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> Congestion pricing is one of the few policy ideas that's so overwhelmingly positive that even the people who try to argue against it end up strengthening the

by ipdashc 15d ago

> Congestion pricing is one of the few policy ideas that's so overwhelmingly positive that even the people who try to argue against it end up strengthening the argument. Love it. > "What about all the people who need to drive into the city for work?" Uhh... don't! ... Look man, I'm in favor of the policy too, but this reads like straight satire. Please tell me you're trolling.

estearum 15d ago
No. People should not expect to free-ride on an adjacent city's economy while inflicting severe negative externalities on the local community and its infrastructure. The entire point of the policy is to reduce the number of people driving into cities. "Well how am I going to drive into the city?!" is the position that's indistinguishable from satire.
- ipdashc 15d ago
  Yeah, I know, I agree with all this. I'm still saying that if your entire argument for the absolutely giant section of society that drives into cities for work, which includes the rich, the poor, the disabled, those with large families, etc etc is "lol just don't do that stupid" don't be surprised when you find it hard to win support.
  - estearum 15d ago
    Congestion pricing was a very popular idea when it was passed and it's only gotten more popular since then.
- kyboren 15d ago
  I'm not disputing the negative externalities from traffic, nor the laudable goal of reducing the number of vehicles entering cities. I'm not even disputing the effectiveness of congestion pricing at achieving that goal. But the mechanism here is highly unfair. It's obvious why rich people support congestion charges--they're rich! They don't give a shit about the $20 or whatever, and it clears the roads of those dirty poors making traffic. Bring it on! Meanwhile the poor--already struggling with affordability and cost of living--are the ones who bear the burden. They can't afford the congestion fee, so they're forced to find some alternative way to get into the city. But that comes at an obvious utility cost; if that alternative was the best way for them to get into the city, they'd already be using it! And poor people are the ones with no time to spare, so choosing between spending $20 they don't have or spending 30 more minutes that they don't have is a Hobson's choice. Here's my proposal: Every vehicle gets 60 free days per year with no congestion charges at all. Days 61-100 have a $1,000,000 congestion charge. Days 101-365 have a $10,000,000 congestion charge. Congestion charges will be reduced, however, to 0.1% of the driver's AGI (for days 61-100) and 1% of the driver's AGI (for days 101-365) upon application. Now even hedge fund managers in Connecticut will be inconvenienced in just the same way as poor people. Yet somehow I believe that if that were how congestion pricing was implemented, all these Econ professors would magically discover what a bad policy congestion pricing really is!
  - estearum 15d ago
    Simpler idea that will get 90% of the benefit: amplify congestion pricing based on KBB value of the car. Zero enforcement complexity. Yes rich people could drive a shittier car to save their $5k per year or whatever, but most won't, and the few ultra-cost insensitive people will pay for vast numbers of the most cost sensitive.
    - kyboren 15d ago
      Imperfect but much better than existing implementations. Really, though, the goal ought to be not only to reduce congestion, but to fairly distribute the net gain of utility among those affected. A marginal $20 has very little utility to rich people, but 15 minutes saved in traffic has large utility. Congestion pricing results in large utility gains to the rich. A marginal $20 has tangible utility to poor people, and 15 minutes spent finding alternative transport also has tangible utility. Congestion pricing results in large utility losses to the poor. KBB values are an imperfect proxy for individual monetary utility but could definitely be used to more fairly distribute the utility gains from congestion pricing.
      - estearum 15d ago
        Yep, in sync with all of the above
        kyboren 15d ago
