompetent. Is just generally government run incompetence? Is it unions shaking down the MTA making construction, maintenance and running the MTA prohibitively expensive? Is it that the state of New York runs the MTA rather than the city so incentives aren't aligned? Is it just expensive cause it is old and you need to shovel absurd amounts of money to modernize the whole thing? Maybe it's the 24/7 subways making it expensive. I've heard all this and more.

A lot of highly paid union staff and the huge maintenance costs involved with running an ancient system 24/7. The MTA is expensive but not so expensive that the cost is surprising or unusual.

Update: https://newyork.public.law/laws/n.y._vehicle_and_traffic_law_section_402

ii. Number plates shall not be knowingly covered or coated with any material or substance that conceals or obscures such number plates or that distorts a recorded or photographic image of such number plates. (ii-a) Number plates shall not be covered by glass or any plastic material, nor shall they be covered with a material appearing to be a number plate for display as proof of lawful registration but which has not been lawfully issued by the commissioner, the commissioner’s agent, or the equivalent official or agents from another state, territory, district, province, nation or other jurisdiction.

A violation of subparagraph (ii), subparagraph (ii-a) or subparagraph (iii) of paragraph (b) of subdivision one of this section shall be punishable by a fine of not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars.

That's free money. It seems the NYPD is unable or unwilling to enforce this, with only six cars per day towed on average for having defaced plates in 2023.

unable or unwilling to enforce this

It's probably this. Large metros across the US have mostly stopped enforcing laws related to license plates and traffic more generally, because the violators are disproportionately racial minorities and enforcement quickly becomes a PR nightmare. Here in [boring but large US city] it has gotten to the point that the local subreddit makes memes about fake temporary license plates and police forces of surrounding smaller towns troll the borders to make easy fake tag citations (because the smaller town police don't have to worry about the political fallout).

I wrote about this a few years ago. The key point is that congestion pricing, when properly designed, does not work by reducing car traffic. It works by coordinating it in a way that more people can actually use the roads but without getting in each other's way and creating congestion. People would adjust their departure times but no one would need to adjust his arrival time or work schedule nor would he have to use an alternative means of transportation nor take another route.

So this is definitely a good thing, but badly implemented. The congestion charges should only apply at bottlenecks, should continuously vary in price, peaking at the early part of rush hour, and should have no exempted vehicles. The effect should be a huge boon to drivers and bus riders, with fewer people taking the subway as a result.

Will people cheat? Here in Seattle, people drive without license plates, have fake temporary ones, register in different states, and put covers over their plates which make them invisible to cameras. You cannot be pulled over for this, so it's basically an honor system. I assume NYC will be similar.

This is not true in most places. Driving without valid plates in Illinois is one of the number one (probably number one) reason people get picked up on warrants, and also represents a large percentage of people caught in possession of illegal drugs or firearms.

London implemented such a thing as well. I can't say I noticed a decline in congestion, but it caused big problems:

  1. Working people generally live outside the zone and need to work inside the zone. They may need to bring tools, or they may live somewhere badly served by existing public transport.
  2. Expansion was inevitable. The area covered increased significantly, and so did the charges. Environmentalists used it to enforce a policy of 'no petrol/diesel cars in London'.

As we all know, electric cars don't produce congestion /s

That said, my impression is that New York is both more car-heavy and more gridlocked than even London ever was, so it may do some good.

Expansion was inevitable. The area covered increased significantly, and so did the charges. Environmentalists used it to enforce a policy of 'no petrol/diesel cars in London'.

The expansion of the actual congestion charging zone was reversed after four years. If you are talking about the ULEZ, you are talking about a zone where the vast majority of journeys are not charged - all petrol cars and vans sold in the UK since 2006 and all diesel cars and vans sold since 2016 meet the ULEZ emissions standards and don't have to pay ULEZ charges. That is not a policy of "no petrol/diesel cars in London". It is a policy of forcing the most polluting 10-20% of vehicles to f*** off to a less densely populated place where they won't poison as many people.

Thank you for the correction. I heard lots about the expansion at the time from people I knew, and I guess I didn’t hear about the discontinuation.

