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Sam from Wendover did a very good job explaining why Congestion Pricing is the best solution to address this particular problem, including arguments on why this is not a regressive tax when you analyze it closely.
Canonical YouTube link so you can use your favorite Invidious/Piped instance https://youtu.be/B2j-LgcA7Gk
And same on nebula: https://nebula.tv/videos/wendover-the-battle-over-nyc-congestion-pricing/
Fixing traffic by… discouraging people from driving, lol. Well I’m not complaining.
Regressive tax. Yet another kick in the face of the lower class. Why not a progressive tax based on personal income? It works pretty well for speeding tickets in northern Europe.
This tax hits the rich more, which is good. Now there is more tax money to help the poor. Stop Advocating for making the rich richer
We can’t hold every type of tax-incentive based progress hostage because our culture won’t tolerate day-fines or other income-scaled penalties. I mean we could, but it wouldn’t make sense. This is a good program and it has an option for low income people to pay less. Furthermore we can always funnel money from rich to poor in other ways (e.g. through unrelated).
and it has an option for low income people to pay less.
You’ve never been poor have you. Its an extra 300 bucks talen away for no benefit, assuming they qualify for the low income benefit, and its 400 fliushed down the tubes if they dont.
There are a multitude of options to get into Manhattan for less money than driving, and they have higher throughput.
Maybe if you are that poor don’t pilot your personal vehicle into the congested parts of Manhattan, where you pay for parking on top of the general costs of your car such as insurance and fuel.
Take the subway like me and a million others.
Remind me your grand plan to institute day fines again?
Maybe if you are that poor don’t pilot your personal vehicle
And there it is. That privilege. “if you’re that poor”.
Remind me your grand plan to institute day fines again?
Progressive tax on a scarce resource based on income. Complete exemptions for disabled. Better rates for working poor than 25% off.
The fee is reduced based on income.
sort of. 50% off after the first ten trips per month if you reach a poverty threshold. Its still a big increase for any poor worker and it doesnt scale up to add cost for the rich bastards. So if you come in every weekday thats 4 weeks, 20 trips. 50% off after 10 trips means you get half off for 2 weeks. So its basically 25% off. Figure 20 bucks a day of new cost, now 25% off, = 300 bucks of new cost for a person who can prove they are in poverty. 400 if you cant. 400 is pocket change to a wealthy person and a whole lot for an hourly worker to start giving to MTA.
I’m all for reducing traffic, but yeah, how is this not at least partially regressive? Folks who can only afford to live in New Jersey but then have to work in NYC now have yet another new expense.
But maybe I’m not aware of just how ubiquitous subway stations are in New Jersey that go into NYC. Would it be an easy transition?
It’s my understanding that poor people in NYC already take public transit. It’s just the rich people who drive.
Besides, less traffic in NYC probably means cheaper parking, so people who have to drive will probably see their cost unchanged.
That’s not quite true https://www.cssny.org/news/entry/congestion-pricing-outer-borough-new-yorkers-poverty-data-analysis
There is a small percentage that are poor and will suffer more due to being out priced out of transit areas
That’s unfortunate. But does it balance out the better quality of living the poorer people who live in the city are going to have? Can it be mitigated by expanded bus lines?
I really don’t know. My gut says that this is still a net positive for equity, but don’t trust that guy, he’s an idiot.
I mean you’re just making efficient transportation something that wealthy people can just buy…
Private vehicles aren’t efficient, they’re convenient.
Your comment presumes that everyone has access to public transit that suits their needs. Many people do not.
Which would be the case if there was no caveats for people with low incomes and those with mobility concerns… however, there are discounts and even full on exemptions from the congestion pricing.
https://new.mta.info/tolls/congestion-relief-zone/discounts-exemptions
All those green lines aren’t supposed to be an example of efficient transportation? Is that not exactly what the author is trying to convey?
No, those coloured lines are just the traffic indicators on Google maps, green just means “traffic flowing normally”, red is “traffic jam”
You said “no” but everything after that said “yes”.
Traffic flow is efficient. Cars are (very often) not
Thank you
This is great, should be implemented in all cities. Most people who can use public transport should.
Not all cities are equal. Many have large areas with no public transportation available.
That’s also very easily fixable
I get suggested to drive for 11 minutes and ALSO take a lyft if I wanted to use public transportation to get to work.
