Hacker News Reader

> it would affect every resident of the city via higher prices on goods and services

I find the math on that claim highly dubious. The toll for a truck is set to be $36 at peak times. $9 non peak. And they get up to $20 credit towards that when travelling through one of the tunnels, as many do. When I think about the amount of goods that can be carried in a truck and divide the $36 minus $20 or $9 across all those items… how much are we really talking about here?

I ask the question earnestly because I don’t know, but at a cursory glance it just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. Some drivers might even be quite happy to pay if it means they don’t spend hours stuck in traffic!

What part is "dubious", exactly? There's a tax. It applies to all vehicles. You think that doesn't get passed on to consumers? I have a bridge to sell you (don't worry, it's a toll bridge).

You're just repeating the last part of what I wrote -- that the taxes would be low when amortized over a large number of items -- but ignoring the rest. The point is, New York does this all the time: yesterday a surcharge on food delivery, today a "congestion tax", tomorrow a "global warming fee" on electricity consumption, a "save the whales" fee on straws, or whatever else. The number of sneaky fees and surcharges and social-engineering taxes in NYC is enough to make even the most ardent liberal begin to resist. Eventually, you're paying $25 for a hamburger and wondering why you can't find staff for your store.

Look, I have no problem with taxes. Just be honest. Don't sneak them in and lie about them and pretend that they're punishment for New Jersey car commuters when most of the revenue will come from the people who live here, directly or indirectly. If the people want to vote in another billion-dollar sales tax for the MTA, great. Go for it.

The part I’m dubious about is there being any notable effect on prices.

I don’t personally see the congestion charge as dishonest. You can see it as a quasi-tax, certainly, but provisions like off peaking pricing and credit for using the tunnels means that it has positive side effects a straightforward tax wouldn’t.

I don't care if it moves prices one millionth of a penny, or ten dollars. That billion dollars of extra MTA revenue was coming from somewhere, and it was mostly going to come from locals, even if it meant that we're all paying a fraction of a cent more per sheet for toilet paper. The worst taxes are the ones that are regressive and secret.

> The worst taxes are the ones that are regressive and secret.

In my book, negative externalities are worse than taxes. If we agree that a car driving in Lower Manhattan inflicts a non-trivial cost on everyone else, then not taxing it leads to socially inefficient outcomes.

Effectively, locals are paying a price either way - either by having their bus moving slower, inhaling fumes, etc, or by buying goods and services that reflect congestion pricing. The difference is that congestion pricing aligns incentives - for instance, delivery drivers may choose to travel to Manhattan during the off-peak hours whereas in the status quo they do not care at all about inconveniencing others.

People don't grasp that you can get wealthier simply by avoiding harmful things that would otherwise be done by default.

OP wasn't arguing about "cars", it was specifically about service vehicles that are required for Manhattan operations.

Thought experiment: If we could somehow ban private residential use of all cars and only allow "work" vehicles, there would be no congestion and no tax.

There are some good arguments against that. It creates a deadweight loss by banning high utility private uses of the car (driving kid to hospital) and instead there would be an increase in low utility "work" uses of the car (delivering a single banana to a bodega). There is a parent out there who would be willing to pay $X to drive their kid to hospital, and a work vehicle user who would forgo paying $X by staying off the road, but under a blanket ban that won't happen.

It would also increase the incentive for people to play games like claiming their personal car as a "work vehicle", throwing a little advertising decal on the side, things like that.

if prices don't move then you are basically stealing money from those who pay (delivery drivers, blue collar workers, contractors), who are not rich enough to live on Manhattan - to subsidize transit for affluent Manhattan residents

I’m sorry… you’re suggesting congestion charging would take money from poor car drivers and give it to affluent transit riders?

By any data available that’s entirely backwards. Cars in the CBD are disproportionately driven by the affluent, transit is disproportionately taken by the poor.

"By any data available"

Let's see that data then. Plenty of working class individuals are trying to commute through the CBD for their livelihoods. They aren't taking the bus or rail to fix someone's water heater.

Really what's the point of asking this question? Did you do a search and not find anything and you're convinced this is false? Or are you just here to fight? [1] shows a pretty clear negative correlation between car ownership and poverty. Do you have a source that shows contradictory information?

(I love social medi... sorry HN oops how can I get this wrong, the quality of discussion is so high! :)

[1]: https://wellango.github.io/posts/2021/06/who-owns-cars-in-ny...