Like many people my family owns an early 2010s diesel car (which the government encouraged them to buy) so I guess that’s the reason for the resentment around ULEZ.

That said, my impression is that New York is both more car-heavy and more gridlocked than even London ever was, so it may do some good.

Can't have a gridlock if your streets are not on a grid rollsafe.jpeg

NYC needs to rethink its one-way policy. I can't find the article, but you basically keep the avenues as they are, but the streets change their direction every time they cross an avenue or something like that. This lets you eliminate traffic lights at intersections.

Wouldn't cars driving down streets have to stop for pedestrians much more often? Wouldn't that make it really difficult to drive east or west more than one block?

I can't find the damn proposal, I think it had something about these.

It’s not ipso facto unreasonable to charge a toll. Congestion pricing seems aimed at pushing people onto the MTA, and that seems unreasonable when the city refused to maintain order on it. But the basic idea of toll roads to reduce congestion in particular areas isn’t crazy.

You cannot be pulled over for this

For what reason can people not be pulled over for this?

Racial disparities.

Lack of vitamin D caused by darker skin causes people to obscure their license plates?

I lived in Seattle for seven years... the issue is that any racial disparity in outcomes is treated as an equity problem. To sweep things under the carpet, the solution that has been come up with is to stop enforcing the laws.

It is common to have many years expired registration, which is supposed to be paying a large share of the transit budget. It's also common for people to simply not pay on transit either. Seattle's light rail doesn't have turnstiles, so everyone is basically on the honor system. People have noticed that you don't need to pay. Any enforcement is met with cries of inequity.

The whole equity-based system that is put in place by "progressive" policies leads to all sorts of easily foreseen outcomes. But if you dare mention it in polite circles, you're deemed a right-wing Nazi.

I see. At first I thought "Racial disparities" was meant more figuratively. You guys mean it literally.

Oh well, another major city maladministrated.

the perspective of a person who is willing to wait an hour in traffic, but is not willing to wait 15 minutes plus pay $9. In a world of rational actors, this person should not exist

Most people can’t arbitrarily decide to work more billed hours, though. 45min saved from no traffic isn’t 45min of extra work the next day. There’s nowhere you can immediately sign up for 45min of labor providing minimum wage or more. Then you have to consider whether the person is doing something in traffic which they would otherwise do for 45min in the absence of traffic. A lot of people enjoy time zoning out, listening to music or a podcast, talking to someone on the phone or even being alone for a moment. So some portion of the time in traffic isn’t completely written off, but is actually an activity they would otherwise enjoy on the couch at home.

If this is true, then it will only take a very small toll to eliminate congestion.

That's why congestion pricing is a very small toll.

It tends not to be.

Consider, for a minute, the perspective of a person who is willing to wait an hour in traffic, but is not willing to wait 15 minutes plus pay $9. In a world of rational actors, this person should not exist. But in the real world, this person in fact does exist in great numbers.

I think you forgot to actually make an argument why this is irrational. I can imagine many pretty natural scenarios where this is perfectly rational. For example, if you are working a full time job with no ability to work overtime (i.e. most jobs), and you don’t have anything all that valuable to do that you’d rather spend extra 60-90 minutes a day, but you could really use extra $2k/year. If you were planning to spend this saved time on scrolling TikTok, why not just spend it sitting in a car and put a podcast on?

It's similar to why it is rational to pay $X extra to drive somewhere where you will save less than $X on prices. In order to not incentivize behavior that harms you, you need to precommit not to give in even if not giving in harms you by more. If you incentivize enough price reduction that the increased incidence of price reduction helps you more than the loss from driving when there is no price reduction, you gain.

But it only works if you precommit; you need to become the type of person who "irrationally" will drive far to get lower prices. Once you've done this, you can't just see that they didn't lower the prices, change your mind, and go to the nearer store anyway to "save money".

From an economics standpoint, the toll has been a big success. Consider, for a minute, the perspective of a person who is willing to wait an hour in traffic, but is not willing to wait 15 minutes plus pay $9.

The improvements, if they indeed exist, have not been that great. More like 5 minutes than 45.

This will increase traffic outside the zone as much as it decreases it in the zone.