Do you always go to work in the middle of the night on a Sunday?
That’s just when I browse Lemmy 🥲
So, what you posted is not really meaningful and representative of your daily commute, right?
I’m so confused about what’s wrong, the bus stop doesn’t suddenly get closer if I leave at 9am monday…?
Doesn’t seem to apply to your specific case but usually there’s a big difference between middle of the night vs. during the day. Even though I live in a city with a good public transit infrastructure, if I try to get to my workplace at three in the Morning on a Sunday I will still have a bad time:
vs.
That’s why your first screenshot didn’t really prove much.
In SF they allocated some extra carpool lanes (taken from the total number of highway lanes) and started calling them “express lanes” instead of carpool lanes. Everybody cheered-- because transit hipstering is a great thing for the people who it actually works well for in our mediocre system. I guess everytone else is SOL. In SF it started out that you could still use them for free if you had 2 people in the car. Now its 3 people minimum to ride free, and the prices crept higher. Now you’ll very often see all non-express lanes stopped with traffic but the price for express lanes high and the express lanes clear of traffic-- that road throughput capacity underused. Its become a rich persons lane, at the cost of reducing capacity of the total system. When it got put in they said the max would be $8.00, shortly after they doubled that, with no max per day. Fees rack up since they charge over short distances. Now I’ve started seeing express lanes on main thoroughfares that arent highways.
Theres a patchwork of diconnected and not well thought out transit systems, with little hope of retrenching them to have usable coverage like NYC has. You’ll end up using an uber or taxi to get to your final destination most of the time, and parking at transit stations is difficult, time consuming, and expensive.
This is not the solution you think it is. It just makes things better for the rich, and does nothing for the poor and middle class. This is like the “clear” lane at the airport security. Once its in, its not going away. Pricing is not in the control of people who have your best interests at heart. If you’re poor, your time is not worth as much as a rich persons. They are commoditizing the hours of your life and many of you cheer for it. Without progressive pricing for this you’re just getting fleeced.
The funds created arent going toward new projects . They are used for road maintenance, enforcement, and debt repayment in the county where the road is This simply frees up general funds that had been used for that before these went in, so no direct benefit in terms of transit projects is mandated.
Also, those lanes were open to everyone for 2 months before they had everything online. There was absolutely no traffic those months. Once they turned on the scam lanes, traffic was back with a vengeance… Unless you paid.
That is expected. When a lane is added it fixes traffic for some time then it goes back to the same due to induced demand. Look at Texas and their 26 lane highway, it has not fixed their traffic problems and never will. It is always hard to move towards less car dependence, but it will never happen if we keep adding lanes.
As someone who takes public transit into SF every work day. It exists. It works. It’s faster than driving
It works.
It works for you in your current situation.
we need it to be more than this
That goes without saying?
As I understand it, poor and middle class people are already taking public transit. It’s the rich people who are driving in New York. This is making it easier for deliveries, taxis, buses, and emergency vehicles to get through by getting all of the entitled rich people off the road.
You think charging them 20 a day will get the rich off the road?
Looks like it is! (See above)
inb4 the supreme court rules that congestion charging is unconstitutional and furthermore that public transport, too, is unconstitutional.
“Ladies and gentleman of the committee, I put it to you: thousands, perhaps millions, of American songwriters have written about missing their truck. How many have written about missing the bus? I rest my case.”
Counterpoint, “the wheels on the bus in fact, go round and round.”
Objection! Does the baby on the bus not likewise go wah wah wah?
Exhaust Now Vents Directly Into Cab: EPA says, “For your health!”
Congestion pricing bad, private tolls good
Thanks Lars.
If the founding fathers didn’t explicitly mention it in the Constitution then clearly it’s unconstitutional.
Pooping is unconstitutional.
But removing the separation between chruch and state is, any part of the constitution (ex: Article six, the first amendment, the fourteenth amendment, and multiple supereme court rulings on the constitution) are clearly just liberal lies
Outstanding move on NYC’s part.
Prior to this going live there was a lot of talk about how congestion will simply move from one place to another. I don’t know new york so can’t name places but it was regarding commuters using a street or bridge that is now under congestion charge so they will flow an alternative route through roads that aren’t designed for the additional traffic.
