Comment by mvieira38 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mvieira38 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Wow, that first paragraph is a compelling political economy argument against this policy that I hadn't really thought of. Your model seems to take the assumptions that the trade industries can't reorganize to optimize car usage, and that transit operators have only one stream of income (the car tax).

Both are untrue, IMO, and in the desired steady state the car tax is in fact near zero, substituted by higher taxes on everything else. Even if that ends up making the city more expensive, the variation in utility is still at least positive if we model citizens' utility functions as negatively sloped on the pollution axis, and of course if we are assuming the central planning wants to comply with global warming goals.

I would even question if tradespeople would be against paying the car tax if it gets commuters out of the road, to be honest. I'd wager a plumber would be more than willing to pay even 100$ monthly if you worded it as "you get a fast pass to avoid all traffic and get everywhere as fast as the speed limit" and not "it's a tax on your car".

It's also false that transit prices are small, by the way, at least globally. Where I live (third world), taking the subway daily to and from work amounts to 14% of minimum wage

Cars cost more than transit for most people. However transit is expensive no matter how you look at it. The money to run it much come from someplace.

Yes, transit costs a total X. In the car regime everyone puts in a small amount towards public transit and roads and richer folk put high amounts towards cars, totalling X. In the public transit regime everyone puts in a medium amount towards roads and public transit, and a negligible amount of tradespeople and construction companies buy their work vehicles, totalling X.

You can choose the car regime if you want, the US does, but: 1- public transit is lower quality due to higher income brackets choosing cars. 2- everyone is screwed by the cars' negative externalities (noise and air pollution mainly). 3- lower income brackets are screwed by the traffic generated by the higher guys (50 minimum wage workers occupying the same lane space as 3 SUV-driving middle managers). Also you have to remember how much the mortality increases in higher car traffic areas, so that X figure isn't really true

You shouldn't use X as your only variable as it sort of implies a fixed amount that is the same either way. However the systems are different and should have different costs.

That's just because the roads are built out by the Department of Transportation no?

Like if you had to drive on toll roads built underground then nobody would ever drive (see Hyperloop). I think the big mistake being made is people are arguing for free subways and really we should just go to free buses first.

I'm against free buses in general (though probably not in this particular case) because people want to get places. That money from bus fares should be put to running more buses (or building subways... lots of options, but more service). Nobody proposing free transit has ever proposed anywhere enough money that the city can run all needed services. They can maybe come up with enough money to continue current service, but every city in the world needs more transit service. You need service that can get you from where you are to where you want to be, when you want to go. Sometimes that place is farther away (but not unreasonably far) and you need high speed express service. Sometimes you are running late and miss the bus/train - is the next bus/train coming soon enough that you are not unreasonably late? Sometimes you need to be out late, is service still running? Sometimes you want to do something on a weekend. More service is needed everywhere and that lack of service is the primary reason people buy cars which are ready when people want to go (they claim otherwise but when I dig down it comes down to service)

Here in NYC the transit fare is about 35% of the minimum hourly wage for a round trip. I'd guess it's still cheaper than owning and maintaining a car though.

Minimum hourly wage is a terrible metric - very few people make that wage. In your areas where transit is most useful it is also the most economically productive so even less people are making minimum wage than the normal population. I don't the cities in question, but in general these days minimum wages is what you see paid in the economically depressed dying small towns, or people so disabled (generally mentally) that they cannot do your easiest fast food jobs.

How do costs compare for average people in that area is a much better metric. (understand that in transit areas I'd expect people with cars to have newer luxury cars, while in more car centric areas I'd expect more used non-luxury cars, and in poor areas worn out cars - which is itself a skew of the facts)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com