This appears to have happened. Traffic on some routes have gotten worse (based on the same data showing improvement on other routes, so all very preliminary)

It's pretty much a money grab for the MTA. The various unions will see the extra money and go on strike until it's diverted to them. No subway improvement will result, nor will congestion materially decline. Drivers will be pissed that they have to pay more and MTA union workers will be happier.

Congestion has already materially declined.

You mean because a few chosen routes show 5-6 minute reduction in travel times? On the first Sunday of the year, compared to other Sundays? Come on, at least demonstrate a little skepticism.

Sure, let's be skeptical. Let's look at the data. Flipping through some arbitrary affected commute routes (that start from outside the zone and go into it) on weekdays, there's a notable difference in commute times before and after congestion pricing.

Let's come at this the other way. What evidence would convince you that congestion pricing reduces commute times?

I went into that data prepared to agree with you and I'm not seeing that big of a difference. Set it to Tuesday and flip through the routes labeled "Affected" and they seem barely changed. I personally would be much more annoyed paying $9 every day than pleased by the 5% improvement in transit time. The hedonic treadmill will make you forget all about the benefit of lessened traffic but you'll get to experience the annoyance at the toll every single day you pay it.

Flipping through some arbitrary affected commute routes on weekdays, there's a notable difference in commute times before and after congestion pricing.

The difference is sometimes in the wrong direction (e.g. "Hugh L. Carey" Tunnel, FDR Drive) . You're going to need a lot more than a week of data in any case.

So what evidence would convince you?

Most people account for 15-30 minutes of bad luck when they commute by car. So you would probably need to show that kind of reduction, and it would need to be consistent, for people to consider it a successful program.

I currently think its mostly a money grab. The trains will not be improved. That is obvious.

Most people account for 15-30 minutes of bad luck when they commute by car. So you would probably need to show that kind of reduction, and it would need to be consistent, for people to consider it a successful program.

Correct. And furthermore, if you're willing to argue it's working based on two routes on a single Sunday, the first Sunday of the year (which also happened to be a snowy day), based on comparisons to other Sundays including in the summer, you've clearly got a very bad standard of evidence.

FWIW, before the pandemic I drove into NYC from NJ through the Lincoln Tunnel on the first Sunday of the year (though a clear day, not a snowy one). It's the shortest time I've EVER taken to get into the city from home by any mode, by far.

I can totally buy that the trains will not be improved. However, increased prices leading to less consumption is a reasonable prior I think.

More comments

Consider, for a minute, the perspective of a person who is willing to wait an hour in traffic, but is not willing to wait 15 minutes plus pay $9. In a world of rational actors, this person should not exist.

Why shouldn't he exist? $9 per commute is $18 a day, is $396 a month assuming 22 working days in a month. Would you like to be out an extra $396 a month? I mean, I wouldn't, and I work as a software developer (albeit not in the US). And if you're still commuting to work 5 days a week you're probably not a software developer. And I'm not even counting other trips, though in a big city you can probably do your groceries on foot.

Yeah, but your time is worth $X an hour, where X>9! Not evenly, it isn't. My hours at work are worth ˜$25 after taxes but my hours outside of work are worth $0. Averaged over the day, an hour of my life is worth ˜$1, slightly more, which you will note is less than 9. If I had an extra 1.5 hour a day I wouldn't know how to use them to consistently make $18 after taxes to earn back the congestion charge. And you don't even get that, you get two blocks of 45 minutes.

Now, I wouldn't die if I were out $396 a month. It would just suck. But again, these people who are still physically coming into work 5 days a week probably aren't programmers.

Probably, lots of these people are just taking the subway now, which the Internet tells me costs $132 for a month, which is at least less than $396 albeit some crazy person might set you on fire. Notably, people would rather spend two hours a day in New York traffic than ride the subway if given the choice, which has to mean something. Others will have switched jobs, but again, that would be a job so much worse than their previous one that they'd rather spend two hours in New York traffic each day, when given the choice.

What is important to note is that almost all of these people were already picking the car over the bus/train for a reason. This is just a tax on cars. In other words, why do so many people not currently like the state of the public transit? Will this fix those reasons? Obviously not. Thus, its another tax resulting in DWL as taxes usually do.