Is that now the case?
The other location would be the Subways and buses in this case. I went home at 5 yesterday, right in the heart of rush hour, and it seemed like a normally packed subway not an especially congested one.
Some people may be inclined to go up and over Central Park to get to the other side without paying the $9. That likely only affects uptown residents. I can’t imagine anyone driving around the park from midtown to avoid the fee.
The only legitimate concerns I’ve read are from contractors with tools and small businesses who deliver. They should be offered exceptions if walking or mass transit are unrealistic options. You’re not riding the subway with acetylene tanks or delivering fresh meat on Metro North. Other than that, I love it.
I’ve paid more just to go through the park lol
They should be offered exceptions if walking or mass transit are unrealistic options.
No they shouldn’t. That’s how you let rich people skirt the law.
Tradespeople should just treat it like any other business expense. Eat it or raise your rates a little bit.
eat it
They never do
a little bit
It’s never a little, and we all bitch about inflation.
There’s never a simple solution.
They sometimes do, at least temporarily. But yes on the whole I agree. I can almost guarantee that it’s a net benefit, that the time saved by traffic reduction makes up for the additional cost in congestion charges
sure, but you can also deliver those with lighter vehicles that don’t cause traffic. Congestion is congestion.
I’m confused. How will I deliver 15 pounds of Trump skirt Steaks if I can’t drive my lifted Ram 3500 Heavy Duty with the high-output Cummins Turbo Diesel engine in downtown Manhattan?
The only legitimate concerns I’ve read are from contractors with tools and small businesses who deliver.
Maybe, but anecdotally the lighter traffic allows contractors to accomplish more jobs per day because they spend less time in traffic, which more than offsets the congestion charge.
Going from three hours per day in traffic down to even just two means there’s an extra hour a contractor has to make money.
The other concern I’ve heard, and has not been brought up in this thread yet, is the lobbying influence from rideshare companies to pass the congestion laws.
It’s arguable that ride share vehicles are a better traffic density alternative to single rider personal vehicles, but there are pretty clear downsides to consider as well.
Source:
You can be self interested and still accidentally be on the right side of an issue. It doesn’t spark joy, but I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater on this. It’s still a win, imo.
Construction firms make a ton of money in NYC, they can handle it, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone delivering food from a car in the city, they all use bikes.
Commercial deliveries, not consumer. Every pizza joint needs flour, cheese, and tomatoes.
We’ll see how it plays out. I could see less traffic meaning you can make more deliveries in a day, I figure one extra commercial delivery more than makes up for $10 extra.
Possibly. It may disproportionately impact eateries with more diverse menus or foods with shorter shelf life. Time will tell.
Unsure, I don’t live in NYC. However, I can say that this will encourage many more people to take transit, which is good. Plus, I don’t doubt that the tolled routes will still see active use by millions as they’re still the fastest way to and from work.
Of all the things on Reddit, I miss remindmebot the most. They tried to kill it numerous times but it survived like a roach in radiation. On lemmy, I find an interesting question and have to set a timer for myself. This is the most first-world of problems, but I’m still moderately upset every time
@[email protected] 10 days
@bdonvr Ok, I will remind you on Monday Jan 20, 2025 at 12:08 PM PST.
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@[email protected] 1 year pls
Good luck. The bot hasn’t sent a message in almost a year.
…if it isn’t the bridge I said I’d cross… Wait, not going to pay that congestion charge.
What time was this pic taken?
This one was taken at 10:30 AM Eastern Time if that helps.
Nice. Now cars are only for the rich like they should be.
Real solution: Ban cars in parts of NYC.
What was that saying again, something along the lines of: A great city is not where the poor own and drive cars, but the rich take public transportation.
I feel like what this good intentioned quote misses is that the poor are priced out of the city core entirely and pushed into banlieus
A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation.
- Gustavo Petro, current president of Colombia, former mayor of Bogota
True wealth is not needing to drive a car at all.
Right because everyone needing a car means everyone who can’t afford one just automatically gets one.
Step one of reducing car-dependency is to reduce their number on the road. Then you can start bulding shit that accommodates the poor through actually nice-to-use public transit, bicycle paths, and walking routes.
Charge the rich. Build for the poor.
