[HN Gopher] Changes since congestion pricing started in New York
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Changes since congestion pricing started in New York
Author : Vinnl
Score : 146 points
Date : 2025-05-13 10:43 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| rienbdj wrote:
| https://archive.ph/NRCcg
| Hanschri wrote:
| Climate Town has an entertaining and informative video on this
| topic from last month:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEFBn0r53uQ
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Great comment from that video: "When cars were banned from
| Central Park drivers whined and now we can't imagine it any
| other way." Everything is impossible until it is done.
| nurettin wrote:
| It is fun to observe everything come to an equilibrium with
| positive outcomes until someone lights the atmosphere on
| fire.
| perching_aix wrote:
| Getting a bit lost in the metaphor, could you clarify?
| epistasis wrote:
| I see this with new apartment buildings in my small, NIMBY-
| dominated town.
|
| Building proposed: "It will be too expensive! We need housing
| for those making 10% of median income, not for those making
| the median income!"
|
| Building mid-construction: "This building is unbelievably
| ugly! How could we let this happen to our town?!"
|
| Building completed: "This building is completely vacant! Why
| did we allow this to be constructed? It's just proof we
| should never build anything again, it's not needed."
|
| 18 months later, building fully occupied, lots of happy
| residents with mixed incomes: Silence, because they are too
| busy complaining about all the other buildings.
| explodes wrote:
| Wouldn't it be nice if policy changes were accompanied by an A/B
| testing plan to evaluate their impact? I have always thought so.
| I have also seen a major pitfall of A/B testing that real humans
| can hand-pick and slice data to make it sound as positive or
| negative as wanted. Nonetheless, the more data the better.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Unfortunately, the possibility exists that the moment of
| introducing the A/B test requirement will be strategically
| chosen to freeze the status quo in the way the chooser prefers.
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| test A - before
|
| test B - after
|
| what are you talking about ?
| shermantanktop wrote:
| "A/B in time" suffers from inability to control for other
| factors that might vary over time. In this case, that could
| be the economy or other transit policies.
|
| But sometimes it's the only possible approach.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Generally, that's considered to introduce counfounding
| factors on the time axis ("did we see improvement because we
| changed something or because flu season hit and people stayed
| home") that you'd prefer to mitigate by running your A and B
| simultaneously.
|
| But in the absence of the ability to run them simultaneously,
| "A is before and B is after" can be a fine proxy. Of course,
| if B is worse, it'd be nice if you could only subject, say,
| 5% of your population to it before you just slam the slider
| to 100% and hit everyone with it.
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| yes, but how the hell he proposes to make A/B testing of
| "whole Manhattan policy"? build another Manhattan just for
| test? makes no sense. whole manhattan is important. not 5%.
| so no 5%. a/b test can be done only for things which affect
| one person, like for example GUI etc, big group under test
| but effect on individuals,
|
| in such big scale a/b test is tool to deceive, not to get
| to right conclusion
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It is, indeed, much easier to do A/B testing online in
| environments you control than IRL.
|
| (Purely hypothetically: one could identify 10% of the
| island as operating under the new rules and compare
| outcomes. This is politically fraught on multiple levels
| and also gives messy spatial results.)
| Ntrails wrote:
| "before" and "after" introduces a large axis of noise
|
| The problem is that for A/B testing to really work you need
| independent groups outcomes. As soon as there is any bias in
| group selection or cross group effect it's very hard to
| unpick.
| sc68cal wrote:
| We already had A/B testing of congestion pricing. The A test
| was without congestion pricing in NYC, and has been tested for
| decades.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| That's not an A/B test because it has no way of controlling
| for broader economic trends over time. How do you figure out
| if what you're seeing is because of that one thing that
| changed, or the enormous list of other things that also
| changed around the same time?
|
| A more valid design would be randomly assigning some cities
| to institute congestion pricing, and other cities to not have
| it. Obviously not feasible in practice, but that's at least
| the kind of thing to strive toward when designing these kinds
| of studies.
| jannyfer wrote:
| That would be a bad design for an A/B study (and NYC
| congestion pricing is not a "study" anyway), because cities
| are few and not alike and have an enormous list of other
| things that are different. What NYC equivalent would you
| pick?
|
| In any case, not every policy change needs to be an
| academic exercise.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| Yup, that is indeed a part of the problem. You'll notice
| I did say, "Obviously not feasible in practice."
|
| I've got a textbook on field experiments that refers to
| these kinds of questions as FUQ - acronym for
| "Fundamentally Unanswerable Questions". You can collect
| suggestive evidence, but firmly establishing cause and
| effect is something you've just got to let go of.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| An important part of testing is establishing assessment
| criteria and collecting data.
|
| I wish more laws would pre-state what their intended outcome
| and success would look like.
| aredox wrote:
| Yeah, let's do that for everything: safety belts, safety on gun
| triggers, melamine in milk, etc...
|
| Do you A/B test your comments too?
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > Wouldn't it be nice if policy changes were accompanied by an
| A/B testing plan to evaluate their impact? I have always
| thought so. I have also seen a major pitfall of A/B testing
| that real humans can hand-pick and slice data to make it sound
| as positive or negative as wanted. Nonetheless, the more data
| the better.
|
| Policies have different effects depending on how likely people
| judge them to be long-term changes. Construction along a route
| will cause people to temporarily use alternative forms of
| transportation, but not e.g. sell their car or buy a long-term
| bus pass.
|
| Yes, the inability to know counterfactuals will make judging
| policies more subjective than we might like. The closest we get
| to A/B testing is when different jurisdictions adopt
| substantially similar policies at different times. For example,
| this was done to judge improvements from phasing out leaded-
| gasoline, since it was done at different times and rates in
| different areas.
| stemlord wrote:
| please don't quote the entire comment you're replying to
| sc68cal wrote:
| sometimes people edit their post after the fact. It is
| important sometimes to quote it, to ensure that context is
| preserved
| aclatuts wrote:
| The real world isn't A/B tests. No government is going to spend
| millions on equipment and infrastructure on a congestion zone
| because some engineers are like "Let's just test this out. I
| have done zero research on what could possibly happen, but it
| would be fun to see what the results are."
| listenallyall wrote:
| When you write it out like that, it seems to make total
| sense! But then you read grant proposals that get funded - in
| things like the social sciences and humanities, and even
| conventional science and health - millions of dollars
| essentially just throwing darts to see what sticks.
| czzr wrote:
| Surely you see the difference between working in a
| development environment and working in production?