        The main problem with that scheme is that its imprecision falls exactly where I think we need the highest precision: The ultra-rich. If they're just a passenger in their driver's black SUV (maybe $100k KBB tops), they're not paying anywhere close to a commensurate share of their income on congestion fees. The upper middle class BMW driver, on the other hand, gets screwed (relatively speaking). The congestion charge should reach each person using that infrastructure in a way that fairly impacts their available individual utility. The impracticality of achieving this goal is why, in my opinion, congestion charges are bad policy.
- RhysU 15d ago
  > People should not expect to free-ride on an adjacent city's economy while inflicting severe negative externalities on the local community and its infrastructure. Are you kidding me? Free riding? I pay the same taxes on my NY income as if I lived in NY plus congestion pricing atop that. Your transportation in the city free rides on me after NY/NYC do their voodoo transfers. You shut down soooo many lanes then pretend the problem is the commuters. Consider: "Broad"-way is effectively 1 lane southbound in the southern part of Manhattan.
  - estearum 15d ago
    Yes you are free-riding. People who live in NY pay NY taxes and NY rent. The reason you do not live in the city is because you prefer to arbitrage the difference in rents. The reason this arbitrage exists is because the costs incurred by e.g. taxes and congestion tolls are not sufficiently high to fully eliminate the free-riding. I don't think taxes and tolls should be high enough to fully eliminate the arbitrage, but the existence of the arbitrage is an existence proof of the gap internalized and externalized costs. I also don't think the problem is commuters per se. The problem is cars. But commuters are the primary source of cars.
    - deleted 15d ago
      [deleted]
    - RhysU 15d ago
      Why stop your argument at rent? The cost of living is higher for everything in the city! Food, concerts, clothes all higher! That doesn't make free-riders out of everyone not paying NYC prices for a hot dog. Even if I could afford my house+land smack dab in the middle of Tribeca I would choose to live where I am now. Once, years ago, I preferred the city. The reason I do not live in the city today is because I now prefer not to. Rent has nothing to do with that preference changing over time. And, for the record, nothing wrong with the city.
      - estearum 14d ago
        The cost of everything being higher is principally due to rent (in particular land rents). Food, concerts, clothes, coffee, all of them have a "land upon which this was retailed and sold + land upon which the person behind the counter lives" line item. In high-COL areas, this invisible line item makes up a gigantic portion of any bill you pay anywhere. I'm not sure what the rest of your comment is about? That's fine if you have that preference. Expressing that preference generates negative externalities on the people who do live in the city, and you should have to internalize those costs to whatever degree possible. Your rents, by the way, do not just pay for your house and land. Your rent pays principally for location. So the idea that you're not engaging in rent arbitrage because you wouldn't want to pay the same amount to have the same unit in Tribeca is nonsense. The question is: would you pay more to have the same house, land, surroundings, and also have immediate access to city amenities and jobs. The answer to that is already empirically yes. Because you pay the cost you do for your current house, land, surroundings, then you pay an additional cost (an insufficiently internalized one) to commute into the city. Time, tolls, stress, vehicle ownership, parking, etc. So obviously the exact same set of facts minus the commute, despite being physically impossible, would be a more preferable product. Or to put it another way: would you pay more than $0 to have a teleportation portal from your home in the suburbs to your work in the city. My suspicion is yes.
- BobaFloutist 15d ago
  You kind of have it backwards. Cities that overbuild commercial space and underbuild housing get to reap the sales taxes without having to provide the same level of services. And then the residents complain that people keep commuting to work in the offices they zoned for instead of housing towers.

