
Congestion Pricing in Manhattan Close to Approval - Townley
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/nyregion/congestion-pricing-nyc.html
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londons_explore
They need to make the toll dynamic.

Eg. "New York's streets can optimally handle 1 million journeys per day. If
the number of journeys is above/below that for 3 straight months, we
increase/decrease the toll by 10%.

That way the roads stay near peak efficiency without needing the politicians
to get involved every time the streets get too busy or too empty.

~~~
NullPrefix
Something like Bitcoin mining difficulty?

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londons_explore
London made the mistake of excluding Taxis from their congestion toll scheme.

Now nearly all roads are jam packed with Taxis and Ubers, and no regular
people drive at all anymore.

~~~
johnnycab
>London made the mistake of excluding Taxis from their congestion toll scheme.

It is a very simplistic view to call it a mistake, as the the issues and
policies related to the Congestion Charge have changed and evolved over the
last 16 years. For example, the PHV (Private Hire Vehicle) will _not_ be
exempt from the charge from 8th April 2019. However, licensed Taxi's (Black
cabs) were still deemed to be exempt from the charge, following a public
consultation last year[1].

Amongst various other considerations, some of these decisions were made on the
basis that the number of PHV's entering the zone has nearly doubled in the
last decade, whilst some traffic has been constant.[2]

Manhattan will have to deal with similar issues, which will generally coalesce
around the central tenets of easing traffic flow, improving air quality and
reducing accidents.

[1][https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/phvs-
and-...](https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/phvs-and-the-
congestion-charge)

[2][http://content.tfl.gov.uk/report-to-mayor-on-congestion-
char...](http://content.tfl.gov.uk/report-to-mayor-on-congestion-charge-
changes.pdf)

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CydeWeys
In NYC we have a huge problem of placard abuse, and placarded people would
presumably be excluded from the congestion charges, a huge mistake. A pointer
to more information: [https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2019/02/21/why-mayor-de-
blasios-...](https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2019/02/21/why-mayor-de-blasios-
placard-abuse-plan-will-likely-fall-short/)

~~~
johnnycab
Thanks for the link. The only parallel I can draw with London proper in this
case would be the 'Blue Badge' abuse. Although, it seems trivial in comparison
to the Placard abuse.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
england-46715503](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46715503)

~~~
CydeWeys
Yeah it's bad. Having a placard is basically like getting a $6k+ tax-free
transportation subsidy from the government (the cost of the monthly garage
parking you'd otherwise need near your office), and over 100,000 valid
placards are out there, plus all the fakes that people make up. It's a joke.
All the time you see vehicles with placards parked on sidewalks, in bike
lanes, in front of fire hydrants, in crosswalks, blocking curb cuts, or
blocking daylight spaces necessary for safe lines of sight in intersections.
And nothing is done about them because of the stupid placard.

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snissn
I literally don't understand what this is and how it will work. It's like ez
pass for certain zones of nyc? Will it only be for certain hours? Will they
bill from traffic cameras? "Congestion pricing" is a brand new term to me and
I don't see a clean definition.. Sorry if I missed it in the article

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cylinder
You put cashless toll points above the roads. Cameras capture the license
plates for those without toll passes. They can go online and pay within a few
days or get fined. Not a new concept.

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elektor
I'm glad to see NYC catch up to its European counterparts. This could do
wonders for the air pollution inequities that exist in the city.

~~~
jseliger
Seriously. This is long overdue. The city should also charge market pricing
for street parking and eliminate large swaths of street parking:
[https://www.city-journal.org/html/high-cost-free-
parking-146...](https://www.city-journal.org/html/high-cost-free-
parking-14665.html), but this is a good, if tardy, start.

~~~
red_hare
As a vehical owner who parks on the street in NYC, hell yes! Charge me money
for parking!

