NYC's plan to ease gridlock? A $15 toll for Manhattan drivers | Hacker News Reader

NYC's plan to ease gridlock? A $15 toll for Manhattan drivers

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14 pointsgeox24 comments

NYC has got to find someway to force the poor and middle class from taking up space on city roads that the rich want to use to get places quicker.

This is probably the most regressive form of taxation there is.

It's actually just a way to fleece people. According to their projections, this will reduce traffic inbound by like 3%. So it's not really gonna reduce cars, just take money out of people's pockets.

Once the toll system is in place the price can be increased until the traffic is reduced to the desired amount. Standard practice.

It seems mildly incredible to me that a plan which was passed under the guise of reducing traffic wouldn't claim an eventual decrease of more than 3% if they were expecting to get there.

Once the toll system is in place, the city will realise that reduced traffic means reduced toll income and the exercise becomes to find the highest price people will pay without significantly reducing traffic. Standard practice.

> Once the toll system is in place, the city will realise that reduced traffic means reduced toll income and the exercise becomes to find the highest price people will pay without significantly reducing traffic

Why do you presume New York can't do what every other jurisdiction that has deployed congestion pricing has?

Not 3%. The estimate is 17%.

https://ny1.com/nyc/manhattan/transit/2023/11/30/congestion-...

This is not what happens. Poor people in NYC tend not to own cars and instead use public transport, walk or cycle. Even if your case is true this is good because:

1. fewer people drive (which is good because less pollution, reduced congestion, fewer pedestrian casualties)

2. as fewer people drive people start to question why there are so many empty streets (and push for that space to be given over to other people)

3. because fewer people drive they are not going to vote for pro-driver policies, like dedicating an insane amount of the city to roads and instead will support things like more walkable neighbourhoods and more cycle paths/lanes. Bikes are a mathematically better way to travel in cities because you can easily get 5-10 times higher capacity!

The best way to get people to use public transport, is to improve public transport - cleaning it up, getting rid of the stabbings, assaults, murders, homeless people sleeping in the subway would be a good start, not to mention the stink of urine everyplace you go.

This plan just forces the people to whom $15/day is a burden to use the available crappy public transport options and allowing the wealthy to continue to do what they have always done, unaffected by the little people - as usual.

The same thinking that is used to propose that we should ban gas stoves, but not private jets or 500' yachts.

We can spend those $15 to improve public transport?

> The same thinking that is used to propose that we should ban gas stoves, but not private jets or 500' yachts.

I think most people who support congestion charging also support higher taxes on private jets and private yachts. Like this is the same principle...

> We can spend those $15 to improve public transport?

Good luck with that… The NYC government will want those $15 fees to keep flowing in and better public transit is a threat to that. Same reason your police department wants you to keep speeding so that they don’t lose a lucrative revenue stream.

and yet strangely, there are no proposals to ban private jets or yachts - but there are proposals in at least a few places to ban gas stoves and even gas lawn mowers (and to implement congestion pricing which will disproportionately affect the working class)

Do you think banning private jets and yachts would improve traffic flow?

> We can spend those $15 to improve public transport?

The MTA, which administers our public transportation, is collecting the fee.

These are people you are talking about. Not bonsai trees waiting for you to shape and impose your desires on.

How do you think political change happens?

The almighty dollar.

> poor and middle class

"Low-income drivers can register with the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, the body in charge of congestion pricing, for a 50 percent discount on all trips into the Central Business District following the first 10 trips in a month. This group of drivers includes people with household incomes under $50,000 who drive to work in the district."

Would note that the New Yorkers I know who own a car are either stupendously rich or live in the outer boroughs, rarely bringing them into the city. (Why would you.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/nyregion/congestion-prici...

I thought congestion charging was a bad idea, too, for all of the reasons we see rehearsed on these threads when it comes up. Then I lived in London at the time their congestion charge was put in place.

(And, to be clear, we were poor. Income-poor, at least: my partner was a student, and I was technically-speaking an illegal immigrant. We had a car - a gift from a family member - but had to budget down to the last penny: £5 "extra" expense was a matter for discussion, and in summer we'd use candles in the evening to economize on electricity - which, with a coin-fed meter, and incandescent bulbs, really did make a difference: I ran the numbers! I've never paid closer attention to money in my life.)

The congestion charge was wonderful! Even for us, as income-restricted as we were, it sometimes made time-vs-money sense to pay £8 to drive into the congestion zone, because the charge had turned what had the year before been a highly-variable 60-90 minute journey into a predicable 35-45 minute trip. The beweeping about effects on "the poor" might make sense somewhere that public transport (unlike London or Manhattan) isn't available, but where that exists I think that argument is overblown.

Maybe congestion pricing is a paradigm that has to be experienced to be appreciated, but having done so I'm a fan.

How is this going to impact people who have to go through Manhattan to reach other destinations? Maybe I'm misunderstanding how this will work but a lot of traffic in Manhattan is transitory since in many cases that's the only viable option. I'm only a casual driver and avoid Manhattan like the plague but sometimes I'm forced to go through Manhattan to reach other destinations.

> How is this going to impact people who have to go through Manhattan to reach other destinations?

I believe you still pay. (You're still generating traffic, after all.)

Yes but you pay for the way to Manhattan , eg Holland Tunnel, Midtown Tunnel, GW Bridge, then the extra toll it will add to something completely unmanageable for most of us. Meanwhile if you're rich and drive around within Manhattan you don't get taxed.

> you pay for the way to Manhattan , eg Holland Tunnel, Midtown Tunnel, GW Bridge, then the extra toll

I believe tolls credit to the charge. So you’re only paying the congestion charge inclusive of any tolls.

OK, that makes it somewhat more palatable..

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