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Not to settle on "It's bad" but their so called "results" seems
| completely obvious.
|
| The congestion policy is disincentivizing/suppressing people's
| preferred method by making it unaffordable to some, and
| unappealing to some. We already know that we can use policy to
| push people away from their preferred to a less preferred method.
| The items listed in green are mostly obvious as people seek
| alternatives. It's like highlighting how many fewer chicken
| deaths would occur if we created an omnivore or meat tax.
|
| IMO what they should be keeping a careful eye on and tracking is
| how many fewer trips happen to businesses in those areas. How
| much fewer social interaction is happening across the distances
| that those car based trips used to occur. And how much harder is
| it to get goods into the areas. Is less economic activity
| happening.
|
| In the long run, yes, maybe things will be net better for all,
| when the $45M per year has had a chance to make alternative
| transportation methods to be not just policy enforced, but truly
| _preferred_ option.
| zzzeek wrote:
| there should be a meat tax, btw. I eat a ton of steak but it's
| costing the ecosystem dearly
| shermantanktop wrote:
| How high would the tax have to be to get you to stop eating
| so much meat?
| w0m wrote:
| Think about it more; if the vegan and steak options were
| ~equivalently priced - more would choose vegan than if it
| wasn't more expensive. The idea isn't to make it
| prohibitive; insofaras don't make the most environmentally-
| expensive choice also the cheapest.
|
| To compare it to traffic; everyone is miserable sitting in
| traffic; so giving people an excuse for a bit more WFH is a
| WinWin.
| vidarh wrote:
| As a committed meat-eater: I have no idea what vegan food
| costs, as the label almost immediate makes me skip over
| them. To make me look at them, you'd have to make the
| non-vegan options prohibitively expensive.
| w0m wrote:
| I'll reword it. The idea isn't to make _everyone_ skip
| meat; but to make the non-meat options more competitive.
| I say this as one with multiple briskets in my chest
| freezer waiting for some good weather.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Well most raw vegan food is already way cheaper that raw
| meat:
|
| Quality organic dry chickpeas, lentils, beans, soy etc...
| already are around 2EUR/kg where I live and when you add
| water they double/triple in weight so you end up at
| 1EUR/kg. You'll probably eat a bit more weight than meat
| but still the price is nowhere comparable. Add some whole
| cereals instead of white bread for nutrition and better
| satiety: they're more expensive but you got the price
| back on the quantity you eat (you won't stuff yourself
| that much T165 bread or brown rice: the fibers will make
| you feel full super fast). And for the vegetable you
| usually can find stuff super nutritious for cheap :
| apples, leak, cabbages and alls sorts of oignons.
|
| Even fancy organic quinoa is like 10EUR/kg but also
| double in weight and you only eat ~1.3 times the meat
| weight you'll eat in meat-meal.
|
| Industrial chicken is 5EUR/kg un the shop and "good" one
| 15EUR/kg. Quality beef is nowhere in that range.
| vidarh wrote:
| Missing the point, which was that you're not going to
| convince people like me who ignore the vegan options just
| by having them be cheaper than meat, because I won't
| look.
|
| The only thing that would make me look at the vegan
| options would be if I felt I couldn't afford the meat
| options.
| tayo42 wrote:
| For me 20 dollars a pound to push it into a treat
| territory.
|
| I don't know know what would replace it though.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| They are tracking that sort of thing. One of the line items is
| "vistors to the zone - up". Another two are restaurants and
| Broadway receipts which have no data yet.
| lokar wrote:
| There were critics who predicted that it would not reduce
| traffic and congestion. They argued people had no choice but to
| drive and would just be forced to pay.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > people's preferred method
|
| You have some evidence of this?
| taeric wrote:
| To be fair, I think this is just definitional? If you would
| normally do one behavior, but an increased cost to it causes
| you to do something else; I think it is fair to say the first
| would be your preference?
|
| Now, if it was claimed as a superior method, that would be
| different. I could easily see it being people's preference as
| much from habit and availability as from any active
| preference. Certainly few people want to sit in traffic. But
| without an obvious immediate cost, many will jump in the car
| to drive somewhere.
| blactuary wrote:
| If you would normally do one behavior because it is being
| heavily subsidized by other people and you are not bearing
| the cost of that behavior. Of course people have a
| preference to not bear the cost of their own externalities
| atq2119 wrote:
| Status quo bias. The previous behaviour was also affected
| by government policies including taxation and
| infrastructure spending.
|
| There is no objectively neutral baseline of preferences
| here as long as civilisation exists.
| notTooFarGone wrote:
| This is always a time/cost/convenience/habit formula to
| everything. If you change anything in there of course
| people adjust to their optimum. If you introduce large
| roadworks in the heart of manhattan you'd get less cars too
| because people go by train/bike.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > To be fair, I think this is just definitional? If you
| would normally do one behavior, but an increased cost to it
| causes you to do something else; I think it is fair to say
| the first would be your preference?
|
| Good point, but I don't think people prefer the car.
| Rather, I think they prefer the convenience a car provides.
| Sure, there are some people that love driving, but for the
| rest of us, I'm pretty sure driving is a means to an end.
