Austerity in the context of government means spending cuts. "We diverted the tax money to cronies instead of anything that benefits you and spending actually went up" is not austerity, it's corruption.
Yes this exactly. If I'm not allowed to talk about the health effects of car infrastructure (because apparently that's "feelings") then let's just talk about money.
Cars are horrendously over-subsidized and are FAR more expensive to maintain infrastructure for in exchange for moving way fewer people. Trains might not cover their costs with fare but they move a hell of a lot more people while simultaneously being underinvested in, in the US.
Because trains cost money? Everything can't be free or cost less just because you wish it so.
I'm a big proponent of no-fare subway's, but I don't think the MTA should just do that without a revenue source to replace rider fares. It would result in a completely broken subway system.
Huh? Free? A ton of tax money goes to both road maintenance and public transportation. This kind of price hiking comes off as a double-dip. Surely they have enough money in the budget already?
> but doesn't common sense suggest fewer riders mean they don't need as much money?
Not necessarily. Consider: what would they cut? Run fewer trains? Reducing frequency has a huge negative effect on how convenient transfers are, which means you're likely pushing more riders away. (It can be the difference between hopping off one train and catching a new one 5 minutes later rather than 10 or 15 minutes later. Not a fun change in the middle of your trips!)
That can then lead to even less fare revenue... and you really don't want that, it's the infamous transit death spiral.
Middle class folks that work in the city don't drive from NJ into NY, and for the few that do, they should get on a train because it will save them money today and after this goes into effect.
If you're a firefighter or most kinds of laborers that bring tools to work, you're usually dealing with equipment and/or chemicals that are not safe or even permitted on the NYC subway.
Not true at all. There's literally videos from FDNY chiefs circulating on the NYC news shows complaining about this problem and how it affects them because they're mad about not being exempted.
If Firefighter gear is covered in PFAS, and highly carcinogenic, and you don't want them bringing it on the subway, why would you want them to bring it to their homes? The easy, obvious solution is to install safe storage at the fire departments so that the children of firefighters don't have to inhale carcinogens.
> Car congestion fees are touted but they are rarely effective
Citation needed. All studies I have seen suggest that congestion pricing achieves its desired outcomes of reducing car traffic and is the most effective way of doing so.
Nope. Draining the pool and filling it with more water is not an effective way of cleaning the pool. The pool ends up clean though so you can lead any study you want.
It's not effective. It's just prohibitive. Prohibiting people stops things, who would have guessed.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. If the goal is less traffic then steps that lead to less traffic are effective.
Presumably to get less traffic you need to make the choice (to drive a car into the city) less attractive. Making it cost more would seem to do that.
Of course $15 is not enough, because while that will act on the "unattractive" side, there will then be less traffic, which will the increase the "attractive" side. The toll will need to increase to find the balance where it dwarfs the no-traffic convenience.
This is how I played out in London for example. Traffic has been reduced, but the connection charge is quite high.
Which is fine, those who want the convenience, and feel it offers good value for money can use it. And public transport (busses) is faster.
Yeah you don't understand the point. Effective means it works well at the problem. Would you say chopping off an arm that is broken is an effective way of fixing a broken arm? It definitely eliminates the problem. It doesn't solve the problem effectively.
To get less traffic you need to make sure the roads are good enough to hold the amount of cars that come, or are designed in such a way that those cars don't go far or don't stop (hard). Public transport is a great way at reducing cars which may reduce traffic.
Putting a price on travel does not effectively manage traffic. It just chops traffic off. If we put a price on a bunch of stuff and stopped people enjoying the benefits of things that way, we'd also see sharp declines in whatever we wanted.... never because it is effective though.
Claiming a chopped off arm is good healthcare is a great falsehood to run with since it's easy, but it's not right. Instead of pushing that propaganda, let's actually mend the broken arm.
Non-toll roadways are a common-pool resource with significant externalities. They invite overuse and push most of the harms of overuse on others (locals, pedestrians, etc).
Congestion charges or tolls are a good way to put a price on the resource and make market mechanisms work.
Then the resources can be used for whatever produces the greatest benefit (and thus is willing to pay the most for use of the resource), and the tolls obtained can pay to address the externalities.
Tolls are there to pay for the new roadwork(s) (and in some cases, line private company profits). Nothing more. Anything else is not effective, it's just prohibitive.
It's good to have any scarce common resource be bid for, rather than giving it to whomever shows up first, is willing to wait longest, etc.
If 150k people want to go, it's usually better that the 100k people who value the road the most get through quickly, instead of having a random 110k get through after a large traffic jam.
150k people wanting to go and being able to go is better than a quarter being forced to stay home, a quarter being forced to not go and another half being allowed to go.
In many places, congestion pricing is dynamic and tries to keep roads at the highest throughput capacity.
Here, it's a pseudo-static value chosen to try and push the roads to the highest throughput capacity. (There is some variation by time of day, but not by actual demand).
It has a lot to do with market mechanisms. This is stuff that's within the capability of a high school student to perform a reasonable analysis about after a semester-long class.
I've never seen a toll road decrease in price because no one was using it. Wouldn't that be the easiest place to test congestion if "market played a role"? Car number go up, price go up. Bing bong.
No, it might take a high schooler to read too much into it and pluck things out of thin air though.
It's okay if you genuinely think prohibiting something is effective at providing people with more effective usage of that thing. You'll be wrong though.
> I've never seen a toll road decrease in price because no one was using it.
Have you ever seen a city with congestion charge have all traffic vanish? :P
> Car number go up, price go up. Bing bong
As already mentioned by me, to you, above: there are lots of roads with dynamic pricing with this exact characteristic. But there's a tradeoff to be made between having a simple charge and by having fancy dynamic pricing.
> It's okay if you genuinely think prohibiting something is effective at providing people with more effective usage of that thing.
Charging for something != prohibiting.
There's already a lot of costs driving into the city (including the opportunity cost of being stuck in traffic). Adding a charge can make driving cheaper for people who have a high value on driving (because they value their time).
Does the opportunity cost of driving fall if traffic decreases?
Is there an optimum amount of traffic on a given roadway for society?
Does society reach that optimum value on its own?
Does the current system (first come, first serve, best-effort) appropriately prioritize traffic with vastly different economic values and priorities appropriately?
Federal outlays are not granular enough and increasing Federal outlays is pretty meaningless.