Manhattan residents are richer than outer boroughs.

It is true, that some rich motorists will pay up congestion pricing, but they wont even notice these charges cause they are rich (so NO EFFECT whatsoever on actual congestion). In fact, that's exactly what MTA wants - they want congestion pricing Revenue, not reduction in congestion loss in revenue.

But the most impacted would be workers who rely on car to make a living: uber, lyft, doordash, blue collar contractors, food delivery trucks, etc. Everyone who has to drive to make a living will be taxed, while rich Manhattan residents will enjoy subsidies from the working class. and they cannot take public transit, so no reduction in actual congestion either.

it's all farce and show to steal money from honest working people and have over it to corrupted union bosses at MTA

The same mindset that leads to calling bike commuters elitist apparently.

It is a consumption tax (on space taken up on roads, noise, and emissions basically combined), in effect it incentivizes consolidation of traffic, goods and people both, and steers some of it to other modalities.

Of course there's a long way to go before visible changes happen. the US is extremely car-dependent after all, and public transportation does not organically expand with more demand for it. and without alternatives people will just pay it.

but this doesn't necessarily make it a bad tax. other changes can build on it.

But it's not a consumption tax, it's a "congestion" tax. If there were no congestion there would be no reason for this to exist.

It's a regressive nearly flax tax amounting to a taking from the residents of lower Manhattan. If they wanted to reduce congestion all they would have to do is make the free street parking NYC residents only. Many cities do that. An issue with this was it was clearly not about congestion except in name it was MTA can't build anything without spending multiples of the next most expensive transit system. The singular goal was to hit an arbitrary number. And if traffic dropped leaving revenue below rhe goal the costs would have been hiked. This was a hammer when they needed a scapel.

Why did you completely ignore the question of how much money this tax amounts to per item? It's in the realm of one cent.

The ease of the truck moving through the city with less traffic and easier parking would have more than made up for the toll cost. Same for taxis where the cost compared to the increased demand (since the taxi might actually be faster than it would be now in midtown during the day) also probably would have benefited taxis and their customers.

Not true, you cannot simultaneously have lower congestion and higher demand for taxi. This is contradictory statement.

In the end not much will change, people who would have takes transit will end up takin transit, people who have to drive will drive, they just will pay additional tax.

> you cannot simultaneously have lower congestion and higher demand for taxi

How so? If a taxi used to take 20 minutes and $20 and now it takes 15 minutes and $18 the demand for that form of transport will go up.

If a driver is replaced by a cab passenger it is 1-to-1 replacement of personal vehicle with taxi, no impact on congestion.

If you see demand for cabs increasing + congestion pricing revenue of $1.5bln that means more traffic and more paying drivers

Of course you can have, if it's the non-taxi traffic that's decreasing.

Single drivers will be replaced by single taxi passengers, whats the diff? Maybe less demand for daytime parking, but gridlock will be the same

No, because a lot of traffic is driving around looking for parking spot. Taxis don't have that problem.

You could implement congestion pricing and throw the money the garbage and it would still be a net win for the city by reducing cars and traffic violence.

Less congested traffic tends to move faster. Won't that increase "traffic violence"?

The bigger issue for pedestrian injuries on Manhattan's streets is box-blocking and hazardous turns, not really speed. Congestion pricing will probably cause a slight increase in average speeds, but we're talking about going from 5 MPH to maybe 10[1]. It's not ever going to be fast for cars, just faster.

[1]: https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-new-york-traffic-manhat...

I'm not sure why you expect to be taken seriously when using terms like "traffic violence."

“Having my kid’s skull popped open and their brains splattered on the road under the tire of your dodge ram” seemed too emotive.

Stop sanitising killing people.

Lot of that happening in Manhattan, huh?

You can save the pearl-clutching hyperbole.

> The plan was structured in a way that it would affect every resident of the city via higher prices on goods and services, surcharges on delivery, taxis, construction, etc.

We already pay a congestion tax on all of these things, it just takes the form of paying for the labor of someone sitting in traffic. It's not obvious at all to me that the cost of the tax will be less than the gain on the labor cost.

I mean...that's a precise argument. To have this argument effectively, you need to have more than a hand-wavy idea of how much congestion would be impacted by the fee, which we don't. The impact studies were ludicrously ambiguous, and as far as I can tell, the numbers were pulled from thin air.

