Comment by l1ambda | Hacker News Reader

Comment by l1ambda | Hacker News Reader

I post something like this every time the congestion pricing subject comes up. We have congestion pricing in Minneapolis / St Paul and it just works. If I'm in a hurry, I have the option to choose to use the priced lane. We're rolling it out to all of the major highways (it's on 3 of them so far). I wish we had it on more lanes on all highways already, because what is the point of having a 60mph road if most of the time you are barely going 20mph, or trip lengths are otherwise completely unpredictable? It's also particularly important to people who might have to travel to multiple jobs, or people with children in school/day care, when consistency in travel time is extremely valuable to them.

There is a concept in economics called spontaneous order. Once the cost of congestion becomes apparent through the price mechanism, then society can reconfigure itself to adapt to it. You just have to have the price mechanism in place to signal it. People will figure it out and adapt once you have implemented congestion pricing. Practically every medium size or larger city in America has terrible traffic congestion problems.

Importantly, you have to resist the temptation to set a price ceiling (like Houston did at $8), as it will not work effectively because it will not allow the price mechanism to work and will cause a shortage of road capacity and you end up with no material change and basically a bad tax. (E.g., the true cost of congestion spurs demand for apartments and transit options near the city center, which in turn reduces traffic congestion.) Also important that it is purely congestion pricing and not resulting in crony government. Changes in laws and zoning and public transit will occur subsequently.

I am excited for NYC to pilot this and hope it becomes a success for that city.

"We have congestion pricing in Minneapolis / St Paul and it just works. We're rolling it out to all of the major highways."

Aren't these two very different things ?

I own a home in MPLS and I don't know anything about congestion pricing there. I think you must be talking about the lane restrictions on the freeways ?

Congestion pricing, as it is in London, and as is being discussed for NYC, is the concept of the city center being an island of paid entrance. As if you could not enter downtown MPLS without paying a fee.

I don't have any comment on your broad, economic analysis - just that the lane restrictions on 35 are really not the same thing as the congestion pricing being discussed here...

He’s probably talking about the HOV lanes on 35W and 394. Which aren’t even remotely the same as what is being proposed for manhattan.

> As if you could not enter downtown MPLS without paying a fee

Only if you are driving a car. Walk, ride a bike, take public transportation. In other words, make the folks causing the problem pay for it. This seems reasonable.

When you go to an expensive you're not just paying for the meal. You're paying for the fact that they have to over provision so you can be seated quickly. You're paying for the fact that almost everybody who isn't high class will elect to go somewhere else.

Roads (nor rails, nor buses, nor sidewalks, nor any other bit of government infrastructure) should be a restaurant that charges $50 for a $20 meal because keeping the masses of poors out makes for a better customer experience for those left who can justify the cost.

I understand why NYC is doing this. NYC has other options. You can and most people do live there without a car. Other cities, cities where you can't live without a car without making massive sacrifices should not be implementing toll lanes and congestion pricing. Kicking the poors off the system so that people rich enough to justify the daily tolls can have a good experience. If the well off don't want to deal with gridlock on the streets and packed train cars below the streets during rush hour and aren't willing to travel early/late then then they should be willing to do what is necessary to improve the system as a whole.

> Other cities, cities where you can't live without a car without making massive sacrifices should not be implementing toll lanes and congestion pricing. Kicking the poors off the system so that people rich enough to justify the daily tolls can have a good experience. If the well off don't want to deal with gridlock on the streets and packed train cars below the streets during rush hour and aren't willing to travel early/late then then they should be willing to do what is necessary to improve the system as a whole.

FTA:

> Where there are few other choices, like reliable bus routes, congestion pricing risks burdening poorer drivers in particular. But that is a problem we’ve thought about before, too, Mr. Manville said, if we’re now willing to treat roads as we do other infrastructure. He pointed to “lifeline” utility services: subsidized rates for electricity and gas offered to users with fewer resources.

> “Fortunately, congestion pricing comes with its own built-in solution,” he said, “which is that it raises a ton of money.”

Congestion pricing policies can (and should) also include bonds to fund immediate construction of public transportation infrastructure, be it via bus or rail.

Even if congestion pricing included funding for the construction of public transportation, are you just proposing the poor wait 10 years for the construction of usable public transportation after they are priced out of using the roads?

Unless you're making the argument that it takes 10 years to roll out a bus system, such a policy can be written to phase in the congestion charge only when the public infrastructure is ready (NYC's congestion tax only kicks in 2021 AFAIK).

In any case, we're no longer arguing about the merits of congestion pricing, but are arguing about the implementation details, and that's a good place for the debate to be.

The best reason for a ceiling IMO is to avoid tainting public perception. If the signboards are showing a price of $65 when it's usually $2, people might feel like they are being gouged and sour on the toll (& vote it out). Like what happened with Uber's surge pricing.

The prices need to be set in advance. Just getting on the road and not knowing what it will cost sucks

if the prices are set in advance, it hamstrings the effectiveness of the fee though. you would prevent it from working during the usage spikes where it is most needed. I think a fair solution would be to lock in the price when you get in your car. this way you can make an informed decision about whether to travel at that time, but also allow the pricing to be as responsive as possible.

> We have congestion pricing ... and it just works.

Please, could you explain with a bit more detail what you mean with "it just works"?

Boston has a proxy to congestion pricing: parking spaces are heavily regulated. Inside Boston proper they are effectively capped. Outside of the Seaport, you cannot build new parking.

The rationale is that if you build more parking, people will drive to reach the parking spots, and it will cause more traffic congestion.

What this translates to is parking being really, really expensive. You can drive downtown any time, and there WILL be a parking spot waiting for you. But will cost you $15 for the first hour at minimum. So nobody does it if they don't need to.

If you're, say, a hotshot surgeon and need a parking spot by your nice apartment, you can buy one. They're called deeded parking spots: plots of land sized for parking, which you can buy and sell. You have to pay property tax on them. The cheapest one in Boston recently sold for $60K. Others have sold for $250K. For 12 feet by 20 feet of land.

We have a road system. It's congested, but not insanely so. And everyone knows not to use it if you can avoid it. But when you do need it, it's there. I would never drive to work, but if I need to go to Mass General Hospital, I can just budget $40 for parking and get in the car.

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