| (As an aside, I'm also pretty sure that by-and-large people
| that love to drive aren't wanting to drive into NYC ).
|
| Rather, if people prefer the most convenient method of
| travel, and if something becomes more convenient, they will
| take that.
|
| All this is to say, driving isn't their preferred method of
| travel. Rather, it just happened to meet their preferred
| levels of convenience. And not all of that is money
| related. Being able to take public transit and sit and
| relax and enjoy the ride and not deal with traffic and
| listen to an audio book, I love that. And if it's good
| enough, I don't drive. But I do still have a car and drive
| more than I take public transit. Not because my preferred
| method of travel is car. Rather, my preferred method of
| travel is whatever gets m to my destination in a reasonable
| amount of time, price, comfort, and safety.
|
| I'm sure this is more likely a thought experiment and not
| as useful, but you had an interesting question, and it got
| me thinking.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| Example of the "force of habit" factor:
|
| Every time my mom comes to visit us in the city, at some
| point she says she could never live here because she
| couldn't imagine having to drive in city traffic every day.
| And every time she does that, I remind her that her car
| hasn't moved even once since she first arrived a week ago.
| Mostly we walk everywhere. And every time she responds,
| "Oh, you're right. You know, that's been really nice."
|
| She's lived in suburban and rural areas her entire life.
| The idea that she simply has to get in a car to go
| _anywhere_ is so ingrained into her psyche that even a
| solid week of not driving is insufficient to dislodge it.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I don't think revealed preferences are the only reasonable
| way to define "preference."
|
| To use an extreme example: Does the homeless alcoholic
| divorce really prefer to be homeless and divorced?
|
| For a more abstract example, consider games like the
| Prisoner's dilemma, where "both defect" is worse for both
| players than "both cooperate" but choosing to defect always
| improves the result for a player. Surely both players would
| prefer the "both cooperate" solution to the "both defect"
| but without some external force, they end up in a globally
| suboptimal result.
| taeric wrote:
| I'm a little unsure how to read you. These results look,
| frankly, amazing. The benefits to schools and busses alone
| would have been good. That traffic is faster everywhere is a
| cherry on top of it all.
|
| And you did see that they had a section on restaurants, right?
| Those are up. They polled stores and found only 25% that report
| a negative impact. That looks concerning, I agree. Would love
| more polling on it with quantification.
|
| Could this still be a bad policy? Of course. Could it be a good
| policy today that trends to bad some day in the future? I'd
| think so. But we have tools to monitor this stuff that flat
| didn't exist before. We should be in a good place to try stuff
| like this. And, again, these results look amazing.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Getting business stats is fraught. If a business is
| struggling, the owners opinion on the cause is important, but
| is it accurate?
|
| In Wellington, New Zealand, failing business love to blame
| cycle lanes for their woes. The government sacking a
| significant number of people and an economic downturn is
| apparently not the cause.
| Vinnl wrote:
| I don't think you can infer that people were using their
| preferred method just from the fact that they were using it -
| after all, the status quo was _also_ the result of policy.
|
| > IMO what they should be keeping a careful eye on and tracking
| is how many fewer trips happen to businesses in those areas.
|
| I think the article mentions this?
|
| > In March, just over 50 million people visited business
| districts inside the congestion zone, or 3.2 percent more than
| in the same period last year, according to the New York City
| Economic Development Corporation (its estimate tries to exclude
| people who work or live in the area).
|
| See also the "Other business measures are doing OK so far"
| heading.
| jwagenet wrote:
| > IMO what they should be keeping a careful eye on and tracking
| is how many fewer trips happen to businesses in those areas.
|
| There's a section dedicated to this which indicates visitors to
| business zones are up and OpenTable reservations are up.
|
| If anything, the reduced congestion should be a boon for
| business deliveries and the congestion pricing should be a
| rounding error for those users.
|
| IMO, people _think_ driving is their preferred transportation
| method because it gives the illusion of independence. The
| subway goes everywhere in lower Manhattan and you don't need to
| deal with the time, cost, or inconvenience of parking, traffic,
| driving stress, etc.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| It would be really interesting if it turns out that something
| like this improves the city's overall economy by encouraging
| people to go to neighborhood businesses instead of driving
| all the way across town to go to whatever place is currently
| trending.
|
| I'm thinking here of when I lived in Milwaukee, WI. Milwaukee
| has a strong culture of driving across town to a small number
| of trendy neighborhoods. Which leads to hyper-concentration
| of commercial investment in those areas, since they're the
| only ones that get any traffic. Which might be fueling a
| vicious cycle that helps explain Milwaukee's rather extreme
| neighborhood-to-neighborhood prosperity disparities. It's
| harder for people in a neighborhood to have income if there
| aren't any nearby jobs. It's hard to hold down a job across
| town from where you live if you aren't wealthy enough to own
| a car.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > extreme neighborhood-to-neighborhood prosperity
| disparities.
|
| It may also make running a business more expansive. It
| limits locations and pushes rent up.
| jwagenet wrote:
| I would assume any increase in desirability would be due
| to an increase in traffic and cash inflow to those
| businesses/area.
| lubujackson wrote:
| Driving into NYC is one of those things that is most
| convenient at the beginning (driving in, stay in my car) but
| has a high cost at the end (looking/paying for parking,
| traffic, on a parking time limit, etc.) I do think if people
| grow ACCUSTOMED to taking the subway in, they will prefer
| that in most cases.
| diogocp wrote:
| > $45M per year
|
| Well, in a hundred years they should be able to afford a couple
| of new subway stations.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
| jannyfer wrote:
| Maybe 10 years, because $45M is per month.
| jacksnipe wrote:
| There are plenty of places where consumption taxes DON'T have a
| strong effect, like vice taxes on tobacco and alcohol. It's
| absolutely worth actually testing it.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Vice taxes on tobacco have an incredibly strong direct
| effect.. especially on preventing youths from starting to
| smoke and on poor people continuing to smoke.... It's
| something like a 7% reduction in the number of youth smokers
| for every 10% increase in price.