Step one of reducing car-dependency is to reduce their number on the road. Then you can start bulding shit that accommodates the poor through actually nice-to-use public transit, bicycle paths, and walking routes.
Why can’t you start building shit before reducing their numbers? I don’t see what one has to do with the other.
Of course you can. I’m using “step one” as a figure of speech to express importance.
Controlling vehicle numbers is a very “low hanging fruit” that can do a lot to improve things for a very low cost.
Zippity zoppity let’s redistribute some property
Cut to me dramatically removing my “fuck cars” jacket to reveal a “fuck private property” t-shirt
Banning cars actually works really well if you can prepare parking spaces or fully focus public transport
Source: Taksim Street
Please elaborate the “if you can prepare parking spaces” part.
Multistory and underground parking spaces with a toll on how long a car stays, turkey has İSPARK which maintains this
This’ll both allow people with cars to travel here, and will also lead to people preferring to walk or use public transport
The profit incentive to build parking is through the roof in NYC, they can charge a ton for parking, and there’s still not enough.
Now cars are only for the rich
More that roads are for high occupancy or professional vehicles - buses, ambulances, construction vehicles, commercial trucks - that still need access to Manhattan but can’t be placed on a train.
What does that have to do with the OP?
Buses --> tram
Ambulances --> single lane road/biking path
Construction vehicles, commercial trucks --> single lane road
Problem solved, no need for cars inside the city
Ambulances --> single lane road/biking path
I should not need to explain why running an ambulance down a bike lane is a bad idea.
Construction vehicles, commercial trucks --> single lane road
Why would reducing the number of road lanes without implementing congestion pricing be a preferable solution? How would this improve access to construction vehicles and wide-body trucks?
No, you should explain why ambulances using bike lanes is a problem as multiple european countries do that and it works perfectly.
Because reducing lanes means less people will use the road because if you literally cant get anywhere with a car you will use an alternative(of course that has to be provided). Also this is another european thing but you can just ban cars that are not there to do stuff(idk what they call it english but in hungarian its “célforgalom”).
multiple european countries do that and it works perfectly
You know that ambulances also cause accidents on roads?
The poorer you are the less you can afford paying for it. This is really just a method of opening the streets just for the rich.
Regressive solution.
Cars in Manhattan were already “just for the rich”.
It’s simply making the rich think for a moment, before taking their car to the street. Which makes the streets safer for everyone who’s not rich.$9 does make any rich person think twice.
It adds up. There’s plenty of wealthy, but not obscenely wealthy people in NYC who would think twice about paying $9 for no reason even if they can easily afford it.
I don’t think they would ever have to pay it. It would be travel expenses on their accounting.
I think you might be misunderstanding the non-$100s of millions wealthy class.
They still do normal stuff, like go to shows and eat McDonald’s while driving themselves instead of having a chauffeur.
Having your business pay the toll for a personal trip is embezzlement and most people wouldn’t risk that over $9.
If companies are reimbursing people for commutes into work, that’s probably not an approved tax exempt benefit so you would still need to pay income tax on that $9.
Having business pay for your tolls is absolutely not embezzlement. It’s part of your compensation package. When charges increase or even gas prices, you list it and get paid back. Of course that rarely applies to poor people.
Decades ago my outside accountant passed all travel expenses to my business as part of his fees. His hourly time even included driving travel time to the office.
You might think that, but - they sure do like to complain about $9!
You’d think so, but the data clearly disagrees
Can you show the data? Because I find it extremely hard to believe multimillionaires would take the bus instead of being driven into the city in their limo.
The data this whole thread is about.
And you’re making assumptions about what “rich” means.
People only making half a million are rich. They still drive their own car. Those are most of the personal vehicles being driven in Manhattan.
The people you’re thinking of, are the wealthy. There are only a few hundred of those people in the city, they aren’t a major driver of traffic anyway, so nobody cares about them.Is there any data that shows people making $500k a year are deterred by a $9 fee?
Going to work 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year is $2,250. The average garage price is $15 a day.
Public transport won’t be built?
It’s only regressive if you assume cars are a necessity, they’re really not in NYC. I sold my car after moving down from New England and haven’t regretted it, and it’s not an affordability issue for me either.
