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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

I do think it's a fair ways out, but it wouldn't shock me at all to see at least some cities banning empty cars from driving around.

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Not banning, but charging higher tolls for empty cars than cars that have a load or person in them.

Econ 101!

It may be Econ 101 but a lot of people (aka voters) tend not to like fee schemes that make it blindingly obvious that the wealthy are effectively allowed to use public infrastructure in ways that they are not.

We already subsidize roads over public transportation so the subsidies to the wealthy are already there. We're just attempting to internalize externalities of a resource with physical limits.

The convenience of a public transportation systems is priced into the housing near its stations, meaning it mostly benefits the wealthy. The road network, on the other hand, reaches into neighborhoods which are far enough away from the center to be affordable to working-class families.

The people who end up driving despite the tolls, parking elimination, etc. are those who can't afford the rent near the public transit system. Cars are a significant cost for them, but not as much as the rent premium they'd have to pay for a well-connected location.

> The convenience of a public transportation systems is priced into the housing near its stations, meaning it mostly benefits the wealthy.

That's a very Ameri-centric view. In most European countries people of all classes live near and regularly take public transit.

Doesn't seem to be that way in America. At all.

I wonder if we could start charging tolls proportional to the spot congestion at any given time.

Washington state does this on the lanes that are otherwise HOV on I-405, which runs N/S through Bellevue (Expedia, Microsoft) and meets up with 520 E/W to Redmond (Microsoft). The tolls are proportional to demand, and they often hit the upper max of $10 each way. [1]

It's astonishing how much some people are willing to pay for the pleasure of driving free of traffic... We should charge them as much as they are willing to pay...

[1] http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/the-...

A lot of toll roads/HOV lanes already do that. They increase the price based on demand so traffic in the lane is always moving.

Didn't realize that, thanks!

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