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Comment by njroute22 | Hacker News Reader

Awww. All those grumpy people who now cannot spend money they were going to steal from others. Am I the only one who feels these (or any) tolls go against the right to freely travel?

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> The right to freely travel

You would need to change that to "the right to freely travel by any method of my choosing" for your point to stand. If you don't believe in the right to commute by tank, it's pretty easy to see that some communities may not extend a right to freely travel by car.

As an NYC resident I was literally just looking forward to fewer cars. That's an end unto itself. If the program successfully discouraged enough drivers to earn no income, then that's an optimal result.

Genuinely curious— how would you prefer to fund maintenance for roads and other infrastructure?

Like 99% of Canada for example is totally open for anyone to freely travel. But you’d probably eventually die of dysentery. I think where this daydream breaks is the implicit desire to freely travel on land that’s been developed and maintained.

there is no right to freely travel. you can’t walk in the middle of the street and you can’t drive your car on the sidewalk. there are rules governing where you can go and how you can get there everywhere. and anyway if you take a car into manhattan during rush hour you won’t be freely traveling, you’ll be stuck in traffic not going anywhere

> the right to freely travel

No such thing.

He sort of has the right to use what he's paid for — his car.

He'll feel good about missing the things to be paid for with those $15B though. That only affects his ability to do things. If he wants ability, he has to think about how to pay for the things, and "don't pay" isn't an option if he wants the ability.

You don’t have a right to use your car on public roads just because you paid for it. You get a driver’s license which is quite regulated.

Generally roads funded with public money in the US don’t become toll roads. Congestion isn’t only a problem in NYC. Imagine if every once public road became a public toll road. Something feels off about that even though I’m bullish on using market economics to solve civil problems like transit and parking.

If you were to poll a thousand Americans a question such as "if you buy a car, do you have a right to use it on public roads?", how many per cent do you think would say yes? I'd guess >50%.

While I personally think the correct answer is no (IMO NY voters get to decide on that via city government), the opinion of the majority isn't something one should disregard.

You do not have a right to paved roads. I don't believe there would be any constitutional barricade to NYC closing every one of it's public roads and selling the land to private owners.

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