If you could give me 90 minutes of extra time per day at the cost of only $400 per month I'd consider it the deal of the century and try to make the trade at least 10 times. This is cheaper than the monthly price of a course of GLP-1 agonists for Americans!

Yeah, I'd pay that if it was somebody possible.

This is unfair because it prices out the working class people who drive into Manhattan.

This a feature and not a bug.

The time of working class people is less valuable than those who make more than them per unit of time. If a working class person (or person of any class, really) deems $18 dollar a day to be too much, they can come in earlier and/or leave later, take alternative means of transportation (e.g., subway, bus, train), or arrange carpooling with others in a similar situation.

Plus, the working class is likely almost all lifetime net-tax consumers (especially in an area like NYC). Since they're free-riding on—or at least riding the coat-tails of—net-tax payers, if anyone gets last dibs at (quasi-)public goods, it should be them (other than the underclass).

The time of working class people is less valuable than those who make more than them per unit of time.

No, the time of working class people is less valuable in dollars than the time of rich people, but dollars themselves are worth less to rich people than to working class people. A dollar comparison is not a utility comparison and a libertarian analysis should not pretend that it is.

No, your reply is by no means convincing, unless perhaps one has a noble savage view of working class persons.

A dollar being worth more to a working class person than to someone higher-earning is a feature, not a bug, as per my previous comment. Congestion pricing ultimately trades off time with money. People who value $X more than their unit of time can voluntarily select themselves out of traffic jams.

A "dollar comparison" has the advantage over a "utility comparison" in that a dollar comparison incorporates the opinion of third parties, namely their employers. The dollar comparison reflects the notion that the employers of the working class value the employee's time less than the employers of their employees who earn more per unit of time, skin in the game and all.

Plus, even if we moved toward a utility-based comparison, it's not axiomatic that everyone's utility should be equally valued by third parties. The utility comparison has very obvious failure states. Namely, utility monsters. Perhaps I value every marginal dollar I receive or don't infinitely relative to everyone else, should society cater to my interests? Perhaps I value my time infinitely relative to everyone else, should society cater to my interests?

People can value $x more than their unit of time because

  1. they don't value their time much compared to other people or
  2. they value dollars more than other people

The argument for congestion pricing depends on #1, not on #2, and in fact there's a motte and bailey here where the motte is "they value their time less" and the bailey is "they value their time using a smaller dollar amount" (which is not the same as valuing it less).

The dollar comparison reflects the notion that the employers of the working class value the employee's time less than the employers of their employees who earn more per unit of time, skin in the game and all.

The employers are paying in dollars too, so claiming they "value the employee's time less than" their own bosses has the same problem--they value it less when measured in dollars, not when measured in utility (and especially not in utility to the employees).

The utility comparison has very obvious failure states. Namely, utility monsters.

But the argument that poor people "value their time less" implicitly assumes that you're comparing utility already, so you're stuck with it. There's no reason to care that they value their time less in dollars if dollars aren't proportional to utility.

While not forgetting utility monsters...

The employers are paying in dollars too, so claiming they "value the employee's time less than" their own bosses has the same problem--they value it less when measured in dollars, not when measured in utility (and especially not in utility to the employees).

So now the claim, or at least a pathway for the introduction of obfuscation, is that the employers of high-earners pay more to their employees than the employers of low-earners because the employers of high-earners have lesser utility of dollars? McDonalds Corporation likely has little utility with respect to a given dollar, yet their burger-flippers aren't exactly getting splashed in cash.

Suppose members of Group A owned paintings that they have historically been observed to sell at on average $150 each, because they're willing to part with the paintings at such a price and buyers are willing to pay such a price. However, members of Group B are willing to sell their paintings at an average of $50, as observed by historical transactions, and buyers aren't willing to pay a price too much higher, on average, for the paintings Group B owns. I hardly doubt you'd quibble if someone remarked, "The paintings owned by Group B are less valuable than those owned by Group A."

The time of my surgeon neighbor is more valuable than the time of my nearby McDonald's manager (to circle-back to the previous reference), whose time in turn is more valuable than those who panhandle on our nearest main road. The working class versus higher-earning classes situation is just a generalization of that.

