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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:
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.
This is unfair because it prices out the working class people who drive into Manhattan.
This is unfair because it forces people to take the subways and the subways are full of murderous lunatics.
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?
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.
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.
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