| michael1999 wrote:
| Every study I've ever seen showed that people on foot and on
| bikes are _much_ more likely to stop and shop or eat during
| their journey.
| horv wrote:
| > In the long run, yes, maybe things will be net better for
| all, when the $45M per year has had a chance to make
| alternative transportation methods to be not just policy
| enforced, but truly _preferred_ option.
|
| The article highlights that was $45 million in the month of
| March alone:
|
| "In March, the tolls raised $45 million in net revenue, putting
| the program on track to generate roughly $500 million in its
| first year."
| SoftTalker wrote:
| It's sort of weird, because taken to its logical conclusion
| (nobody drives into lower Manhattan) they would be collecting
| nothing. They are disincentivizing the thing that they are
| counting on to provide revenue.
|
| Of course, practically that will not happen, but it could be
| that they are overestimating the long term revenue stream. As
| more and more people get used to not driving into downtown,
| that will become the habit, and then their kids won't be used
| to it and they won't do it either.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| The cool thing about pricing is you can make the pricing
| variable to achieve whatever ends you want... if you're
| desperate for more cars for some reason you can just lower
| the cost and the 'market' will respond. You can have lower
| costs in the afternoon or at night, or no cost on weekends.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Seems to be working fine, I know the large city about 60 miles
| from me looked at this, and I am all for it. But its mass transit
| is a awful mess, at times walking is faster that taking a subway.
|
| I wish they would start this, but its politics is such a mess
| nothing really gets done there. New Ideas there gets implemented
| far slower than then ideas in Roman Catholic Church.
| philipallstar wrote:
| The increased speeds are excellent for those who can afford the
| toll. This is a universal benefit of toll roads for those people.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| And the investments in public transit and bike paths are
| excellent for those who can't. Such unalloyed win-wins are hard
| to find.
| lokar wrote:
| I lived in Manhattan, and was very well paid. I did not own a
| car, and loved it. This would have been great for me as well.
| timewizard wrote:
| Did you have children or did you live alone?
| epistasis wrote:
| As someone with children, I can not imagine the bliss of
| living in Manhattan and being able to do things without
| needing a car.
|
| Car-centric urban planning is hell with kids. You have to
| load them up into the car for any small trip. You can't
| walk or bike anywhere because cars make it so dangerous.
|
| My only regret about living in the US is this car
| hellscape that is so hard to avoid. It's mandated by law,
| not chosen by the market.
| andrepd wrote:
| I'm already imagining what kind of arguments you are
| preparing. Kids are _infinitely_ better off somewhere
| they can just bike places with their friends, compared to
| a car-centric hellhole:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHlpmxLTxpw
| Vinnl wrote:
| Also for those who can't afford car ownership.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| They also benefit any and all road-based public transit that
| crosses the zone.
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| wealthy people do not need to travel as much as pleb....
| GeoRandel wrote:
| Let travel for royalty be unimpeded and force the peasants to
| bike in the rain...
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| they can choose to be wealthy ( joke sorry )
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >The increased speeds are excellent for those who can afford
| the toll. This is a universal benefit of toll roads for those
| people.
|
| Anecdotally that seems to be the case. The largest burden of
| this tax is falling on low income commuters who live off the
| train lines and have to drive into Manhattan, yet all of the
| money is going to... the train lines (MTA). Understandably
| they're not too happy.
| paddy_m wrote:
| Those people simply don't drive into Manhattan, parking is
| already $30-$40 a day, driving from Jersey means you are
| already paying at least a $15 toll (you can drive from
| Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx without paying a toll). An
| extra $9 simply doesn't matter.
|
| Already 85% of commuters to lower Manhattan take public
| transit. Of the remaining 15%. An analysis found that only 2%
| of working poor New Yorkers would pay the charge. Otherwise
| low income New Yorkers would overwhelmingly benefit from the
| better transit funding
|
| https://www.nrdc.org/bio/eric-goldstein/busting-myths-new-
| yo...
| h1srf wrote:
| It's also excellent for people that take buses.
|
| Source: me
| neves wrote:
| The best decision would be to completely forbid individual
| transport. Now the common space dedicated to streets is for who
| can pay extra. Forbid individual transport and create some
| parks and pedestrian streets.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Extremes rarely work out well. The people paying for the
| luxury are funding improvements for everyone.
| crote wrote:
| It works _really_ well in quite a few other cities,
| actually.
|
| Car infrastructure takes up a huge amount of space and is
| incredibly hostile to any kind of mixed use. Having near-
| zero cars means there is suddenly space available for an
| order of magnitude more pedestrians. It's why reducing car
| traffic almost always results in a significant increase in
| revenue for local shops and restaurants - which means more
| taxes are being paid.
|
| Converting all of NYC into a huge pedestrian-only zone
| obviously isn't going to work, but having a few
| pedestrianized superblocks could greatly improve the
| quality-of-life.
| njarboe wrote:
| Go one step further and ban mechanized transport all
| together. Streets will have very little congestion. We can
| just go back to footpaths.
| digbybk wrote:
| Also excellent for those public transport riders who can't
| afford car ownership.
| zahlman wrote:
| (Or who would prefer to spend the money elsewhere.)
| tantalor wrote:
| "universal for x" is a weird thing to say
| jmyeet wrote:
| I was living in London when congestion pricing was introduced and
| went into the West End the day before and the first day of and
| the difference was night and day. The difference along Oxford
| Street, Regent's Street, Green Street, etc was astounding.
|
| And in the 20+ years the evidence seems to back up how much of a
| net positive it has been.