But the argument that poor people "value their time less" implicitly assumes that you're comparing utility already, so you're stuck with it.

No thanks, I'm not stuck with anything. However, if we play along with the utility framework, and suppose that decreased wealth/income means increased utility with a given dollar we could consider:

Why might a low-earning person value a dollar more?

Because typically, they own fewer dollars.

Why might such a person own fewer dollars?

Because it's the accumulation of others not valuing his or her time as much as those of higher-earners, and such a low-earning person is willing to sell their time for fewer dollars than those of higher-earners. That is, we could say, this low-earning person's time is less valuable than that of higher-earners.

All roads lead back to lower earners' time being less valuable.

And if I were a net-tax payer in NYC (or anywhere), I'd much rather that any frictions in employment and/or hours-worked be incurred by low-earners than high-earners, as high-earners better help shoulder city, state, and federal taxes. Although granted, from an accelerationist standpoint, one might want to starve the beast, and deprive NYC/New York State/USA of tax dollars.

So now the claim, or at least a pathway for the introduction of obfuscation, is that the employers of high-earners pay more to their employees than the employers of low-earners because the employers of high-earners have lesser utility of dollars? McDonalds Corporation likely has little utility with respect to a given dollar, yet their burger-flippers aren't exactly getting splashed in cash.

It is true that dollars are worth a lot to employees, and are worth little to McDonalds. But employees and McDonalds are also on opposite sides of the transaction.

Employees accept jobs which pay very little because they value dollars a lot. "Dollars are worth a lot" compensates for "it's few dollars". McDonalds has jobs which pay very little because McDonalds is on the other side of the transaction, so "it's few dollars" is not something they need to compensate for--it's something that's already good to them. The fact that dollars are not worth much to McDonalds just makes it better.

I hardly doubt you'd quibble if someone remarked, "The paintings owned by Group B are less valuable than those owned by Group A."

Comparing paintings usually takes place in a context where comparing dollar values is useful. If you tried to make an economic argument where the distinction between "costs more in dollars" and "is more valuable" actually mattered, then you could no longer just compare the dollar value of the paintings.

Why might such a person own fewer dollars?

... we could say, this low-earning person's time is less valuable than that of higher-earners.

No, you couldn't say that. The low-earning person's time is less valuable than that of high earners, in dollars. Treating it as less valuable in utility is circular reasoning, since you're using it to justify treating dollars as like utility.

I suspect that working class people present in lower manhattan have a reason to be there and should have their access made easier, rather than harder, because of that.

Every human or even non-human animal with sentience present in lower Manhattan presumably has a reason to be there. However, commuting from other areas into lower Manhattan entails limited space on roadways, which translates into limited time. And some peoples' time is worth more than others.

An area staffed and entered only by doctors, lawyers, accountants and so on is going to having leaky plumbing, dirty windows, and crumbling buildings. Plus all the nice-to-haves: shop workers, barbers and the like.

Wages are not a fixed edict from God, and can adjust if congestion pricing leads to a shortage of working class workers in Lower Manhattan.

Via supply and demand, wages can thus rise for working class workers. And meanwhile, if they so choose, doctors, lawyers, and accountants can DIY to fix their own plumbing, windows, and buildings, even though it's likely a rounding error for them as to a pay-bump for their in-house working class workers to compensate for a $9 (or $18? day surcharge).

There's also an abundance of lower-tier, lower-earning white-collar knowledge workers (e.g., compliance, operations) who live within lower Manhattan who would be first to DIY trades themselves, and perhaps serve as after-hours skilled-labor providers for those who make more.

In the first place all those except tradespeople who require a van can, and indeed mostly do, commute in by transit - in the second place, all that will happen is that for things like plumbing in the area prices will simply rise by the cost of paying the charge, so in the end all the costs get passed on the users of the services, which would seem ideal.

Plus, the working class is likely almost all lifetime net-tax consumers (especially in an area like NYC).

Perhaps, if you amortize the fixed costs of overpriced government evenly. But I suspect the "working class" are marginal taxpayers. They don't get much in the way of direct subsidies, and they pay a ridiculous amount of tax.

But I suspect the "working class" are marginal taxpayers.