It’s insane that it’s free in this city. Get cars out from parking on the
streets and do something useful with that space like wider sidewalks or bike
lanes!

~~~
kfarr
Street Parking is Theft! :) [https://www.etsy.com/listing/646896312/street-
parking-is-the...](https://www.etsy.com/listing/646896312/street-parking-is-
theft-shirt-for-the)

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KangLi
Again the poor MTA needs funds to fix the subway? What an easy excuse as
always..

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ARandomerDude
Unintended consequence: driving in Manhattan will be _de facto_ off-limits to
the poor.

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Alex3917
Poor people don't own cars, but subsidize the cars of those who do. Congestion
pricing helps to fix that.

The book Deschooling Society has a good explanation about how the design of
public roads is used as a means of social control. Ctrl-F for the section on
mechanical donkeys.
[https://monoskop.org/images/1/17/Illich_Ivan_Deschooling_Soc...](https://monoskop.org/images/1/17/Illich_Ivan_Deschooling_Society.pdf)

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paganel
Poor people do own cars, it’s the rich that think that they don’t.

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TheCoelacanth
Not in Manhattan, they don't.

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paganel
They probably would have if the regressive taxes (direct or indirect) related
to owning a car in New York wouldn’t have been so high. But when you buy a
$200 million penthouse you don’t want to breath in the engine fumes of a
$1,000 daily driver.

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jrcii
Ambient temperature in the Herald Square station (one of the biggest) in the
summer is often well over 100 degrees, humid, and stagnant, while the
platforms and tracks are filthy and smell like mold and pee everywhere. During
rush times, there are half the number of necessary cars so you're crammed up
against strangers. There's no way to tell when the trains are coming. 5 will
get you 10 this tax does nothing to improve the subway.

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d3ad1ysp0rk
Huh?

"Though state leaders have not ironed out details, they had reached consensus
on Monday that the plan was necessary to help pay for much-needed repairs to
the city’s beleaguered subway system."

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kevin_thibedeau
That's the sales pitch. The reality is that much of the money will disappear
down the bureaucratic black hole with nothing to show for in the end. Byford
isn't going to fix the entrenched corruption.

~~~
frosted-flakes
Andy Byford did a lot of good in Toronto before was grabbed by the MTA.

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eternalban
Why not charge tourists a special subway rate (++) and finance the repairs
that way, instead of creating 'exclu$ive zones' of movement.

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ams6110
Tourists don't use the subway much. It's rather confusing and even scary.

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jshaqaw
Scary? It’s not 1978 anymore.

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steveeq1
I don't get it. What happened in 1978?

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NikkiA
See this excellent documentary:

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080120/?ref_=nv_sr_5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080120/?ref_=nv_sr_5)

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teslaberry
i've lived in manhattan since 1993.

never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups with guaranteed
income , i.e. bureaucracy.

having been a cyclist my wholelife, since childhood. i have no faith in the
government to implement sensible policy. i have faith in them to tax more. and
more , and more. uber and lyft have been DISASTERS for new york, but they were
inevitable because of the disaster that was the method by which the tlc was
creating artificial scarcity in the yellow tax licensing system.

and congestion pricing? no. it won't work. it wont' make the city more
liveable or better. it's just a cash grab plain and simple.

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Daishiman
It works in literally every other large city I. The world so there's no reason
to think NY is special in some way such that it won't.

This ridiculous cynism is counterproductive and defeatist. We know a fair bit
about effective urban policy.

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hourislate
I'm indifferent and glad I don't live there but why not just charge what it
should cost to use Public Transportation/Subways? Why look for ways to
subsidize it by taxing everything else but the people who use it?

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ses1984
Isn't congestion pricing taxing people who use the roads? An Uber driver uses
the roads a lot more than your average New Yorker, what taxes exist to cover
that imbalance? (asking in earnest)

Earmarking tax dollars for projects is kind of meaningless.

Subsidizing public transportation is a good idea anyway. High costs of
transportation disproportionately hurt poorer people. If you're not for public
transportation then I'm not sure we'd see eye to eye on much of anything.

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BurningFrog
Paying for using something isn't usually considered a tax.

Do you think of buying a subway ticket as a tax on travel?

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wyldfire
It's considered a use tax, like the existing gasoline taxes used to fund roads
and highway tolls.

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BurningFrog
The difference is that the subway ticket directly finances your subway ride.
It's just like how a private subway company would have financed it, so calling
it a "tax" just because the train is run by a government entity is a bit
weird.

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ses1984
Your subway fare goes into the city budget. The cost of the subway system
comes out of the city budget. Your subway fare only "directly finances" the
subway system as long as it's convenient to think of it that way. If there was
ever a huge surplus of subway money, it would go to other projects. If there
was ever a huge deficit elsewhere, money would come out of the subway system.

~~~
BurningFrog
Perhaps, depending on the city. I believe the NYC subway is state run.

So to be clear, you do consider subway and bus tickets to be taxes? How about
US postage stamps? Public utility bills?

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ses1984
All that really matters is the effect on the bottom line, not the what you
call each line item. Some debits map very logically to services like public
utility bills, you pay for what you use, so it's convenieng to think of it in
terms of usage fees instead of taxes. Some things don't map that clearly, like
real estate taxes or sales tax, so it's convenient to think of them ad taxes.