|
| NYC congestion pricing took way too long because the New York
| Democratic Party sucks and, as usual, legal efforts were made to
| block it, much as how well-intentioned laws like CEQA (designed
| to protect the environment) are actually just weaponized to block
| development of any kind.
|
| What's so bizarre to me is how many people have strong opinions
| on NYC congestion pricing who have never been and will never go
| to NYC. Americans love the slippery slope argument. It's like
| "well, if they make driving cars slightly more expensive in Lower
| Manhattan then next the government is going to take away my gas-
| guzzling truck in Idaho".
|
| What's also surprising is how many people who live in outer
| Queens and Brooklyn chose to drive into Manhattan and were
| complaining how this changed their behavior. Um, that was the
| point. I honestly didn't know how many people like that there
| were.
|
| What really needs to happen but probably never will is to get rid
| of free street parking below about 96th street or 110th.
|
| Also, either ban or simply charge more for combustion vehicles.
| Go and look at how quiet Chinese cities are where the vehicles
| are predominantly electric now.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Why does the slippery slope concept surprise you? It actually
| happens often - banning smoking indoors, for example - started
| in just one city, once they tweaked the model and overcame the
| legal challenges, it spread rather quickly. Legalized casinos,
| same thing. Uber, drinking age, pot legalization, more. Why
| would toll roads or congestion pricing be different? (Idaho's
| Sun Valley probably already implements something similar). And
| ICE vehicles are definitely in many politicians' crosshairs, if
| you don't already see that coming in the next decade, you
| aren't really looking.
| woodruffw wrote:
| These would be examples of normalization, not a slippery
| slope. The OP's example makes this clear (from "congestion
| pricing in NYC" to "they're going to take my car," not
| "congestion pricing in NYC" to "congestion pricing
| elsewhere").
|
| (Regardless, I think the answer is simple: congestion pricing
| is only economically viable when an area is simultaneously
| congested _and_ has alternative transportation methods that
| would prevent the local economy from collapsing. NYC is one
| of a very small handful of cities in the US where this is
| true, although that 's largely a function of 80 years of car-
| centric design. Maybe it will change.)
| listenallyall wrote:
| Numerous politicians and advocates have suggested exempting
| electric vehicles from the NYC congestion pricing. Such
| vehicles are exempt in London. It isnt unusual for
| governments to start a program with one goal or purpose,
| then expand it (or use as a launching point) to achieve
| further goals, such as banning ICE vehicles.
|
| This is currently happening with cigarettes. Banning them
| at workplaces and other public places is one thing. But we
| live in a capitalist country that celebrates individual
| freedom. Or do we? Beverly Hills CA and Manhattan Beach CA
| have both banned the sale of cigarettes entirely.
| Massachusetts banned all flavored cigarettes and is trying
| to permanently ban the sale of cigarettes to anyone a born
| after a certain date.
|
| These go beyond "normalization", it is exactly slippery
| slope... get a small foothold then keep expanding the
| position.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Note that from 2026, electric vehicles will no longer be
| exempt from the London congestion charge.
| zuminator wrote:
| The argument that because a few things have spread, things in
| general are likely to spread is itself a slippery slope
| argument.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > Why would toll roads or congestion pricing be different?
|
| The answer is actually quite simple: It won't be different.
| Prove to me it won't spread, because almost every new tax
| spreads.
|
| When is the last time a tax has existed in one state, and not
| spread to other states within 5 years?
| listenallyall wrote:
| You and I are in agreement
| ackfoobar wrote:
| I'm generally sympathetic to arguments that are "we will
| fall down the slippery slope." But as someone who has spent
| too much time stuck in traffic, I WANT congestion pricing
| to spread. It's just basic economics that people end up
| paying for a "free" resource with time - grossly
| inefficient.
| lesuorac wrote:
| I think the slippery slope has long happened and also gone
| away.
|
| There are a ton of roads with "turnpike" or "pike" in their
| name. Some cost money [1] others are free. What's the big
| difference between NYC's congestion pricing and the Florida
| Pike?
|
| I guess you can fight congestion pricing in order to slow the
| spread of toll roads but it's not the beginning of a slipper
| slope. Usage fees are a very old concept (price
| discrimination by time is pretty old as well).
|
| [1]: https://floridasturnpike.com/system-maps/
| potato3732842 wrote:
| I'm fundamentally against any measure that intentionally
| increases the cost at use of any form of transportation service
| whatsoever. Public transit? Free. Gas tax? Kill it.
|
| I grew up on a goddamn island, I've seen what an inability for
| people to travel easily or when the cost of doing so has to be
| seriously weighed does to an economy and it's not good for
| anyone or anything except a very select lucky few who are well
| positioned to take advantage.
|
| While the NY government can probably extract this rent from
| this area without damaging anything serious but it is not
| something that should be allowed to proliferate.
|
| INB4 environment/pollution, the richer we all are the better
| custodians we will be of the environment. Nobody cares if their
| energy is clean when they can barely make ends meet.
| graeme wrote:
| Time is a cost though. You're looking only at monetary cost.
| zzzbra wrote:
| This is precisely the reasoning I bring up. In essence
| traffic congestion is an externality not unlike pollution.
| What society now pays in the form of a financial levy it
| formerly paid in the form of a wasted time. We've made
| explicit a cost that was already there, and by doing so the
| system can respond to it and behave more intelligently.
| zzzbra wrote:
| This is a curious form of fundamentalism. "All motion is
| good, and damn any effort to coordinate it."
| andrepd wrote:
| Excessive car use _lowers_ mobility for EVERYONE.
| Restrictions to car use, lower speeds via traffic calming,
| removing car lanes and adding bike and bus lanes, all of this
| IMPROVES transportation times _including for cars_!
| neves wrote:
| Impressive how cars are harmful to society. This is just a small
| example. We should be more radical in preventing the use of
| individual automobiles.
|
| If it works in a country where the auto is so ingrained in the
| culture and lifestyle, it can work anywhere.