Even if we suppose somehow, someway, the NYC working class are marginal net-taxpayers if we squint and kick fixed costs under the refrigerator—as per my previous comment—the NYC working class would be still riding the coattails of those who earn more. If my brother and I buy a large pizza for $45, where he pays $35 and I pay $10, it'd certainly be understandable that he get first priority as to which slice he picks, and I would wait.

You're not buying a large pizza though. You're buying hooker and blow for Mayor Adams or something. Neither of you really wants to, neither of you is actually getting the benefits at all, so what difference does it make?

If I had an extra 1.5 hour a day I wouldn't know how to use them to consistently make $18 after taxes to earn back the congestion charge.

Averaged over the day, an hour of my life is worth ˜$1

I would propose that the most valuable use of your time is neither working nor sitting in traffic.

Socializing, reading, going for a walk, etc...

The reason that going to the dentist is awful is not because you could be working during that time, it's because it's boring and uncomfortable. Traffic is the same for most people.

As a society, it's better if more people do things that give them joy instead of rage.

Would you pay $396 per month if you were in return given two separate 45-minute blocks of extra time each day in which to read a book or go for a walk?

I mean, maybe if you're a high-powered lawyer who makes half a million a year but works 90-hour weeks, you might. Presumably that's the kind of person still driving and paying the congestion charge. Someone to whom money is nothing and time is very short, i.e. someone whose time is actually worth a lot.

In fact not many people are taking the deal. You can tell by how the roads are empty. Presumably they're on the subway now, which I can't imagine is going to save time, what with the delays and transfers. It still costs $132, and then there's the getting set on fire bit which I also can't imagine is giving them joy instead of rage. If the subway were a more pleasant experience than sitting in traffic, people would've been choosing that in the first place.

Even in Europe nobody takes public transport if they can avoid it. This is despite every American urbanist YouTuber squeeing with glee upon seeing it, and despite many people not being able to afford a car at all.

You're talking as if it's about sitting in traffic vs not sitting in traffic. That's not true. It's sitting in traffic, vs standing in a dingy subway station with a bunch of hobos wondering if the train's still coming, vs taking a worse job outside of the area, vs paying $396 per month.

Even in Europe nobody takes public transport if they can avoid it.

As others have said, this is total nonsense. The vast majority of even the highest earning city lawyers and bankers in London take the tube or suburban rail to work, and to get around to other leisure pursuits too.

Even in Europe nobody takes public transport if they can avoid it.

That varies. In most of Europe commuter public transport is barely better than it is in the US (long distance transport certainly is, but not commuter stuff). But in a few big cities like Paris and London most well-paid professionals still use public transport. NYC used to be like this in the 2000s and 2010s, but a combination of huge wage inflation in the PMC and the subway homeless schizo crisis have increasingly led to Manhattan residents with some money commuting by Uber.

Would you pay $396 per month if you were in return given two separate 45-minute blocks of extra time each day in which to read a book or go for a walk?

Yes. Please summon the genie or demon needed to make this deal.

Even in Europe nobody takes public transport if they can avoid it.

I can afford a car in London. I still prefer the Elizabeth line.

Yeah, I imagine we both know people who make many millions a year who commute by tube. If you live in South Ken and work in the City, you can spend an hour in a car or 20 minutes on the (now even air conditioned) circle line, why would you pick the former? Likewise if you live in Mayfair and work in Canary Wharf.

Likewise, I lived in London and took the train and tube for years until I started cycling to work. I had exactly one incident (on a bus) where some drunks threatened me after I politely asked them to turn their music down. That sucked, but overall the public transport felt very safe.

I politely asked them to turn their music down

In America that young guy blasting music on public transportation is daring people to challenge him so he can fight them or threaten to fight them.

Yeah, other than the stale piss smell in some stations I always found the tube nicer than the actual streets.
It's odd, because I don't remember especially strict policing, but people seemed to be on better behavior than usual anyway.

It's odd, because I don't remember especially strict policing, but people seemed to be on better behavior than usual anyway.