by ipdashc 15d ago

estearum 15d ago

No. People should not expect to free-ride on an adjacent city's economy while inflicting severe negative externalities on the local community and its infrastructure. The entire point of the policy is to reduce the number of people driving into cities. "Well how am I going to drive into the city?!" is the position that's indistinguishable from satire.

ipdashc 15d ago
Yeah, I know, I agree with all this. I'm still saying that if your entire argument for the absolutely giant section of society that drives into cities for work, which includes the rich, the poor, the disabled, those with large families, etc etc is "lol just don't do that stupid" don't be surprised when you find it hard to win support.
- estearum 15d ago
  Congestion pricing was a very popular idea when it was passed and it's only gotten more popular since then.
kyboren 15d ago
I'm not disputing the negative externalities from traffic, nor the laudable goal of reducing the number of vehicles entering cities. I'm not even disputing the effectiveness of congestion pricing at achieving that goal. But the mechanism here is highly unfair. It's obvious why rich people support congestion charges--they're rich! They don't give a shit about the $20 or whatever, and it clears the roads of those dirty poors making traffic. Bring it on! Meanwhile the poor--already struggling with affordability and cost of living--are the ones who bear the burden. They can't afford the congestion fee, so they're forced to find some alternative way to get into the city. But that comes at an obvious utility cost; if that alternative was the best way for them to get into the city, they'd already be using it! And poor people are the ones with no time to spare, so choosing between spending $20 they don't have or spending 30 more minutes that they don't have is a Hobson's choice. Here's my proposal: Every vehicle gets 60 free days per year with no congestion charges at all. Days 61-100 have a $1,000,000 congestion charge. Days 101-365 have a $10,000,000 congestion charge. Congestion charges will be reduced, however, to 0.1% of the driver's AGI (for days 61-100) and 1% of the driver's AGI (for days 101-365) upon application. Now even hedge fund managers in Connecticut will be inconvenienced in just the same way as poor people. Yet somehow I believe that if that were how congestion pricing was implemented, all these Econ professors would magically discover what a bad policy congestion pricing really is!
- estearum 15d ago
  Simpler idea that will get 90% of the benefit: amplify congestion pricing based on KBB value of the car. Zero enforcement complexity. Yes rich people could drive a shittier car to save their $5k per year or whatever, but most won't, and the few ultra-cost insensitive people will pay for vast numbers of the most cost sensitive.
  - kyboren 15d ago
    Imperfect but much better than existing implementations. Really, though, the goal ought to be not only to reduce congestion, but to fairly distribute the net gain of utility among those affected. A marginal $20 has very little utility to rich people, but 15 minutes saved in traffic has large utility. Congestion pricing results in large utility gains to the rich. A marginal $20 has tangible utility to poor people, and 15 minutes spent finding alternative transport also has tangible utility. Congestion pricing results in large utility losses to the poor. KBB values are an imperfect proxy for individual monetary utility but could definitely be used to more fairly distribute the utility gains from congestion pricing.
    - estearum 15d ago
      Yep, in sync with all of the above
      - kyboren 15d ago
        The main problem with that scheme is that its imprecision falls exactly where I think we need the highest precision: The ultra-rich. If they're just a passenger in their driver's black SUV (maybe $100k KBB tops), they're not paying anywhere close to a commensurate share of their income on congestion fees. The upper middle class BMW driver, on the other hand, gets screwed (relatively speaking). The congestion charge should reach each person using that infrastructure in a way that fairly impacts their available individual utility. The impracticality of achieving this goal is why, in my opinion, congestion charges are bad policy.
RhysU 15d ago
> People should not expect to free-ride on an adjacent city's economy while inflicting severe negative externalities on the local community and its infrastructure. Are you kidding me? Free riding? I pay the same taxes on my NY income as if I lived in NY plus congestion pricing atop that. Your transportation in the city free rides on me after NY/NYC do their voodoo transfers. You shut down soooo many lanes then pretend the problem is the commuters. Consider: "Broad"-way is effectively 1 lane southbound in the southern part of Manhattan.
- estearum 15d ago
  Yes you are free-riding. People who live in NY pay NY taxes and NY rent. The reason you do not live in the city is because you prefer to arbitrage the difference in rents. The reason this arbitrage exists is because the costs incurred by e.g. taxes and congestion tolls are not sufficiently high to fully eliminate the free-riding. I don't think taxes and tolls should be high enough to fully eliminate the arbitrage, but the existence of the arbitrage is an existence proof of the gap internalized and externalized costs. I also don't think the problem is commuters per se. The problem is cars. But commuters are the primary source of cars.
  - deleted 15d ago
    [deleted]
  - RhysU 15d ago
    Why stop your argument at rent? The cost of living is higher for everything in the city! Food, concerts, clothes all higher! That doesn't make free-riders out of everyone not paying NYC prices for a hot dog. Even if I could afford my house+land smack dab in the middle of Tribeca I would choose to live where I am now. Once, years ago, I preferred the city. The reason I do not live in the city today is because I now prefer not to. Rent has nothing to do with that preference changing over time. And, for the record, nothing wrong with the city.
    - estearum 14d ago
      The cost of everything being higher is principally due to rent (in particular land rents). Food, concerts, clothes, coffee, all of them have a "land upon which this was retailed and sold + land upon which the person behind the counter lives" line item. In high-COL areas, this invisible line item makes up a gigantic portion of any bill you pay anywhere. I'm not sure what the rest of your comment is about? That's fine if you have that preference. Expressing that preference generates negative externalities on the people who do live in the city, and you should have to internalize those costs to whatever degree possible. Your rents, by the way, do not just pay for your house and land. Your rent pays principally for location. So the idea that you're not engaging in rent arbitrage because you wouldn't want to pay the same amount to have the same unit in Tribeca is nonsense. The question is: would you pay more to have the same house, land, surroundings, and also have immediate access to city amenities and jobs. The answer to that is already empirically yes. Because you pay the cost you do for your current house, land, surroundings, then you pay an additional cost (an insufficiently internalized one) to commute into the city. Time, tolls, stress, vehicle ownership, parking, etc. So obviously the exact same set of facts minus the commute, despite being physically impossible, would be a more preferable product. Or to put it another way: would you pay more than $0 to have a teleportation portal from your home in the suburbs to your work in the city. My suspicion is yes.
BobaFloutist 15d ago
You kind of have it backwards. Cities that overbuild commercial space and underbuild housing get to reap the sales taxes without having to provide the same level of services. And then the residents complain that people keep commuting to work in the offices they zoned for instead of housing towers.