| HonestOp001 wrote:
| The converse is how helpful cars are. It allows people to have
| the ability commute from areas they live at to where they work.
| It brings down the cost of living by expanding the commute
| availability circle, instead of driving up land values for the
| desirable areas.
| antisthenes wrote:
| > It brings down the cost of living by expanding the commute
| availability circle
|
| It does this by sweeping a lot of negative externalities
| under the carpet of society. There's no magic here.
| neves wrote:
| The dispute isn't between walking and cars, or between stone
| age and modernity. Just that individual cars have a terrible
| externalities.
|
| Impressive how public transport does not enter the mind of
| Americans.
| marinmania wrote:
| I feel like its often people talking past each other.
|
| I currently live in NYC and am very congestion pricing.
| Cars are a major negative to most people in the city.
|
| But I have also lived in rural parts of America. Yes, it is
| annoying you can't walk to a corner store, but cars are not
| that big of a deal. You can bike or run in the streets
| without concern that cars will come by. And housing is so
| cheap it makes it so worth it.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| If public transit even remotely resembled anything in China
| or Japan, Americans would ditch their cars in a heartbeat.
| But every train ride I've been on to Manhattan is like
| commuting through an open sewer while being harassed by
| strangers doing an obnoxious dance with a bluetooth speaker
| in my face, dodging puddles of urine, and wondering if
| today's the day I'll be thrown off the platform.
|
| Of course people would rather commute in a gas guzzling
| SUV. I don't even know how it's controversial. It must be a
| form of Stockholm syndrome to think that this would be
| attractive to any normally adjusted human being.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Expanding the commute availability circle does not increase
| the supply of housing, because people build sparser
| neighborhoods with larger lawns. If you want to increase the
| supply of housing, you need higher density, not longer
| distance.
|
| What longer distance does is make the closer areas more
| valuable, because people will pay $$$ for a shorter commute.
| And for those who can't afford the closer housing, they get
| to pay $$ on a car and gas instead.
|
| Cars are only helpful in exactly two scenarios:
|
| 1. You live in a remote rural area where any sort of transit
| infrastructure is comically infeasible. 99% of the people
| posting here do not quality for this.
|
| 2. You live in a city so maliciously planned out that living
| without a car is unthinkable and that any other option to get
| to where you're going is not available.
|
| I use the word "malicious" because the gutting of American
| cities' transit infrastructure was a deliberate act by
| American car companies giving their competition the mafia
| bust-out treatment.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| NYC is an extreme outlier. The city itself is older than
| America, older than the British colonies even. It was built by
| the _Dutch_. It 's infrastructure is closer to Tokyo's[0] than
| any other American city. Congestion charge works in NYC because
| anyone driving solo into Manhattan is either an idiot or a
| cop[1].
|
| In any other city, congestion charge would be an effective tax
| on mobility, because every other city is so comically car-
| dependent. You might as well just raise the gas tax. Most
| cities don't even _have_ a downtown to protect from cars, they
| 're just suburban sprawl forever.
|
| The actually radical solution for places _outside_ the Tri-
| State Area is as follows:
|
| - Ban mixed streets and highways ("stroads"). That is, any road
| in the network must either be built to exclusively service
| local properties, _or_ carry high-speed thru traffic, not both.
| Existing stroads must be segmented into feeder streets and
| high-speed roads with ramp lanes on and off.
|
| - Level the zoning code. Allow mixed commercial everywhere, get
| rid of lawn setbacks, and allow up to four story buildings
| basically anywhere the soil won't collapse from it. The only
| limitations to this policy should be to prevent existing
| tenants from being renovicted immediately.
|
| - Require all new streets above the speed limit for (formerly)
| residential zoned streets have dedicated lanes for bikes and
| transit vehicles. The lanes must be segmented for safety. The
| transit lanes can start off as BRT and then get upgraded to LRT
| cheaply. If you don't want to run a BRT system then rent the
| lanes to private transit companies.
|
| I'm not sure how any of this would play in the motosexual parts
| of America, though. Even nominally blue states like California
| would shit themselves if you tried to even slightly
| inconvenience car owners.
|
| [0] To be clear, Tokyo as we know it today was basically
| rebuilt by America after we leveled it with firebombs. It was
| _specifically_ built in the image of Manhattan.
|
| [1] I can imagine several reasons why NYPD cops might not want
| to take public transit which I won't elaborate further on here.
| ars wrote:
| Cars are only harmful in dense cities. They work just fine
| everywhere else. For example in small cities kids can play in
| the road without fear of cars. It's only in dense cities where
| they can not.
|
| Dense cities are also the only places where public transit
| works, so it kind of balances out.
|
| > This is just a small example.
|
| New York city is a _small_ example? New York city is the
| largest city in the US, and pretty much the ONLY city where you
| can do this. And the mediocre results (10% is very little) from
| even NYC show that this will not even come close to working
| anywhere else.
| VOIPThrowaway wrote:
| Not sure I'm happy with turning NYC into a playground for us rich
| folk.
| Vinnl wrote:
| You'll be glad to see in the article then how much better the
| city got for people can't afford car ownership.
| RhysU wrote:
| Congestion isn't limited to cars.
|
| My pregnant wife was hit yesterday in SoHo in broad daylight by a
| delivery driver on an e-bike. He ran a redlight. He hit her in a
| crosswalk. She was wearing a bright orange dress. She was not on
| a phone or listening to music. She went flying ass over
| teakettle. We spent 6 hours in the ER yesterday evening to make
| sure our unborn baby was okay. Fortunately, everyone is OK
| despite her being banged up.