Also the rich will always have access to luxuries that poor people don’t. There will always be fancy restaurants and nicer clothes than are inaccessible to the poor, but that is separate from them having decent quality food and clothes, and maybe can go out to a nicer dinner every so often, just not a $500 tasting menu.
You mean like how most things are anyways?
I’d say almost anywhere in the US besides the NYC area, this would probably be true. Given public transit is the norm there, it hardly seems regressive. I don’t think giving the rich the privilege of taking care through the city is a good thing, but at least the city gets to take some money from them. It would be much better if health care ceos all took public transit. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure an outright ban on private vehicles would be strongly opposed by such people right now…
This is really just a method of opening the streets just for the rich.
Anyone who takes the bus knows this is bullshit
congestion pricing doesn’t apply to public transit, which is the point. Take the damn bus to work. If it’s a long walk from your stop, you can buy an ebike with money saved from not maintaining a car.
Counterpoint, this funds public transport which is cheaper than car ownership and driving.
If you are poor, this pushes you to take a train or bus which saves you money.
The only people this taxes is the rich which makes this a progressive solution.
Can anybody tell me how much a drive through the congestion priced road would cost? Like a straight line?
It’s like $9
$9 for cars, no matter if you go one block in or all the way through. And no daily charge for staying there multiple days, only charged when you enter.
Could they make it more expensive for cars that enter the zone once and drive around all day (Uber)
They actually made it cost less for them. They can either pay the $9 each day or choose $1.50 for each trip (passenger pickup/dropoff) they make within the zone
That’s super reasonable, and if it actually helps it’s probably fantastic. I wonder if things like emergency response times will significantly improve as a result.
Kinda unfair tbh
Roads aren’t fair
It’s not so much a congestion prices road, it’s a zone. So anytime you enter that zone you pay $9 unless you make less than like $60 k then it’s like $4-5, and emergency vehicles are free.
That sounds pretty reasonable actually.
I REALLY wish they’d implement that in my home city of Montréal, Québec. We’re facing huge traffic congestion because of construction. It’s so bad it’s actually costing lives due to driver impatience.
Dude Montreal is currently insanity. You couldn’t pay me to drive there. Lovely city otherwise
Yeah. I live in Montreal and try to avoid driving anywhere if I can help it. That’s why I got a place near a metro station not too far from downtown. I have bus routes that go to all the nice places in 20-30 minutes. And my neighborhood is awesome. Everything I need is walking distance and it’s a cool place in the summer with lots of activities, bars, restaurants, specialty stores, etc.
Wait until the elevated highway collapses
It’s because of everyone being forced back into the office to help “reinvigorate the downtown core” and to help landlords cover real estate costs
Downtown Toronto too, please. This last year was the first time I have seen multiple emergency vehicles not being able to get to their destinations because of traffic gridlock. It’s insane.
Properly built bike lanes can be used as an emergency lane for emergency vehicles.
I know its not torontos fault they are getting removed. At least Chow seems to be trying to reduce traffic by ensuring transit fares stay the same by freezing fare imcreases and also investing into various parts of the network.
But the emergency vehicle access might be useful as an argument against Ford’s decisions, not that he would care.
Their counter argument would actually be, “Nah, get rid of the streetcars instead” and people would unironically agree. I wish I was kidding.
The hostility towards non-car/public transit infrastructure I am seeing in Toronto after coming home post-pandemic is insane to me. And, no, it’s not coming from the Indian immigrants everyone keeps trying to blame everything on.
From my observations, immigrants rely on transit more than other demographics.
Good.
Hilarious, a move that was proven to work in Istanbul was avoided… Because…?
What move?
Republicans.
According to NPR the other day, apparently NJ’s (Democrat) Governor Murphy is against it. I’m not exactly sure why (I missed that part). It may have had something to do with revenue sharing, and NJ taking in much less than they did before?
I don’t know and not sure if I care enough to look into it… But yeah, apparently not just Republicans.
Not 100% sure but I figured it was because so many people live in NJ and commute to NYC every morning, so this new congestion charge might get people to leave NJ for somewhere with better train/transit options
Widening roads makes money and adds more cars that also makes more money. If you fix the problem, how are you gonna keep milking it?
Your silly trains, busses and bikes aren’t going to pay for the yacht.
Wonderful news for people with porches or flexible schedules.
Hey! I’m woahkin hee-ah!