Everything is surveilled by CCTV. With modern face recognition software TfL could flag it every time a person "known to the authorities" uses the system. They don't go that far, but I assume they use all available analysis tools on the pictures they pull after someone commits a serious crime on public transport. The 7/7 bombers were identified within 3 days based on CCTV footage, and the technology has got a lot better since then.

This was long before any of that. I haven't been back to the UK in decades

The toll is $9 per day, not each way. And you can enter and leave as much as you want.

So figure 20 working days a month = $180/month.

Would you pay $396 $180 per month if you were in return given two separate 45-minute blocks of extra time each day in which to read a book or go for a walk?

I am wealthy so, yes, my I value my time at more than $6/hour. But I think that all rational people in New York should.

Presumably they're on the subway now, which I can't imagine is going to save time, what with the delays and transfers. It still costs $132.

Yeah, trains are slow. Driving makes for faster commutes unless density is really high. Although, in a place like New York, if everyone drove that would no longer be true. I'll quibble with the cost though, since owning and operating a car in Manhattan is ruinously expensive. Parking might be $40/day for instance.

In any case, if you want someone to argue with about congestion charges, it's probably not me. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about them.

Personally I'd rather take longer on the Train (assuming no random homeless enemy encounters) than driving for a commute at a reasonable ratio, since the former means I can use my various devices and don't have to deal with parking/the continued existence of my vehicle when returning home

My hours at work are worth ˜$25 after taxes but my hours outside of work are worth $0. Averaged over the day, an hour of my life is worth ˜$1, slightly more

Unless you work an hour per day, there's something seriously wrong with your math.

I think he's saying that his total time working gets him $25, not that he gets $25/hr.

I entertained that hypothesis, but rejected it on the basis of how then the expense would not "just suck" in his words but be devastating, and of how an hourly wage of an hair above three dollars would be completely irrelevant to the New York City situation.

Yeah, this particular post is odd. Either he lives in Africa and his calculations are irrelevant or he works 1-2 hrs a day, at which point, yes you shouldn't be in transit to your job longer than you work. The real problem with the congestion fee is its just an additional tax with no offsets and taxes are bad. No one seriously thinks there will be less crazy people stinking up subways and erratically lunging at people or pushing them in front of trains as a result of the congestion fee.

Well... In theory pushing more Daniel Perrys onto the subway system could offset the crazy hobos.
Before you laugh, this is literally just the anti-homeschooling argument from "exit, voice, and loyalty." If parents are forced to send their children to state schools, they lose the "exit" option and will be forced to fix the environment their child is stuck in..

Reading between the lines this is the argument behind a lot of "people must be forced to take the public option to spread out the pain" policies. And making public transit mandatory is definitely one of those cases.

I call that the hostage-taking argument.

Congestion pricing is clearly a good thing. Many of the same people who call for high minimum wages of $15+ an hour are complaining about needing to pay $9 for something that saves them 45 minutes of their time. Either they value their time less than minimum wage (because if you value it at $15 an hour paying $9 to save 45 minutes is a good deal) and are inveterate liars (shame!) in which case we should think less of them or they are not able to put two and two together, in which case we should also think less of them.

This is unfair because it prices out the working class people who drive into Manhattan.

This is the shittiest and most disingenuous argument of them all. 1) is at least superficially plausible, 3) is well, true because of the murderous lunatics on the subway and 4) is a statement of how far certain parts of the US have fallen rather than anything else. 2) though is just wrong because now that working class person if they leave their home at the same time each day are able to get to their workplace and start their time on the clock earlier/leave later at the end of the day to reach home at the same time and even if they're earning NYC minimum wage without overtime they still come out ahead.

We are surrounded by evidence that the common man is an inferior being but we willfully blind ourselves to it. If we could only stop shackling ourselves to the Great Lie that humans are equal we'd progress a lot faster as a species. I do it too to an extent. The paragraph above was limp faced justification for why the system won't really harm the working class, the true Chad answer is "so what if poors are less able to drive into and take up scarce space on Manhattan roads; their loss is more than made up for humanity as a whole by the minutes of time saved by elite human capital who no longer have to share the road with low tier people".

Will people cheat?