|
| The goddamn lawlessness of electric bikes is a consequence of NYC
| implicitly encouraging their illegal use. Meanwhile, I get to pay
| $9 MORE to drive my licensed, registered, insured vehicle on
| increasingly narrow roads filled with increasingly negligent
| 2-wheeled asshats because it's the preferred business model.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| In other forums there are lots of complaints about the NYC
| crackdown on e-bikes. NYC has taken steps to discourage their
| use. Maybe not enough, but definitely more than in most other
| parts of the country.
| RhysU wrote:
| Stand on a corner in NYC and count the moving violations the
| e-bikes commit. Running lights and stops. Going the wrong
| way. Etc.
|
| These aren't subtle infractions of the law. Tell me why
| automated traffic enforcement cameras don't target them.
|
| As a motorcyclist, e-bikes piss me off to no end.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It would be interesting to force eBikes to be registered
| which the owner then receives a number plate that must be
| placed on the bike. The owner would be subject to fines any
| rider of the bike incurs unless the bike is reported stolen
| so that the video is proven to be after the bike was
| stolen.
|
| Gotta give those automated systems something to use
| rimunroe wrote:
| > Meanwhile, I get to pay $9 MORE to drive my licensed,
| registered, insured vehicle on increasingly narrow roads filled
| with increasingly negligent 2-wheeled asshats because it's the
| preferred business model.
|
| It sounds like measures to limit the danger of electric bikes
| might be warranted, but that's a separate issue. Even if
| electric bikes are a problem I'd be shocked if they came
| anywhere close to causing the pedestrian fatality rate of cars
| (even when controlled by frequency of use) in an urban
| environment, not to mentioni the additional impacts of things
| like emissions (including non-tailpipe), noise, space, etc. of
| cars. I don't know much about motorcycle statistics. I can
| imagine the group that rides motorcycles might be less likely
| to hit pedestrians than those of e-bike riders, but I don't
| know.
|
| If we have to choose only one of these problems to tackle at a
| time--which we don't!--I'd rather they tackle the one which is
| killing hundreds of people a year.
| Vinnl wrote:
| Oof, that sucks. Glad that delivery driver wasn't in a car
| though! Could've ended much worse.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Anything could be worse. Doesn't mean it's an excuse for bad
| behavior.
| RhysU wrote:
| Yeah, just imagine. I did. For hours yesterday evening I
| imagined.
|
| Had a car killed my wife or unborn child, there would have
| been a legal trail and insurance.
|
| Had the e-bike killed my wife or unborn child, there was
| neither. I doubt I could ever find the killer of the unborn
| child if the baby died later due to injuries-- there's
| neither license nor registration on an e-bike.
|
| Pushing powered transportation into the unregulated,
| uninsured space is madness.
| mvid wrote:
| You would likely be unhappy if you saw the outcomes of
| almost all vehicle manslaughter cases. It's the easiest way
| to kill someone and get away with it consequence free
| vkou wrote:
| The perpetrators of most vehicular homicides face little to
| no consequences.
|
| You'd have to be an utter asshole (like a kid totaling
| three cars in a year, all going 70-100+ mph on urban
| streets), or the world's dumbest criminal (motorcyclist out
| on parole running a red, killing a pedestrian, and then
| fleeing the scene) for killing someone with a car to be
| more than an 'whoopsie daisies, at least nobody _important_
| got hurt '.
|
| In my town, just last year, a cop running down a young
| woman in a crosswalk, while doing 74 mph in a 25 mph zone
| at night, with no sirens, got a $5,000 fine for it.
|
| _That 's how much the life of a grad student is worth._
| jcranmer wrote:
| Were that delivery driver using a car instead of a bike, then
| your wife would likely be dead instead of in the ER.
|
| (At least in the US, having a driver's license is in no way,
| shape, or form an indication that the driver is capable of
| driving correctly, much less their willingness to do so.)
| miki123211 wrote:
| My problem with congestion pricing is that it still doesn't
| provide great incentives for cities to improve walkability and
| public transit.
|
| "What do you mean our transit is bad, look, our ridership numbers
| are 3x higher than all our neighbors combined!" *Does not mention
| the fact that congestion pricing in neighboring cities is 3x
| lower.*
|
| In the worst cases, it could even become a regressive tax of
| sorts. If your city has safe districts with good transit where
| rich people live, and unsafe districts with terrible transit
| where poor people live, congestion pricing will allow rich people
| to choose between the convenience of taking a car with no traffic
| jams versus the cheapness of transit, while forcing poor people
| to choose between a car they can't afford versus walking down a
| street where they may be assaulted.
|
| It's even worse if you have rich people living in the city center
| where they work, and poor people who also work there living in
| towns much further away. Then, only the rich are able to vote on
| congestion pricing.
|
| This probably doesn't apply to New York specifically (not an
| American, have never been), but it's definitely something to have
| in mind in general.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Did any of these things happen in the other cities which have
| had congestion pricing for years?
|
| Speculation based on incentives is all fine and good, but
| empirical results beat it every time.
| viccis wrote:
| >In the worst cases, it could even become a regressive tax of
| sorts.
|
| When I lived in Atlanta, there were people, mostly YIMBYs and
| other urbanists, who wanted to charge a significant congestion
| fee to anyone living in surrounding towns like Alpharetta,
| Roswell, Duluth, etc., who commuted into the city to work.
|
| It would effectively be a car vice tax paid by the working
| class, as most of the people I knew out there lived there
| because Atlanta rents and home prices are _insane_.
|
| Congestion pricing is ok when there are alternate methods of
| transportation that are usable enough that you could expect a
| person to just switch to them rather than pay the fee. But when
| there's not such an alternative, the people will simply pay the
| fee because they have no other option, and now you've just
| further immiserated peoples' lives.
