Hacker News Reader

Comment by austin-cheney | Hacker News Reader

My city is growing at about 25,000 people per year. Just take a second to run some numbers in your head to let that sink in. In 1990 this city was the 29th largest city in the US and now it is the 10th. By 2050 it is projected to be the 9th largest city in the US surpassing Dallas in population.

We have congestion everywhere and few transportation options. I cannot imagine the consequences of congestion pricing here. Sometimes it could take 30 minutes to get to the freeway 1.5 miles away during morning rush hour. I suspect congestion pricing here would motivate many people to simply abandon their employment if in a job where work from home is a disallowed viable possibility.

In my case I am currently unemployed and am turning down interview offers in locations I used to commute to just a few years back, because now the costs of commute are another form of wage depreciation that gets factored into the compensation rate.

View on HN

Let me introduce you to this very new invention called public transport

I am so envious of DC and Chicago for their metro systems. It's always interesting to talk to people who live in those locations and take their mass transit for granted, like a spoiled entitlement. Here if you don't have a car you will quickly become homeless or starve to death.

If Google is right they live in Jacksonville, which aside from being a terrible place to live in general, can't physically or geographically support subways or light rail. So you're basically limited to busses if you want to implement public transportation.

I've only been to Jacksonville a handful of times but I'd rather walk along the side of road in August than ride a bus there. And they don't actually help congestion that much.

> can't physically or geographically support subways or light rail

Why? Genuinely curious, I don't know much about US geography

It's the 2nd least dense large city in America. It has a population of San Francisco but across like 15x more land.

There are a couple reasons (not the least of which is political will but that's a separate discussion). Jacksonville sits on a coastal plain and is almost entirely fine sand. You simply can't build a subway in that without astronomical cost. As for rail I'm pretty sure Jacksonville already has elevated rail in some places but ground rail would be difficult for the same reasons.

Jacksonville (and most of Florida) is extremely low lying with a high water table, so sub-surface construction (basements) and subways are basically impossible.

Structurally, it's a low density, car-based city so light rail (as opposed to busses) requires a lot of up front investment without the land use to justify it. At this point, like many US cities, adding effective transit is a chicken and egg problem with land use.

I'll bet you a dollar that it is Austin.

I guess there are made up reasons not to use public transport there too.

Austin is the 12th most populous city so it's possible they're just wrong but probably not.

Why do you assume it would be onerous? New York City apparently charges individuals in private cars up to $13.50?

And then imagine if there was offsetting spending.

New York has excellent mass transit and high population density, so you have options besides using a car or can walk to meet up for a car pool. These options just don't exist here. So charging people a penalty without providing alternatives is just another unavoidable tax.

Well yes, the idea is to charge a tax.

Charging fees for things that are scarce certainly isn't perfect, but it's often better then simply leaving everyone to suffer.

Ok. Sounds like your city is not a good candidate for congestion pricing and probably won't happen.

What's the issue?

Congestion tolls are not the universal good some people claim. I suppose that wasn’t clear from my comment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com