Do we know why they went with a system based strictly on a zone instead of based on the congestion level in that zone? It seems a fee based on congestion levels would maximize use of the roads by encouraging more use at off hours.
Assuming that's the goal, which I don't think it is (at least not by itself).
Changing people's habits in favor of public transit and other options would be the real long-term win, not them doing their car-based trips in the middle of the night.
If that is what this is about then why dont they spend money making the public transit options better? There are dozens of unbuilt subway lines, areas with poor or no public transit and large amounts of crime all of which making a car a far superior choice. Taxing the car until people put up with an inferior transit service is not an improvement.
Totally. Because it's wildly inefficient for everyone to own an average 0.8 $35,000 blocks of metal that are in motion an average of 1.02 hours per day (idle almost 96% of the time). That requires roads, lights, signs, police, fire trucks, ambulances, gas stations/charging ports, insurance, parking, registration and tracking, maintenance, etc. That's before we get to externalities.
Yes it's hundreds of dollars more expensive to have a car, but it should be thousands. It's incredibly subsidized. Car owners have been massively over-served, and it's time they directly paid the actual cost of their choices.
Car ownership should be a luxury, not a requirement to exist. Especially in lower-middle-class suburbs. All our investments into roads and highways should be redirected towards avoiding it. All parking should be for-pay. Road costs should be born by road users. And yeah, people who make inefficient choices about their transportation should be penalized by usage charges.
What makes you think road users have been underserved relative to the literally zero investment in transit made in the US since Eisenhower?
Why shouldn't the cost of a dramatically less efficient transportation choice be much higher than a much more efficient transportation choice?
NYC is "the city that never sleeps". Deliveries have been happening overnight for decades already, due to the traffic congestion.
Sort of like how dynamic electricity pricing for retail consumers takes the form of binary peak/off-peak pricing whereas industrial users can buy from wholesale markets with wild price swings.