|
| The closest thing to a response I've heard is that they think
| such a situation would encourage people to vote and push for
| better transit options. I just don't see it though. Ignoring
| that in my case, Atlanta, the city was a de facto one party
| city in which primaries were mostly determined by media
| endorsements and more emotional issues than transit and
| urbanism development, I just don't see that this kind of policy
| making that shapes the incentives (both carrot and stick) for
| the masses works in practice. Peoples' decisions are so much
| more complicated and subject to tons of other factors that this
| approach can't control.
| epistasis wrote:
| People said the same thing about New York City, but it is
| absolutely not true at all about NYC. Rich people drive into
| NYC, others take transit.
|
| It may be true in Atlanta, but it wasn't passed in Atlanta.
| I'd want to see a ton of data before I believed your claims
| though. Typically suburbs are where the wealthier people
| live.
| fundaThree wrote:
| I thought Hochul ratfucked this initiative for no apparent
| reason. What was the reason she gave for not ratfucking it a
| second time?
| burkaman wrote:
| She delayed it by 6 months because she thought it would hurt
| some candidates in House elections, and then she reduced the
| fee by a significant amount when it did go into effect in
| January, but it's still working incredibly well.
| fundaThree wrote:
| > She delayed it by 6 months because she thought it would
| hurt some candidates in House elections
|
| Did she think that New Jersey residents vote for New York
| candidates? Do you have a link to the narrative?
| philipov wrote:
| Westchester County and Long Island residents vote for New
| York candidates.
| fundaThree wrote:
| Fair, I guess I have no clue who on earth would willingly
| opt into driving into New York in the first place.
| burkaman wrote:
| I don't think it made sense either, especially because
| cutting the congestion pricing revenue last-second meant
| she had to start talking about raising taxes on the entire
| state instead, but that is the consensus on what she was
| thinking.
|
| Here's an article about it, she hasn't admitted the
| election considerations so we can't know for sure:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/09/nyregion/hochul-
| congestio...
| epistasis wrote:
| She delayed it by many months and lowered the fee, but
| eventually it went through. There was a theory that she wanted
| to delay it to win some contested seats in the November
| election, but that did not bear fruit. Now those voters still
| hate her, as do all the people that wanted congestion pricing.
| She was _not_ well liked at the Democratic National Convention.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| The reason she's not well liked is because she did absolutely
| nothing about probably one of the most corrupt mayors in the
| history of NYC.
|
| The congestion charge is nowhere on the DNC's radar
| nationally. The mayor of the largest city in the country
| engaging in blatant quid pro quo with a president from
| another party, certainly is.
| epistasis wrote:
| I'm not quite following here. What is Hochul supposed to do
| about Adams? The DoJ suit against Adams didn't happen until
| a month after the DNC. Blatant quid pro quo with a
| president from another party couldn't have happened until
| long after the DNC.
| listenallyall wrote:
| This guy is so cool, he uses the word "ratfucked"! Twice! Not
| just "fucked", but "ratfucked". Of course, congestion pricing
| was in fact implemented and remains in effect, so maybe not
| entirely "ratfucked"? Guess I'm not cool enough to understand.
| And because of his choice of words, people who are unfamiliar
| with this project don't even know what action(s) Kathy Hochul
| actually took that was/were detrimental.
| fundaThree wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking
|
| I honestly have no clue what beef you have with me, or if you
| even disagree, but thanks for calling me cool.
|
| > What was the reason she gave for not ratfucking it a second
| time?
|
| Still waiting on an answer that it seems you might be capable
| of providing rather than acting like a dick
| highpost wrote:
| My guess is that she lacks the essential political skill of
| reading the room. It's not like NYC is the first city to
| attempt congestion pricing. Anyone who has spent any time
| in London can see its benefits. So I think Hochul had her
| political focus on the wrong things.
|
| It took a lot of time and effort to bring the stakeholders
| together for congestion pricing. And to withhold her
| approval at the last moment was shocking. It's hard to
| imagine what she was really thinking and even harder to
| understand how she felt she would be rewarded for it.
| That's not a real answer to your question, but her
| reasoning on both congestion pricing and Eric Adams just
| seems opaque.
| Demiurge wrote:
| Perhaps it's a social sign for being one of the NYC local.
| They also referred to a person by a single name, further
| emphasizing they were speaking to the select few who would
| know what they were talking about.
|
| If only they could also write with a heavy NYC accent, their
| comment would be even cooler. Forget about it.
| fundaThree wrote:
| I live in DC
| Demiurge wrote:
| That's interesting. It must be that I associate rats with
| NYC. You used some terms that not everyone is familair
| with, I jump to the wrong conclusion, taking some guesses
| as to what you're talking about, and here we are.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| ratfucking as a term in political context was
| dramatically popularized by the movie All the President's
| Men, where a (historical) character describes his covert
| political actions thusly.
|
| Accordingly, it's a dc
| codedokode wrote:
| In my opinion, a democratic way to make such changes would be:
|
| 1) make a dedicated lane for public transport on every street so
| that traffic jams do not affect it
|
| 2) let car owners vote if they want to pay for entering the city
| or would rather spend some more time in traffic jams but save the
| money
| trial3 wrote:
| surely you see the problem with only letting the car owners
| vote, right? right??
| sleepydog wrote:
| The traffic has a negative effect on more than just car owners
| --smog, noise, accidents, slower taxis, to name a few. Why
| should only car owners, who are a minority in Manhattan, vote
| on a problem that affects everyone?
| gotoeleven wrote:
| It's nice that all those numbers are up, but it would be great
| also to see some metrics that attempted to measure the overall
| utility of the change. Something like avg time spent commuting,
| or really commute_time * dollars_spent_commuting^B where B is
| some parameter for the relative utility of time and money. Of
| course B is different for everyone but something like this could
| be attempted.
|
| Stated another way, if they made congestion pricing $1000 instead
| of $15 or whatever it is, all those numbers mentioned in the
| article would go way way up and it would look like a smashing
| success. The article doesn't make any attempt to measure anything
| that could potentially be a downside.
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