The solution for cheaters is simple: just copy what the UK does. London already has a congestion charge and it works well. If anything the amount is not high enough because there's still too much traffic. If you try and cheat you should be handed a $2,000 fine payable within 2 weeks the first time you are caught with your car getting summarily impounded on the spot for repeat offenders. All we now need is the iron to implement this system.

We are surrounded by evidence that the common man is an inferior being but we willfully blind ourselves to it. If we could only stop shackling ourselves to the Great Lie that humans are equal we'd progress a lot faster as a species. I do it too to an extent. The paragraph above was limp faced justification for why the system won't really harm the working class, the true Chad answer is "so what if poors are less able to drive into and take up scarce space on Manhattan roads; their loss is more than made up for humanity as a whole by the minutes of time saved by elite human capital who no longer have to share the road with low tier people".

We've been dismantling it for the past 20 years, what do you think DIE is about? Some have said the effects of woke politics suggest the great lie is valuable, but I believe we need to accelerate further - once we've dismantled that great lie completely the plebs can properly remind the aspirational middle class elite human capital why they employed it in the first place.

I thought it was funny how it was originally a $15 toll, but everyone lost their shit so Hochul dropped it to $9 and then had the audacity to claim the price drop a great victory for the people.

Is it true the congestion pricing and recent incidents has turned New York subways into giant communal games of "bums to the wall chaps, Cyril's on the crawl"?

You cannot be pulled over for this, so it's basically an honor system.

You can't be pulled over for driving with fake plates?

Some states have a distinction of 'primary' and 'secondary' traffic offenses: primary offenses can be justification for a police stop and citation at any time, while secondary offenses can only be issued where a stop has already begun under reasonable suspicion of a primary offense, or another citation is already being issued.

Depending on offense, the theory is either that the secondary offenses are intended to augment other errors (eg, speeding a few MPH at night while your headlights are broken is much worse than speeding a few MPH), or that enforcement of the law while a vehicle in motion is so impractical that it would more often be used as justification for improper or illegal stops than for true enforcement (eg, you aren't going to be able to tell if a driver has buckled their seatbelt fully at 80 MPH on a freeway no matter how good your eyes are), or that the law is intended more as a guideline and it has been abused in the past (eg, pulling someone over for a single broken tail lights was notorious as a pretext for other searches, rather than an opportunity to tell people to get the light fixed).

That said, while New York has considered such a distinction, I don't know the state of the current law there or in Washington. And sometimes this is a policy thing, rather than a statute one.

The US is an insane place. Here missing plates are treated with as much suspicion as hiding your face when walking past a cop. Being caught with fake plates results in your driving license suspended for a year. Making your plates intentionally unreadable and getting caught twice - suspension for 3 months.

Texas just got rid of temporary tags because there’s too many fakes, too- this isn’t just a blue state thing.

Sounds like a problem that is easy to solve. Have speed and lane control cameras scan every plate they see. If they see a fake plate, alert the nearest patrol car. Texas Highway Patrol makes ~7500 traffic stops a day. If just 10% of these stops will be about plates, that's 750 drivers punished each day.

The system that most plate-scanning mechanisms utilize wouldn't be able to keep up with this volume, I think.

It's also illegal to use said system for plate-scanning, but they do it anyways. And continue to do so; who knows how that court case would work out.

Traffic control cameras are illegal in Texas.

That's some goddamn horseshoe theory in action. California and Texas on the same side of speed camera use debate?

Not in Seattle, no: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-is-seattle-s-policy-on-pu-t6NsMk9ZQhKDnDEGjPlSSg

This is the official policy. But the defacto policy is much more lenient. Essentially you cannot be pulled over for any reason. I haven't seen a single car pulled over since the riots.

State and suburban police may pull you over though.

In progressive states people almost never face consequences for this. In California you frequently see plates covered with opaque plastic, missing, or replaced with fake temporary tags.

I live in Oregon. My vehicle is supposed to have a front license plate but I never put it back on after having a front panel replaced three years ago. I've never been stopped or ticketed because of it. And no, it's not because I'm doing some best effort thing by leaving it on my front dash. I just don't display it at all.

I would fix it but now I want to see how long it takes.

Teslas notoriously don't come with a place to mount the front plate and so many of them simply do not have one around here. You may never be hassled about this at all.

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