What I know, without doubt, is that the plan didn't make any reasonable exclusions for residents, so it was de facto an additional tax. Would such a tax reduce marginal wait time cost by more than the price of the tax? Golly, that would be convenient for proponents, wouldn't it?

Regardless, even if you believe this, you still have to deal with the counterfactual of a world where we do the whole congestion fee thing, but exclude obvious categories of essential vehicles, like delivery trucks, construction, etc. That would be better, smarter, and more aligned with the stated goals of the system.

You claimed that congestion tax will increase the cost of consumer goods and services. That was a precise argument backed up by hand-wavy evidence. All I said was that we don't know that for sure, and that it's possible it could go the other way.

Congestion pricing is about taxing blue collar workers (plumbers electricians and such), who cannot afford to live in Manhattan and have to use vehicle for work.

Would they not just pass the charge directly onto their customers living in the central business district?

all costs are passes through, but elasticity of demand and supply will lead to consumer/supplier splitting the tax in the ratio of their respectable elasticities.

fundamentally though it is NOT about reducing congestion, it is about stealing money from poor blue collar workers from outer boroughs, and handing them out to finance MTA's bogus overtime and 400k salaries for doing nothing useful.

while also enabling rich urban liberals from manhattan to signal their "ecology conciousness"

> it is about stealing money from poor blue collar workers from outer boroughs

It isn’t though, is it? What percentage of poor blue collar workers in the outer boroughs drive into the CBD of Manhattan for work on a regular basis? Very few. The cost of parking already makes it prohibitive for most. If they work as e.g. an electrician they’re already passing the parking fee onto their customer. Congestion charge will be the same.

But yeah, sure, there will be a small number of people affected that way. But orders of magnitude more poor blue collar workers would benefit from better public transit. You can’t run a city by vetoing anything that has a negative effect to someone. Nothing will ever get done.

But you can run a city buy carefully picking and choosing who your policies impact and minimizing that impact where appropriate.

Yea running a city of millions of people is super easy.

Just pick the good policies instead of the bad dummy!

I mean it is a thing experts can in theory do well, it isn't fundamentally doomed as the person I responded to implies.

So... pick policies like this one that very disproportionately pull money from people who are wealthier to improve the situation for everyone?

Wouldn't people like your example end up with more billable hours due to reduced congestion, likely coming out ahead?

I don't buy that argument. If the plumber/electrician is working for a company and driving a company car, then the company will pay the extra $15 for that corporate vehicle to be in Manhattan.

If the person has their own business then they can easily afford the daily $15. Skilled trades and the owners of those companies make very good wages in NYC.

I see plenty of blue collar workers on the MTA. Its one of the fastest ways to get around Manhattan and much cheaper than paying for parking.

I have a problem with this “can easily afford” logic. This is not true, and this is not how taxation should work. You are just justifying stealing money from blue collar by bogus “they can afford it” logic.

A lot of NYC residents can easily afford extra $15 (their incomes are like 6 figures) why not just spread the tax to everyone to make it more equitable? And more revenue for MTA

I take the Lincoln Tunnel during rush hour(in a bus). I see seas of single occupant cars and personal vehicles entering the city.

If it reduces congestion, delivery companies could make more deliveries with fewer vehicles. It would probably be a net saving in costs.

I mean, even if its well designed, we should expect some increase in costs due to a congestion charge.

Right now, you have Group A: people who are ok with some members of their city getting to deal with congestion, so that they can have cheaper goods.

Group B: The people who deal with the effects of congestion, who have to find a ways to have their needs met.

as mentioned: >Setting aside the issue of local residents with cars (which I could care less about), >someone who lives here and doesn't own a car

The status quo should suit you.

That said, the inefficiency caused due to congestion, ends up affecting both group A and group B. This will add to costs, in either wait times / Delays, wastage, wear and tear, pollution etc.

Those costs are borne by you, but not associated with congestion.

You're getting attacked because a lot of people are brainwashed into a solution that is forced down peoples throats.

It's much easier to solve the problem like a brute and attack people and say they're wrong when they point out the nature of the solve.

It's not even about money, if it were about the usage of power, food, travel, etc. it'd also be terrible. If you were to convince people they can't eat meat because it's wrong and then offer a solution as bad as "just become vegetarian", it'd also be laughable... but of course people would attack anyone pointing it out.