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Comment by afavour | 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!

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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.

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