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Comment by BobaFloutist | Hacker News Reader

Only thing is they should charge more for heavier and for less eco-friendly cars.

I don’t think it would be productive (or fair) to send a message of “your eco-friendly car is welcome”, when the real concern is traffic/space and any “green car bonus” might disappear on pretty short notice.

Incentivizing eco-friendly cars is great in general, but I think the two concerns in this case are best addressed separately.

In fact, for a geography like Manhattan, prioritizing public transport and small transport (bikes and scooters) would go a long way in improving congestion and conditions in general.

No car is, nor ever will be, as eco-friendly as a subway train. The point of congestion pricing is to better capture the actual costs of folks using cars instead of public transit.

Eco-friendly cars are a little better than traditional cars, but public transport is far far better. They're not in the same league.

Though it might be a good idea to also encourage carpooling with reduced tolls, because presumably one bigger car carrying 5-7 people is better than 5-7 smaller but still bigger-than-city-cars carrying 1 person each.

Presumably the toll is per vehicle, so carpooling already divides the fee among the carpoolers.

Wonder about the road damage aspect of this. If the relationship is a 4th power of weight, assuming a single vehicle with 2x the weight, it would need to replace 16 individual cars to break even.

"According to a 2022 study from the Environmental Protection Agency, the average weight of a car is 4,094 pounds."[1]

Going from 1 person of 200lb to 4 people totaling 800lb (in a 4,000lb car) increases the damage by less than an additional car (4,800 / 4,200) ^ 4 = 1.71

[1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/average-car-weight-140033718....

I imagine the average car commuter in NYC weighs about 150lbs

Good question. Maybe the amount of toll reduction should depend on the number of people carried and the weight of the vehicle, encouraging lightweight vehicles that can carry a lot of people. Probably should have a hard cutoff too so e.g. over a certain weight loses the reduction altogether.

How come Kei Cars are not a thing outside Japan? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car

Seems like it would help a lot.

We can't convince NYC residents to not drive giant SUVs.

I think it's similar to how there's a lot of scooter drivers in SEA, but less elsewhere. Yes, climate is a factor, but I'd say so is culture. I think it's a lot more socially acceptable in Japan to drive a smaller vehicle than it is in the US. Kei car is also a policy, which makes these cars more attractive economically. And I think that for the same cultural reason, a similar policy in the US wouldn't work.

Reducing pollution is not the GOAL, to collect as much money as possible to give short term remedy to NYC's fiscal deep hole is the goal.

They should charge more as those are most likely to have transit options. some who drihe a truck are bringing tools or delivering things and so can't use transit. those shouldn't bay a fee . of course vehile type is the wrong thing to look at instead it is what you are doing.

Yes, especially all the delivery trucks that bring goods in from online retailers directly to the steps of buildings. I'd support a heavy tax on those, since they are the most dangerous of all the vehicles. Would also like to see a tax on scooters and mopeds that food delivery drivers use.

What's wrong with scooters and mopeds?

I don't see the problem with scooters if they're electric, but mopeds are nasty and spew tons of pollution, plus they're ridiculously noisy. I think they should just be banned.

e-bikes are fine though, and should in fact be encouraged somehow. They're a great form of personal transport in a dense city; they're very very common here in Tokyo these days.

The commenter doesn’t drive either.

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